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I have a 55 gallon saltwater system with live rock, estimating around thirty pounds. It is a swim tank however I am having difficulty keeping Nitrate/Ammonia down even with weekly water changes. I also can't keep ich off of my heniochus. Which is really confusing since the sterilizer is 9 watts and I actually have it on a small powerhead to slow down the current going through it! Right now I have a Seaclone 100, 9 watt UV ster, and a Magnum 350 canister. I am thinking of pulling the Magnum and putting some sort of Mechanical such as Penguin or Emperor. Then pulling the Seaclone and putting a Ramora on instead. This tank has been up for two almost three years now, and normally it's fairly easy to maintain, just thinking of upgrading and curious what you guys think. I would also like to know what the deal is on these Heniochus they are the only one's that seem to have ich!

I'm thinking you should remove the UV, those also kill your benificial bacteria. How many fish do you have in this tank?

Dan


Dan

do you have a protein skimmer asthey can prove
quite useful in keeping waste products such as AMONIA and NITRATE at a safe level but that does not mean you can niglect weekly water changes

another thing to note canisters are not the best option for
efficient bio filtration

In a healthy marine tank, the fish can usually combat ick on their own. I've never had problems w/ Heniochus and ick; Several things could be possible. What comes to mind is:
1- that you got may have gotten a bad batch or shipment
2- the temp. is fluctuating too much, check your heaters/chillers and AC/heating
3- stress...big big big cause of ick

Hows the circulation in the tank?

Since you have live rock, I automatically suggest haveing a GREAT skimmer. By good skimmer, I mean not going by brand name, but rather by efficiency. A good protein skimmer can do wonders for a marine tank.

Hope this helped a bit...




[hr width='40%'][font color="#000080"]
My hopes are so high,
that your kiss might kill me.
So won't you kill me,
so I die happy…
[/font]

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

I would also like to know what the deal is on these Heniochus they are the only one's that seem to have ich!

Heniochus are very sensitive fish. Its one of those fish that I wouldnt recommend to anyone except someone who has a lot of experience....and possibly and automated system to make sure water parameters dont fluctuate.

Garlic! Get some Kents Garlic Xtreme and soak their food in it. Garlic does work, and I feed garlic soaked food every feeding.


[hr width='40%']Now who will be the one to dry my tears?
Who will be the one to chase away my fears?
Your love was like a guiding light
That kept me safe all day, all night.
Without you here in my life
I'm scared, I'm lost. Nothing is right

DRO

We've got the nicest batch of heni's in right now...it's the weirdest thing. My boss likes them better than Moorish Idols b/c they seem to be hardier around here.

Heni's are the schooling bannerfish right?

I dont know why we have such a healty batch, but I know that they do love seaweed selects...




[hr width='40%'][font color="#000080"]
My hopes are so high,
that your kiss might kill me.
So won't you kill me,
so I die happy…
[/font]

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

We've got the nicest batch of heni's in right now...it's the weirdest thing. My boss likes them better than Moorish Idols b/c they seem to be hardier around here.

Heni's are the schooling bannerfish right?

I dont know why we have such a healty batch, but I know that they do love seaweed selects...

Heni's are the schooling bannerfish....AKA "poor mans Morish Idol". They are not as sensitive as a MI but they are still pretty sensitive. Good batches happen to float through every so often....same with MI's. If they are eating then chances are if water parameters are kept stable...they will be just fine.


[hr width='40%']Now who will be the one to dry my tears?
Who will be the one to chase away my fears?
Your love was like a guiding light
That kept me safe all day, all night.
Without you here in my life
I'm scared, I'm lost. Nothing is right

You mean MOOrish Idol, with 2 O's in Moorish right.

*giggles*

Naw, I'm just pulling your leg.

The water should stay pretty stable since it's a big system. I keep feeding them everything I can get my hands on. They've been fed Hikari Mega Marine, Krill, Squid, Shrimp, Butterfly/Angelfish formula, and the Red Macroalgae by Seaweed Selects. When I'm not the one feeding they prolly just get brine. >.< I try everything with everyone so that I can learn what they like.

Ohh! Today I did something cool, I target fed a whole bunch of things in the reef tank, as well as some neat Flame Scallops. It was fun. I also target fed our Koran who's going to die if it doesn't eat. And one of the Cinnamon clowns is my little baby, he eats for me right out of the syringe thingy. It's so cute!

And wow this is so off topic. Sorry.

Yeah. I'm gunna stop talking/posting now.




[hr width='40%'][font color="#000080"]
My hopes are so high,
that your kiss might kill me.
So won't you kill me,
so I die happy…
[/font]

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

Sorry about the delayed response, I thought I had set this thing to tell me when people responded to it but I'm a putz and didn't LOL! So anyway let me get to giving you guys some more information. The tank is two years old, no way can I remove the sterilizer, I actually just bumped it up to a larger one. I removed my sterilizer once, caused every fish to suddenly become COVERED in ich, save one bi color bleny, it was so strange. I had those fish, all of them, for over six months and took the sterilizer down and poof gone within 48 hours. So while I agree sterilizers do kill bad as well as good, in my situation pulling it isn't a good idea.

I do bi weekly water changes, but I'll bump them up to weekly and see how that goes.

The ich on the Heni's seems to be staving off, I feed three to four times daily as I am paranoid about my Flagfin Angel. Love the dumb thing he's so cool, he even eats out of my fingers now. The current inhabitents in that tank are:
Flagfin Angel (about five inches)
Two Heni's (two and they are about three inches a piece)
*there are two speies of the Heniochus that we're talking about, one is the schooling which is what I have, but there is another that has proven to pose problems to corals. You can tell the difference by looking at the anal fin, if the black and white separates exactly at the tip of the anal fin, it's the schooling version. If the tip of the anal fin is white and then slightly above the tip it goes black then it's the other version. Hope that helps.
Bi Color Blenny my little trooper (two inches)
Powder Blue tang (four inches) Just got this guy today.
There is also a pencil urchin, a brittle star, two cleaner shrimp(also survived the sterilizer incident), turbo snails the numbers vary though due to the appetite of my Florida Horse conch, also two fighting conch's. I think I got everybody.

The temp never really occured to me, I have a rena cal heater on there (awesome brand been using since they came out), and they have always kept things stable, however I think have the temp on 80, could that be too high? I know the higher the temp the faster ich goes through it's cycle so I suppose I could try bumping it slightly higher but I would rathe not do that. I LOVE the idea of using Garlic! I had heard of this before, but have yet to try it. Thanks for the reminder I am totally going to give that a shot.

And last but not least the canister. I used to run my salts on just regular hang over the top canister filters, which worked great, one problem. I live in Arizona, and we have NO humidity, and with that much open top it evaporated FAST, however if I'm doing weekly water changes I can probably quell that problem as well.

Does anyone have a recommendation of brand of Skimmer? I have heard awesome things about the Ramora, and the top salt store here swears by them. That LFS has been nothing but good and honest with me so I trust them but I'm open to ideas. The skimmer is 200 and as much as I don't want to spend that I can if I have to.

Thank you all for your input, it has been most helpful!

however I think have the temp on 80, could that be too high?

80 is fine for temp in a marine tank. I keep my tanks between 80-82 when you take into account the temp swing from lighting.

Does anyone have a recommendation of brand of Skimmer? I have heard awesome things about the Ramora, and the top salt store here swears by them.

For a 55 gallon tank the Remora would work well....it is a good brand, and its skimming capabilities are excellent considering the price and size of the skimmer.



[hr width='40%']The way we were
The chance to save my soul
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Believe the word
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