Re: what am I doing wrong?
Tinkerbell link said:
The Bubbles are Gone, The Bubbles are gone.
Thank You to Dan at RA for the suggestion of the filter socks. Go figure eh. They already fixed this problem. Thanks To Gary at Sealife for having some. I also Bought the Vertech In 180 skimmer. Merry Christmas to Me.
On a sad note, my water tested positive for ammonia which is unexpected. I got a shot of Ammonia detox (thx Sealife) and some Seachem Stabilizer. Thought I was doing ok. Best we can figure out is that I disturbed The deep sand bed in my fuge.
My Hippo Is not coming out to eat tonight which is very unusual. I'll give him tonight and if he doesn't get better I will post him up. He needs to go to at least a 90g tank. If you promise to give me visitations then he doesn't have to come back. He and the Sailfin were buddies. He has been fine all this time till I gave him a bigger tank. Talk about a sincere mistake.
Good advice: get a good skimmer and filter socks.
Bad advice: Pour some shit in your tank to take care of some sort of imbalance.
I wish to wishes that someone had been blunt with me all those years ago, and saved me going through likely exactly what you are going through now. I wanted a saltwater tank with all the nice fish and corals and inverts and happy thoughts, and I WANT IT YESTERDAY!!! I rushed everything, and everything went to shit, again and again. Every time something was wrong, some jackpipe would sell me something to 'fix' it. Looking back I really can't believe how much I must of spent on snake oil.
BLUNT: Slow down, stop putting stuff in your tank to fix problems. Let everything work itself out. You should only have damsels in there if it's a new tank, period. ALL you need is good filtration, 0TDS water for your weekly water changes, good flow, and good lighting. That's pretty much it. Until you are ready for sps (which you're not), you don't really need to dose ANYTHING. As time goes on, you might add GFO and carbon to extract some inevitable buildup of matter, but let the tank do the work. Stop buying anything that you pour in. I say all this because I see myself pouring anti ammonia gunk to battle the ammonia, or 'red slime remover' to kill red slime, or 'sparkling clear' to get rid of cloudiness. For years and years, and when would happen when the tank finally self destructed (and you'll KNOW when that happens), you'll be told 'oh that's just OTS (old tank syndrome) happens to everyone, you gotta start over....here's some chemicals to get you started..."
If something goes wrong in my tank, and hey it does, I always figure on 5 to 10 days to get everything back to normal. I -try- to ascertain what is wrong, then I -slooooowly- try and remedy it. I can't even imagine pouring a bottle of who-knows-what in to battle an ammonia spike.
Sorry to come off like a broken record. Just remember, the LFS guys pay their mortgages with your money, they don't make any by saying "don't do anything, just leave it". some are better than others, but they don't have the potions on the shelf for decorations. Seriously, I hope you enjoy this hobby, but don't rush anything, and read A LOT.