I FINALLY figured it out!! Thank you guys and my LFS

[rottielover]

bout a week ago I was talking to the owner of my LFS about why I might be able to keep shrimp, crabs, and chromis alive but not clowns (see my old thread about mystery deaths). He asked my about the KH / Alk of my water, I told him it was fine at 4 ... Then he asked what test I was using.. sure enough guess what the test I was using was giving results in dKH not meq/L So I was thinking I had a 4 meq/L when in fact it was really around 1 meq/L ...

So I purchased the Salifert KH/Alk Test and wow what a differance between this test and my old one, much much easier and better acuracy.

I also purchased the SeaTest Calcium kit and it's 900% better than the Red Sea test for Calcium. Much easier to use. Plus it showed me that my tank was really bad on calcium (270 ppm) so now I'm dripping in some SeaChem Reef Advantage, I'm following the instructions and only raising the level by 25 ppm a day, at this rate it's going to take about 7 days to get to 450 mg/L (ppm)


So I was killing more stressed out fish due to pH swings that I didn't even realise were going on...

So HARDEN UP THAT WATER guys! My LFS suggested 15 dKH or 5 meq/L for KH, I managed to get it up to 14 dKH and my fish all seem very happy. I've just added some new additions over the past few days..

3 Perc Clowns, 1 Foxface, 1 Royal Gramma, 1 diamond watchman goby

and...

My first Coral!!! I'm so exited! Green star polups, LFS said that I'd have to do something really dumb to kill it, so we'll see how it go's.


My tank is finally starting to take shape, I'm soo excited. Last tasks I have to finish up:

1 Finish curing the last of my LR (in tubs) then add to main tank.
2 Send my LifeReef skimmer cup in for mod's and get the package that Jeff is going setting up for me to hook it up and get it running right.

After that it's going to be a matter of what coral to put where


Pic's to come soon guys!

Oh ya, and my battle with cyno... I've won a couple battles and it's one a couple, but I"m still in the fight.


Anyone know why my foxface might be picking at the cyno? Do they eat cyno?

[Cosine]

Glad to hear things are turing around!
What size tank to you have?

Also watch the clowns if two pair up they might not like the third wheel hanging around. So they might get mean towards it.

[rottielover]

125gal

The guy at the LFS said that all the clowns he had were currently young and male.. Said that I should get 3 because 1 will get bigger, change to female and then would have two little males to beat up on and spread the "beatings" around.

[yousuredo]

awsome that you got it all worked out and good luck on the newbies in your tank....

[Deuce24]

yeah, but as soon as the female develops and gets bigger, you should watch the two males and see which one she takes a liking to, because the two that pair will beat up on the 3rd wheel. You can always take it in for credit, but it will probably be a few weeks until that happens.

[jibber]

that is sweet. i think you may have helped me to figure out my problem as well;]