Fishkeeping - Help with inherited reef tank

In article ,
Teri G wrote:

Charles Henderson wrote:

Well, you're just full of useful information! Thank you for once again
correcting my misconceptions! ;-)

Not a problem, and I hope you don't see it as trying to "correct" you.
Just trying to help, and share what bit of experience I've gleaned over
the many years of doing this.

No worries about the "correcting" part! I'm beginning to look forward to
your replies. ;-)

Coral Angels do eat algae off rocks, though, right? That's what they're
pecking at?

I haven't kept a dwarf angel for many yeara (beware that most dwarfs
will *nip* at corals) - but I do believe that CB's are primarily algae
eaters in the wild. This doesn't necesarily mean that they will eat
macro algaes like Caulerpa and other display algaes. They may tend to
graze more off of the hair algaes. Dried nori (available in most
oriental markets as well as large grocery stores) is usually a good
choice for algae eaters.
Have you tried live brine? Never met a healthy fish who wouldn't go
crazy for it. Or, see if you can get your hands on some Cyclop-eeze.

Okay. I haven't tried live brine, and I've never heard of Cyclop-eeze...
I'll check 'em out.

I can't remember the name off hand, but I have tried soaking frozen
brine in a lipid protein/fatty acid concoction; the LFS guy highly
recommended it. Everyone *but* the Coral Beauty loved it!

Good news is, I did see him take some flake food last night - just a
couple morsels. Certainly not enough to live on, but it's encouraging to
see him take *something*... maybe he won't let himself starve to death.

(snip)

He, along with some others here said I should get some live sand in
there right away, so I did that yesterday! Aragonite, anyway. I'll get
some sand from one of nature's reefs to seed that with soon, but it's
effect on water chemistry should be there now.

Well ... I haven't followed this complete conversation to a T, but are
you referring to the possible *buffering* capabilities of aragonite?
If so, this has been pretty much disproven. In order for aragonite to
"buffer' the water, it would need to semi-dissolve. In order to do
this, your pH would have to be so low that pretty much nothing in the
tank would survive. This is how a calcium reactor works - CO2 gas is
injected into the water, which drops the pH to 7.0 or below. This low
pH water partially dissolves the aragonite media, thus making a high
ca/alk (but low pH) effluent.

Okay, I follow that, and it makes sense. I guess that consensus was to
get the substrate in there before tinkering with chemistry.

If you are instead referring to the denitrifying capabilities of a DSB,
it will take several weeks (possibly months), for your sandbed to become
truly *live*, and for it to truly become a denitrification factor.

No, I wanted an aragonite substrate not so much for denitrifying
(although I do like the idea of extra bio media in the tank), but simply
as a place where bottom-dwelling critters can live and clean up
detritus. And, the owner's wife has insisted on Blennies. ;-)

So much for a bare-bottom tank.

The Coral Beauty was very unhappy with the disturbance. I kept the silty
cloud down to a minimum by pouring the sand down through a length of PVC
pipe, but of course the tank clouded up for an hour or so anyway. He was
swimming frantically till lights out, hours after it had cleared. I'm
really starting to worry about him... Everyone else in the tank seems
okay; no obvious signs of stress.

I'd try to avoid changes/disturbances as much as possible for a bit of
time. It sounds to me that the fish might be quite stressed - capture,
shipping, introduction into a new tank, etc., may all have taken it's
toll - and this may be why it is not eating.
(snip)

Yes, I was cringing and wracked with worry the entire time I was messing
with that sand. Inheriting the tank, *with* an artificial deadline for
having fish it has complicated things, and has me doing things out of
order. But it's not *too* bad, and things will settle down to routine
now the basics are in place...

I plan to bring all water parameters into compliance before using the
kalk reactor.

Is it a kalkwasser (Nilsen) reactor, or a Calcium reactor? Neither is
truly effective at *raising* levels, but both are wonderful for
maintaining them. We use both - if you need any help, just yell.

I'm not on-site at the moment so i can't say what model/type it is yet.
I haven't really examined it yet...

I got a call from the Mrs. yesterday afternoon - she said the tank was
leaking, come quick!

I got there and found the skimmer overflowing. Loast about 6-7 gallons.
Seems the power had gone out in the neighborhood that morning, so
everything in the tank shut down. When it all came back online, the
level in the skimmer went way up and overflowed...

I guess I'll have to do some "all power off" testing to see what's up
with that!

And ideas on fail-safe skimmer levels? ;-)

Thanks,

--Charlie Henderson