Tank Journal Archive

[dimitri]

see pictures attached.

Slight Green/Yellow Algae outbreak, part of the process, nothing to worry about, remember it happening last time.

2 new tank mates, a second Clarks Clown & a Sailfin Tang

Both doing well, the Tang is chomping down on Algae at a mad rate, got in the tank and instantly started.

PH & Ammonia seem to still be pegged together, doing small water changes with sea chem PH Buffer & everything is relatively stable

Wife bought me 2x radion X30w Pro lights for my birthday as well, all installed and working, can't wait for corals in a week or two!

got 2 x VorTech MP10w's as well, one working behind the rocks to keep debris from building up in the dead zones.

 

[MagicJ]

2 new tank mates, a second Clarks Clown & a Sailfin Tang

The clowns look to be Darwin's to me - which are most likely a colour morph of Amphiprion ocellaris.

And, your tank is way too small for a Sailfin Tang unless you have plans to upgrade in the short term.

No matter what happens, I'm not sure this is the best way to 'test' a product such as this. There are just too many things happening in a new setup that it would be impossible to attribute anything to a particular piece of equipment. A good test would be putting it in an established aquarium with a known nitrate level and record what happens over time.

I also cannot advocate placing any fish in an aquarium with significant levels of ammonia present - unless it can be shown that the ammonia is in a form which won't cause permanent damage to the fish.

As I have said previously, I remain skeptical ;)

 

[Rob]

Nice looking setup.... You will luv the mp10 and radians quality equipment you have there.
Great bday present. Looks like you have all the equipment taken care of, I would sit back for a few weeks and plan your coral selection and scape.

 

[dimitri]

magicJ the tang will move to a larger tank in my office in the not to distant future.

for the mean time he should be fine in this tank.

I am probably only going to put 3-4 more smaller fish in and then thats it, he will be the only 'large' fish.

everything else will be coral.

you can see that the NH3 is low... and is being kept low, so at the moment I am not worried.

The hydropure seems to be doing as it claims, nothing dead yet, levels low or zero, longterm we will see.

 

[dimitri]

So I did my tests this morning & Nitrite & Nitrate up
Phoned the LFS and said 'hey whats going on its showing nitrite and nitrate now I thought the hydro-pure wouldn't let it show up'

He told me that "it would show up on the test but that the toxicity was neutralised"

"Are the fish alive?"

'Yes i responded'

"No problem then continue as normal"

I then went to a different LFS & had a chat about the levels, they basically said if the levels are what the test is showing then everything would be dead in the tank.


Nitrite on the API test 0.5+ppm
Nitrate on the API test about 30ppm

fish perfectly fine.. eating loads

Skimmate good, was fairly dark and brown this morning, bit more clear during the day and evening.

Put the following in today

1 x turbo snail in
1 x strom snail
3 x Super Tongan Nassarius Snail
1x small coral

 

[ezza]

I once had nitrates at 80 and the fish were "fine". It doesn't mean they weren't harmed by the levels being so high.

I wouldn't add any thing else until you finish cycling. Nitrates and ammonia are high regardless of anything the LFS is telling you. If you add coral, it will probably die quite quickly. The fish will be physically stressed by the nitrate levels regardless of whether you can tell or not.

Your tank just needs time. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby.

 

[DeWalt]

I then went to a different LFS & had a chat about the levels, they basically said if the levels are what the test is showing then everything would be dead in the tank.
Nitrite on the API test 0.5+ppm
Nitrate on the API test about 30ppm

I don't believe this gadget does what it says it does (had to get that off my chest sorry).

Nitrite isn't very toxic at all to marine fish or corals (it's a different story for freshwater fish though) and the Nitrate is your clue that the nitrification cycle is progressing. That LFS employee doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

I'd be more concerned about any ammonia showing up in your tests.

 

[dimitri]

That LFS employee owns the shop and set up the 50,000$ tank in the SA water building (from memory) and he's been in the industry 30yrs

He probably knows something.

I doubt he would go selling something that would have any chance of hurting his business and lively hood

Suffice to say he is going to set up show tanks at the RAShow with the hydro pure and stock within the hour.... That's how confident he is about the product.

He put 2 sharks in a display tank with the system down at semaphore and 6months on they are fine.

I'm going by my own experience here:


The fish are not stressed at all, and i have been pretty vigilant coming past home on my work rounds every day 2 or 3 times a day, I kept fish for 5yrs before my break so I have some idea what to look for and I had all sorts of curve balls thrown at my last marine setup.

What I have just done should have easily caused failure and death it hasn't, period, and that gizmo is the only thing different...


So in summary fish are:

All eating well, snails and hermits are doing great, there is some small pink pollop looking coral growth (not sure if its a pest type?) on the fresh live rock and some mushroom coral on it as well (never seen that on a 12 day old tank, with 4 day old live rock, that took over a year to develop in my last system) picture added

the coral i bought is open and looking great during the day

Water clarity is perfect

Algae clear after a couple of days.

I expect the fish to live a long and happy life.. Depending on their breed.

Still going to stock slowly, old habbits die hard i guess..

All in all you can say what you want if you don't have first hand experience and you are not willing to read and learn from others experiences best to not post dross throwaway comments, just keep them to yourself do things your way

 

[dimitri]

latest readings as well, been like this for 2/3 days now.

 

[DeWalt]

Mate I also hope your fish and corals live long and happy lives.

My 'LFS employee' comment was particular to the piece I quoted, feel free to search the internet for scientific studies relating to Nitrite toxicity.

This forum is a nice place to visit because people don't jump onto people who do things differently and it should stay that way. I didn't mean to offend you.

However, it is also important to recognize the Google factor - a person searching for this product in Google will, in the absence of opposing views, take your thread and all the other posts in your threads as supporting the claims of the products. I'm sorry but I don't and thought I stated that in a civil way.

 

[ezza]

Ahhhhhh. It just clicked. We've been talking about this thing for a while. Various people say they will try it it there is no real review or evidence yet.

http://thereefuge.com/threads/feedback-on-hydra.11464/

There are links to the other 2 threads within that one.

 

[dimitri]

"I don't believe this gadget does what it says it does (had to get that off my chest sorry)."

"This forum is a nice place to visit because people don't jump onto people who do things differently and it should stay that way. I didn't mean to offend you."

To be honest the way it came across was abrupt and dismissive, kind of like saying 'Hey the holocaust never happened, sorry just had to get that off my chest'

I didn't have to share my experience, I chose to and as it turns out the machine works from my experience.


I have documented everything that took place and the only thing not the same as usual for a running in tank is the hydra pure.

Conventional knowledge proves that what I have done should have caused wide spread loss, it hasn't, and new tank mates have gone in, inc some extra corals, all open, all eating, no system at 14 days old should be able to cope with what I have thrown at it.

All soft corals at the moment for the record, and I think it will probably stay that way, personal preference.


I found this easy to understand diagram of a similar process used for a different application.

Hopefully it 'helps' with your scepticism..

Maybe read something like this http://infohouse.p2ric.org/ref/28/27396.pdf

There are plenty of papers online which show that the method of purification will work, all you need to do is work out what attracts what and bonds, unfortunately I only studied civil engineering, not chemical, otherwise I'd be better equipped to explain what the machine is doing, so the exact science of it is all a bit above my head but I can still get the gist of it.


Now, if you read between the lines then you can probably come to the uneducated conclusion that they have worked out that the titanium plate plus the 'hocus pocus' filter system in there does much the same for the particles they want to bond/remove.

Don't be so close minded, you might enjoy life a bit more champ.

 

[DeWalt]

Hmm....I'm rewriting this post for the 3rd time trying to be nice enough lol.

I have no doubt it does something. The capacity of hydroxyl radicals to oxidise organics has been well known for decades. It's not much different chemically from how ozone oxidises organics.

I have used ozone in the past and found it to be useful. However, I personally wouldn't put ozone on a new tank and then stock it rapidly.

Keep posting about your progress, would be keen to see your progress.

 

[ReeferRob]

Ammonia destroys a fish's gills toute suite at the pH we have in a marine aquarium. The mere fact that they're still eating means there's something amiss with your test kit in my mind. I'm skeptical as well, but I'm approaching with an open mind, there's more than 1 way to skin a cat.

 

[dimitri]

Yep, something wrong with the Salifert test kit, the API test kit I have, and two different shops have and with the Seneye Reef+ monitoring test probe.

Sunday was 14/15 days in, I took water samples to two shops and they both confirmed everything was perfect.

attached are todays readings, they have been steady since thursday last week.

And I put the following in on sunday and everything is doing very well and accepting food.

2 anemones went in and 3 other small corals on the sand bed as seen in picture below
I swapped my two original clowns over for two I had on hold, two Wyoming white clowns.
1 banana wrasse (LFS claimed reef safe and online info didn't say otherwise either)

I have a watchman goby and a white shrimp paired on hold too.

Once this weeks pay comes in I will be putting them in.

I am getting a bit of algae still but that will be down to me over feeding due just being excited, they are accepting all of the food, not much gets missed but with a new tank run in and phosphates its causing a little bit of growth.

All in all, very impressed with the Hydra Pure, no complaints, no fish harmed, no coral harmed.