I'm close to ending my tank, this hobby might be too much for me.

Well, I'm sure many of you have read my many threads about my fish being in trouble and yata yata. Well I started my 29 gallon tank on October 25 of this year. I waited until 4 weeks had passed with about 30 lbs of live rock in my system.

The first thing I added to my tank was a cleaner shrimp. Then I added a CuC from ReefCleaners. After that I added another cleaner shrimp. This was all in a span of about a week and a half. About 4 days later I take a big piece of live rock out and break it apart because it was just too massive in size. The next day one of my cleaner shrimp were dead.

I wait another week or so then add two Percula Clowns. After about 2 weeks I notice one isn't eating. Within the next week he dies and I discover that my other clown has Brooklynella.

I notice today that I am getting a cyano/gha outbreak which I blame on me over feeding because I don't want my fish to get weak and not have energy to fight off the Brooklynella until I get the Formalin. Well today I walk home after a WVU basketball game to find my other shrimp dead. All parameters perfect with the Nitrates being at like 5-10.

Also, my water has been cloudy since like week 3.

I know it was just a shrimp but I was really attached to it and I just don't know if I see these problems getting any better. I feel like I did everything by the book yet everything is dying and my water has been cloudy forever.

I just don't know what to do.

 

Wait it out, let your tank settle down before you do anything rash!... I went through 7 cleaner shrimp, Between old tank mates killing them... and me accidently killing them... ... I finally stopped. read up everything I could on them. and Added a few back in the tank. They have 3 been kicking it for the last 3 months!

Take some time to let your tank settle down the levels and adjust it like i said... and read up before you decide you want to take it all away.

 

I don't know how long you've been in the hobby, so I'll just ask this to be sure. Are you sure the tank fully cycled? The reason Im asking is because you say that you waited 4 weeks before adding anything, and Idk if thats an arbitrary number you picked or thats how long it actually took for your ammonia and nitrates to spike and then go back to 0.

 

What do you mean by "perfect" params, can you post them? We will need some more info on the tank, here are a few questions to answer -

What kind of filtration are you using?
What type of powerheads are you using/how many?
What type of water are you using, RO/DI or tap?
What is your salinity?
are you using a hydrometer or refractometer?

Would like to know if the pet store you are getting your animals from can be trusted, do their tanks look healthy? Maybe you have been getting mediocre livestock to begin with.

I see the tank in your picture, is that the one you are referring too?

 

+1 onth LFS. IMO Every animal you add to your tank should be chosen very carefully. I've been temptedin the past to buy a specimen that I wanted without spending ample timeexaminingit. This have proven to be a mistake most of the time. Don't give up! This hobby can be very rewarding, it just takes some time and unfortuantly some difficult lessonsto get you where you need to be.

Also as far as tanks maturing, I'm convinced that tanks continue to mature long after the 1st nitrogen cycle stabalizes. (The cycle never truly ends, as the bacterial loads constantly vary in response to available food and oxygen) I've started several, and it always seems to be the case that mine have all had ups and downs, but when I start to see lots of pods and my snails get covered in coralline, then it's on.

 

My tank did cycle I saw the Ammonia spike up, then Nitrite spike up, and then Nitrate get to like 25. This happened at week 3 but I still decided to wait longer so I wouldn't screw up.

pH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5-10
Salinity 1.023
Temperature 79
Phosphate 0
Copper 0
Calcium 380

I use RO/DI water from Target. I use a hydrometer. I got one shrimp from petco and the other from a LFS. The two clown where one died and one got sick was from the LFS which I think they came to me sick.

I am using the eclipse hood 3 filter that came with my setup. I've added Phosguard and Purigen to the system from seachem.

I was using a Koralia 1 and 3 but took the 3 out because it was too much with the filter I have causing a lot of flow to begin with.

Here is a picture of my tank setup now:


Here is what I am talking about with my water being cloudy:

 

i would suggest trading that koralia 3 in for a 1 so you have 2 power heads.

 

The Eclipse 3 is rated for a 29 gallon tank, but there are some design flaws with them. First, the filter pad lays horizontally in a tray with the idea that water is discharged above the pad, then it flows through the media and out a hole onto the biowheel. Very soon that pad will get clogged and the water will run straight across the top of the pad and not be filtered very well, or at all. And if they're like the smaller Eclipse systems that I have had in the past, there's no way to control the water's rate of flow through the filter. You also need to maintain a fairly high water level in the tank, because if it drops from evaporation below the level of the impeller, it stops working completely. I would say get a different HOB filter, I would suggest one of the AquaClear units, top notch performance and longevity.

 

I'd let the tank settle down a bit before getting rid of it. And don't worry about the algae. Almost all young tanks go through an algae bloom of sorts. We had a terrible GHA outbreak that lasted about a month. Now, we have no algae (except coralline) and no nitrates to speak of, and our reef is about 1 year and 0.5 months old now. Your corals look fine, so maybe it's either an LFS thing or just "one of those things". If it was something really bad, normally your corals or other inverts would let you know.

Maybe try a different LFS? Healthy clowns can survive alot. Ours survived our cycle, and they're still alive and perfectly healthy today. So maybe you just had some bad clowns.

 

skimmer?