Hello from Indiana...Newb

I read this and thanked you last night. I just did not have time to reply. Anyhow, Thank you for the input and quick response. This helps ease my mind tremendously. The last thing I want to do is kill off these after just getting them. Not to mention my kids would be in tears too.

 

I love the fact that your kids are liking the fish too! So awesome when the family gets involved although that can bring pressure

 

The first thing I would change about the setup would be the sump. Not really the best setup for a saltwater tank. You have enough live rock that the bio balls shouldn't be necessary and you are going to want a protein skimmer. You could build a sufficient sump with a little effort, a tank and some glass/silicone.

 

Everyone NEEDS a refugium !!! A 29 gallon tall would be the best size, and the fuge section should take up most of the sump.

 

Sump and Refugium

I am seriously thinking about doing something different with the wet/dry system. One of the shrimp died on me today. I cleaned every filter (not the bio balls though) in the entire system, changed 7-8 gallons of water twice now, cleaned some of the SB and the darn nitrates still havent come down any. They havent gone up any either, which is good, but it still bothers me. I rechecked all my levels tonight and everything, other than nitrates is spot on with what I have read (KH 12*, Ph 8.2 (after the lights go out), Nitrites 0, Ammonia 0, Calcium 440, Phosphates .25, AND Nitrates ~120 STILL)

As far as the refugium goes, I'm not 100%sure I want to tackle that yet. I kinda want to get everything else sorted out before I go and try alling more maintenance to the list. We will see.

 

With a larger fish tank newly moved it's to be expected unless you get lucky.

Doesn't make it any less frustrating though.

Hang in there.

 

oh, how I understand the nitrate pain! It took me at least 4 months before I was able to really see any real decrease. As Corailline said, just take it slowly and it will take some time....don't expect them to come down until you are able to really turn more water over in water changes. Once you have that mind set, your frustration will decrease markedly. You may want to take the bio balls off line, as Daniel said, you don't need them since you have a good amount of rock. I'd be cautious and not take all of them off at once, maybe slowly remove them - I didn't have a wet/dry but kept a canister and I gradually emptied out the items in there and eventually took it off line. You will want to get a skimmer for nutrient export as well - that will help lower your nitrates.

For those following this, does he have the ability to turn what he has into a sump? I don't run a sump but wish I did.....if you are handy with plumbing, you could set up a sump and put your skimmer down below and out of sight which is much preferable asthetically to a hang-on.

One other piece of advice, be careful when fiddling with your sand bed. I know it's been recently moved so you shouldn't have any pockets of gases built up, but as it sits, you'll want to just siphon sections at a time and not disturb the whole bed when cleaning. There can be pockets of not so good stuff that forms in there and this can release into your tank causing potential harm to inhabitants.

Your shrimp's demise is probably unrelated to nitrates but could be related to too much fiddling in the tank ......again, just know that nitrate reduction is going to take time and that your inhabitants are not in harm's way due to it- as I said before, they are probably used to it. I wouldn't add any new live stock until you get it down though.

Hope this helps and hope others can jump in on the sump information. If you're able to do that, I would.....In the meantime, perhaps start removing bioballs a little at a time - others can chime in but taking it off-line quickly and not gradually could disrupt your bacterial load too much and could negatively impact your fish.

 

OFK & Corailline - Thanks a million ! I can handle slowly taking the bio balls off line, but i really have no idea of what all just a "sump" entails. Looks like I have some more reading to do. =)

 

Added water volume and a place to hide heaters dosing pumps and other accessories to make the tank look better.

 

Devin, does he the capacity and material now to do a sump in his bioball set up? That's what I'm curious about...it looks like there's a return pump and sections there....what if the bioballs compartment comes off? is that then a sump?