[cpworld]

Hi Everyone,

I am totally new to reefing and have recently set up my 30 gallon long reef tank. I cycled the water and placed 2 clowns in there with a Leather coral and trumpet coral, with 6 hermit crabs and 6 turbo snails. I put the clowns in 5 days ago and now, they are both dead..

I am running an Emperor 280 filter, w/o the bio-wheel, a SEIO water pump (1500 gph) that I got from my friend and I have Nova Extreme T5 lights. The clowns were not doing well from the beginning. They first got ick, then 1 of the clowns got sucked into the water pump and died, and today, the other clown just died.

Is the water pump too strong for my setup? I checked all the water conditions prior to putting any fish or coral into the tank and it was totally fine..

I am not gonna add any more fish until the coral comes back.. Can I get some advice on what to do here? The 2 dead clowns really upset me..

[RyanG]

This has been moved to the current forum.

[RyanG]

List your water parameters. I am going to say that a 1500GPH pump is way to strong, especially if you don't have any kind of guard on the intake section of the pump, for example a filter sponge or foam.

How long did you cycle for? Are you using live rock or live sand?

[ACE]

Yes the water pump is probably to strong!!!

[WorkinMan]

I'm new to the hobby, but a 1500 gph pump in a 30 g? No offence, but I think a little more research is needed on your part. My guess would be that the water flow was too strong for the clowns and it stressed them out thus making the ick present itself by overwhelming the fishes weakened immune system. A 1500 gph pump in a 30 g tank is a 50 times per hour turnover rate. Yikes! If you want to keep that pump, I would set up a sump and add some extra plumbing to the return line so you can divert most of that flow back into the sump and get the flow in the display tank down to a more acceptable level like around 10 to 15 times per hour turnover rate. That would be around 300-450 gph turnover for a 30 g. There are many other advantages to a sump as well..... But like I said, I'm new to the hobby (though I researched marine set ups for 8 or 9 months, maybe more, before I began and that research is what I'm basing my conclusion on) so others with more experience may think differently.

[volitan_fa]

Yes....WAY too strong of a pump

[cpworld]

thanks for the advice guys.. i think i'm gonna replace the water pump w/ about 400 gph.. i also need to get a good skimmer too, right.. by the way, i cycled the tank for about 3 weeks and have about 50 pounds of liverock and 40 pounds of not live sand..

[tyoung]

WOW, that is a little on the excessive side!! I would definately go with a sump and skimmer to utilize that pump. Plus, you have the added advantage of haveing a place for all of your heaters, probes, and filters hidden out of sight down under. Oh yeah, most importand you add the amount of water in your system makeing for a more stabe tank. Keep us informed and best of luck! BTY, good choice on the the lr and sand, might go to the fs and see if you can get a cup or two of livesand from out of their show tank and seed your with it to help things along. Just make sure the tank you are takeing it out of is healthy and disease free.

[RCBruce]

Originally Posted by tyoung

BTY, good choice on the the lr and sand, might go to the fs and see if you can get a cup or two of livesand from out of their show tank and seed your with it to help things along. Just make sure the tank you are takeing it out of is healthy and disease free.

I have to ask, how would you know? There is no real way to know if a tank is really disease free. There are so many live sand products out there, carrib-sea comes to mind, why chance it?

[cpworld]

thanks again guys.. i definitely have a lot of work to do with my reef tank.. i'll let you everyone know how it goes and keep you updated on my tank's progress..