What to do....?

[hammondegge]

i just read about the "capfuls of chemicals" that you are adding somewhat infrequently. you should probably find out what these are right away and post that here. you should not be adding anything (except daily RO topoff water, and twice monthly Saltwater changes) that you are not testing for. as you must know how it is affecting your tank.
Consistency / Stability is very important for these animals. they are designed to live in the oceans where nothing (temp, ph, calcium, alk, salinity etc) varies much and definitly not quickly.

[Ram_Puppy]

Well, Everyone says read, and man do I agree with that. The question is.. what to read!

websites:

Here obviously
www.wetwebmedia.com <-- previously mentioned
www.liveaquaria.com <--- I know, online vendor, but they have little info tabs on all their fish that are great 'quickie' references.
www.reefcentral.com <--- informative, but generally not as nice as we are here. reefcentrals tang police and others gut new people that don't do their research because they are holier than the rest of us. be careful what you post there.

Books <-- books are great but their info can get out dated QUICKLY, but on the whole, the core strategies of husbandry in the hobby stay about the same.

Bob Fenner and Anthony Calfo's "Reef Invertebrates" <-- teach you all you need to know and more about refugiums
John Tullok's Natural Reef Aquariums
Bob Fenner's "THe Concientious Marine Aquarist" <-- get this book and treat it like a bible.
Michael S. Palletta's "The New Marine Aquarium" <-- updated info
Michael S. Palletta's "Ultimage Marine Aquariums" <-- not a 'how to' but great for seeing how people do it, these are some of the awesome tanks in the hobby.
Eric Bornermans "Aquarium Corals: Selection, H usbandry, and Natural History"

there are many more, but these are all GREAT books.

[lachrimae]

Your plate coral & clam look good.

I certainly understand your frustration... makes me mad that "pros" take advantage of people like that. On the other hand, it's very good to hear that you are now set on doing a lot of research. I would suggest that you don't buy anything but that RO/DI unit until you have done a lot of research.

My concern is that it seems like you are adding things to the tank (top-off water, additives) because someone told you to without telling you why.

If you study hard for the rest of this weekend you can get the fundamental basics at least. Keep at it & you'll start becoming more confident and knowledgeable every week.

Here are a couple of links with a ton of articles. I'd highly suggest that you read, read, and read more until your eyes bleed :blink

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=33928

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/subject/chemistry.php

In the mean time, if you have test kits, do tests on each of the tanks for the following and maybe we can help you to avoid disaster for now:

- Salinity or Specific Gravity (you might have a swing arm hydrometer for this)
- Ammonia
- Nitrite
- Nitrate
- Calcium
- Alkalinity (dKH)
- pH
- Water Temperature

If you take some pictures and post them of the equipment that each tank uses, that would help (i.e. protein skimmers, filtration).
What kind of salt are you using and how often do you do water changes?
Do you have many snails or hermit crabs?

Mark

[matt]

Wow, this is really something...I only got through your first couple of photos and skimmed through your post. My initial advice would be to pay a visit to the new huge aquarium in Atlanta and try to talk to one of the aquarists that work there, see if there's a group of hobbyists in Atlanta that really understand reefkeeping. The problems you have can't really be solved on this board, I have a feeling you need someone to teach you, in person, how to deal with the basic issues of reefkeeping. So you need to find someone in your town, that does NOT work at a fish store, who can help. On this board we can point you in some of the right directions only.

Okay, so first on my list would be to sell (or maybe donate to the new aquarium in exchange for membership and/or help?) everything that's alive in your tanks before those animals perish as well. Sorry to be harsh, but I think you'd be best served in the long run by starting completely from scratch learning the basics. There are a few books that can help; first would be "The coral reef aquarium" by Ron Shimek, in which the basics are explained in plain english. Then, with the help of a knowledgable, non commercial helper, you can learn how to set up the equipment and control the water quality so that marine animals can survive. I'm sure you understand that these animals come from the ocean, which has a very specific environment that MUST be duplicated in your aquarium for them to live. They need the right temp, salinity, water flow, basic chemistry, food, and absence of toxic substances. You need to have a basic understanding of ALL of these issues or your animals will die. And, of course, each animal is different with regards to specific needs. Unfortunately, your fish stores don't care as much about this as they do selling you expensive stuff and replacement animals.

Keep all the equipment; you paid for it and it's probably good stuff, at least good enough. The reason your tanks are failing is that you don't yet understand how the system works to provide the right environment. Don't despair...you can learn it, but you'll need some help. And I don't mean help in maintaining the tanks; I mean help in teaching YOU how to do it. If you don't want to learn, meaning if all you want is the finished product, you'll probably never have success at this. You talk about how this guy and that guy couldn't get the stuff to work so you fired him...this says to me that you have been unwilling or unable up to this point to take the responsibility for learning to make it work yourself. Of course, I'm sure the stores had something to do with it...they're happy to sell you expensive animals and live rock, whatever, before you had the skills to take care of them.

Good luck, man! Find a new home for those animals, dry out the tanks, and start learning...in the long run you'll be MUCH happier. Right now you're probably so frustrated that any problem is going to be a little demoralizing. Pretty much everyone in the reefkeeping hobby went through a learning curve (we're all still learning) during which we made mistakes and lost animals. Your situation is a little extreme, though. Smile!

[GaryP]

Bob Fenner and Anthony Calfo's "Reef Invertebrates" <-- teach you all you need to know and more about refugiums
John Tullok's Natural Reef Aquariums
Bob Fenner's "THe Concientious Marine Aquarist" <-- get this book and treat it like a bible.
Michael S. Palletta's "The New Marine Aquarium" <-- updated info
Michael S. Palletta's "Ultimage Marine Aquariums" <-- not a 'how to' but great for seeing how people do it, these are some of the awesome tanks in the hobby.
Eric Bornermans "Aquarium Corals: Selection, H usbandry, and Natural History"

there are many more, but these are all GREAT books.

He must have been peaking at my library. Palletta's New Marine Aquarium and Fenner's Conscientious Aquarist are both good books to start with. They are basically written for people at your stage in the hobby. I recommend them highly as a place to start out.

[GaryP]

Pretty much everyone in the reefkeeping hobby went through a learning curve (we're all still learning) during which we made mistakes and lost animals. Your situation is a little extreme, though. Smile!

Amen. Unfortunately most of my learning curve occured before there was an internet and any of the great books that were mentioned earlier. My first "newbie" book talked about undergravel filters and air lift protein skimmers were "cutting edge" technology. My biggest mistake as a beginner was listening to the advice I got from fish stores like it was gospel. I'm not saying that you can't get good advice from a fish store, its just that the beginner cant tell the difference from good and bad advice. In addition, its sorta like a doctor diagnosing a disease over the phone. Rarely does the beginner give all the information necessary to make a good diagnosis. The folks at the fish stores do their best to help, but its hard to do by remote control.

[witecap4u]

Can you take some pics of the equipment, filters, lights.... This would give us an idea of what the behind the scenes setup is like, and if its adequate...Also some pics of what your adding to the tanks.

Also, if you are strapped for cash, you might consider selling one of the setups in order to get the other one going how it needs to be. Not sure if you want to go that route, but for a newbie, taking care of 2 tanks, large tanks at that, can get overwhelming.

cs

[Iknownothing]

ok did what you said tanks are looking alot better TY all so much.

[Iknownothing]

i will take pictures now so you can see the equipment and have it all up in the morning.