New member , need help?

dragoneel · 12-16-2006, 02:45 PM

hey guys , this is a great forum i came across with all the benefitial information available im having trouble with my tank. I purchased my first 100gallon saltwater tank with a fluval 404 filter, i have had my tank for about 4 months now . I have a mexican dragon eel , lionfish,hawiaan trigger,stingray,foxfish,chainlink eel,2 crabs. I have had no deaths in the tank untill last week my puffer was floating on surface. My friend has a 300 gallon tank and has lost about 3 puffers so i didnt think twice. All the fish in the tank are swimming and look really healthy but the fox fish is starting to form bubble eye. I took action right away and have been medicating the tank with melafix for about 3 days now but the water still seems cloudy. I have also put the black charcoal water cleaner on the very bottom bracket of my fluval filter to clear the water but its only been 1 day and still have seen no changes in water cloudiness. I was cleaning my filter the other day and seen that the long white stick that goes through the motor in the fluval filter had been broken which i think is called a shaft. I am thinking about going out and buying another fluval filter so the tank is under less stress, what do you guys think with all your experience??????

Thanks too all

Tommy Gun · 12-16-2006, 03:15 PM

I think your tank may be overstocked a bit, judging from the info and research I put into my 90 gallon tank.

What are your water parameters?

This will help others with much more saltwater experience than I have help you out faster.

jd@ga · 12-17-2006, 12:17 PM

I would try to fix the broken part of the filter instead of buying a new filter. Do you have a uv filter with those $$$$$ fish I would invest in one.

dragoneel · 12-18-2006, 06:42 PM

hey guys i appreciate the quick response , my tank is starting to clear up little by little but my fox fish doesnt look so good. this weeks has been such a disaster for me with work and personal life but ill live. I came home last night around 11 and saw my stingray on its back being shredded by my crab, it was the most amazing thing ive seen. The stingray was on its back with the crab digging in its stomach so badd that you can see the stingrays ribs and bones. I almost flushed that crab down the toilet . I have ordered two more stingrays and upon arrival i will give the crab back to the fish store. If you have ever seen dawn of the dead when the zombies are eating people thats exactly what it looked like.

dragoneel · 12-18-2006, 06:44 PM

here is what i have in the tank so far:

100 gallon
404 fluval filteration system
lion fish 5-6 in
dragon eel- 16 in
hawiian black trigger 5 in
fox face - 4 in
crab-3 in
stingray - DEAD

Tommy Gun · 12-18-2006, 07:16 PM

I realize that you probably know exactly what you are doing here, but what are the dimensions of your tank? The rays are going to need a very large 'footprint' and from what I have read (wanted some in the past myself), they are very much better off in a tank by themselves because they cannot deal with a fluxuation in nitrates, which was my first thinking when I noticed your stocking and thought you might be overstocked.

My reasoning behind saying you could be overstocked is because your eels and lionfish are very high waste producers and so you would need to address the nitrates and nutrients they add to a tank much more regularly than a person who has only the more hardy fish, which stingrays are not. I also read that you have to be pretty ingeneous with not having any heaters in the tank because they can get burned on them super easily, as well as not having any high suction areas (for like filters and such) because those can hurt them as well.

Just so you know, I am not a saltwater expert though, and I am just starting out myself with my 90 gallon salty tank that has been up since August. I first had a puffer, a lionfish, and a snowflake moray eel and I had a hard time keeping nitrates low enough to feel like I could add anything else. Since then, I have switched fish and tank types, with a reef tank in mind. I also had two pretty large hermit crabs in my tank, which I have come to find out were eating my snails and possibly ate one of my clownfish. I have since traded the two large ones for about 50 little ones. What type of crabs do you have that were eating the stingray? My guess would be that it died on its own, and the crabs just acted as scavengers.

I realize that it is hard to hear when people say things like I have been hinting at about not getting more rays, but that is my opinion and so I thought I should share it in case you hadnt heard the same thing. I also would say that until you can get your foxface healthy, I would be leery about adding more fish in case this is something that can affect them as well. At the very least, I would quaranteen your foxface and treat for its problems. From my experience with ordering a foxface and having two die before I could pick them up, I would think that they are hardy, like they are usually advertised as being, but cannot go through too much without being treated effectively.

dlee9707 · 12-18-2006, 07:24 PM

i'm having a sort of hard time understanding what happened to the first fluval. theres a little rod that around it has a cylinder magnet and a big 6 or so pronged wheel. if that setup is what broke, buy a new impeller setup, rather than a new filter. if you get a new filter use your old filters media.

dragoneel · 12-19-2006, 01:34 PM

thanks for the great feedback guys , this forum is awsome. My friend who has had a saltwater tank for 3yrs has had his stingray in his tank for a 1yr and half now with no probloms,he is the person who talked me into purchasing my tank. The reason why i say the crab had killed the stingray was because the stingray always chills under the sand with its eyes popping out and i would see the crab try to attack it and the stingray would take off. Concerning the broken filter it is the white piece that goes all the way from the bottom of the shaft to the end of the perpellar and has a black piece at the end.I have three questions : Why would it be better to put old parts in a new filter?
what type of live rock should i stock up with?
what do you think about premiume cured fiji rock?

dlee9707 · 12-19-2006, 03:48 PM

i know nothing of live rock, but fiji seems to be the popular choice. as far as what i said, the peice that i think your broke can be replaced for much less money than buying a new filter. a fluval 404 is also not enough filtration for that size tank, i would recommend you look into an additional filter. a fluval 404 will turn over your water about 3 times an hour, you should look for 5+ using canisters (for fw atleast, maybe more /w salt?)

Tommy Gun · 12-19-2006, 05:43 PM

IMHO, I think that you should skip the live rock and just focus on getting as much mechanical filtration as you can in the tank. This is primarily for the stingray's sake since adding live rock would reduce its ability to move around freely in the tank. This is apparently going to be a Fish-only tank, since some of your other fish are not reef-compatible, and so the live rock is not going to be completely essential for you. I would make a very deep sand bed though, and I would find some sort of tool for you to use to keep the compaction of the sand in check since any thing that is likely to stay in the substrate could become fodder for you ray. I am not the expert here though and so I am just trying to put together the other things I know about and think logically.

I think that you should definetly treat your foxface for what sounds like 'popeye'. I did some research into it to see if I could help you more, and to be honest, I have a Foxface as well and wanted to see if there is something I could learn as well. There are a couple of reasons that a fish gets this problem, including being hurt by another fish, resulting in a bacterial infection behind the eye. Another big reason is poor water quality, which I think may be a problem for your tank since your filter is not working at 100%, if at all, and you are pretty well stocked up with some high waste producing fish.

The problem with treating this issue is that it usually requires the use of an antibiotic, which would also kill off the benificial bacteria in your tank that you need to keep your water non-toxic to your fish. This is why it would be best to have a quaranteen/hospital tank to use, which can be a really easy set up and even a 10 gallon tank would suffice for a short term medication program with a foxface. Good medications that I have heard of are Maracyn, which I have used once in a freshwater fish tank will good results (even when I didn't know what I was doing all that much!) Otherwise, I am sure others on this site can recommend a good medication or treatment as well as one that would be ideal for saltwater tanks as well.