robertprice
August 1st, 2013, 09:53 AM
My little reef tank experiment ended poorly, but I can't tell why. The day before things went to hell I scraped off all the brown, green and red aglae, put a background on the tank to block direct sunlight, and the next day, even the Trigger Fish was dead.The pH is 8.3, the ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and the nitrate to my surprise was only about 2-3. I'm beginning to think something was living in one of my live rocks, so I euthanized them with coppersafe. The tank is crystal clear and clean. I'm over Reef Tanks; after over 200 logged dives I've come to the conculsioon corals look great in the ocean and are a pain in the butt in a tank. I am going to set up my 75 as a Fowler Tank. Instead of crushed coral, I intend to use one of the better pH and nitrate buffering live sand substrates and will get a decent protein skimmer and 2 filters, one on each end. I still would love to know what happened to the small tank. I thought it was nitrate poisoning, but there is no evidence. The 75 has already been seeded with nitrifying bacteria.
Granted its been 20 years since I had a marine tank, but all my older ones did really well. Any suggestions on what I did wrong other than the direct sunlight?
Granted its been 20 years since I had a marine tank, but all my older ones did really well. Any suggestions on what I did wrong other than the direct sunlight?