Tank newb, possible issue

[MoreDakka]

Hey all.

So here is my tank:



Stock list:

1 - melanurus wrasse (my girls couldn't pronounce melanurus so they called him Russel...the name has stuck)
about 6 - random hermits
1 - blue tuxedo urchin
2 - Mexican Turbo Snails
1 - "Paradise" Snail (according to the LFS)
4 - nassarius snail
1 - Hammer Coral
1 - Watermelon Zoa Colony

45g tank
about 35-40 lbs live rock (right from tonga, cured for about 1-3 months)
A bunch of sand

So not much going on. I've got Compact Fluorescent bulbs, probably 6-12 months old. Not sure cause I've got all of this used. I know for sure I need to replace the lighting but I'll get to that after. I've got a Mag7 for a return pump(which I'm not overly pleased with it....the noise is annoying...It seems that there is a 50/50 chance you'll get a noisy one....this is why I'm not a betting man) from my 10g sump. No protein skimmer yet, no funds to do so.

Have build a siphon overflow, two 1" overflows from either side of the tank. You can see it here:

Water falls into a 2" PVC pipe that is capped and weighted to the bottom of the tank then pulled over to the sump. There is a 7" filter sock that gets cleaned every 4-6 days.

So here are my problems:

My Sand is glossly brown when the lights come on

My Hammer is brown (assuming that's the lighting)

My Watermelons aren't opening up much any more. I have about 10 heads and they used to all open but now I barely get any. I had none open today, I caught this picture on a good day:

Some of my rock turned white and green gooey looking stuff is all over some parts of it

I pulled a whole bunch of alge off the rocks and still there is a whole bunch of the shorter brown stuff.

And here is Russel

I have the basic water test kit from API and all the tests show good. No nitrates, nitrites, or ammonia and the PH is normal. I feed mysis shrimp every other day since I noticed the rock turning white and the zoa not opening. Used to feed every day. Any ideas on what I can look for?

The only thing I could think of is the lighting, I'll be getting http://www.reefbreeders.com/bridgelux_value.html I think as that's all I can afford. I would love to have http://www.reefbreeders.com/it2060.html but out of my price range
Was also wanting to get a protein skimmer (CAD Lights PLS-50) and a reactor (CAD Lights NR-1) but yet again money is a problem.

So I turn to the community to assist for now until I can get my lights to see if there is anything I can do to help my poor tank out?

Thanks!

[CoralBeauty13]

Wow, not sure what to say. You have a serious alge/cyano problem going on, I would do a lights out for three days to help rid of a lot of that. I did and it took care of everything. I turned on blue lights when I fed my fish and kept it dark. The alge is gonna suck up a lot of oxygen and make some problems. I am also a noob, 8 months in, but I would listen to what others say, but I had this problem once before. You may lose some polys ,but gotta get that under control.

[dppitone]

That reefbreeders is a perfectly fine LED and you can actually get very good ones for less than that, so don't feel inadequate on that count. It's more than I'd spend on a light - I'm picking up two used 120w non-dimmables LED fixtures tomorrow for a 90g tank we have for $60 each.

From the info you've given, my thoughts immediately go to questions about two things. (1) the water your putting into the system, and (2) phosphate.

If you can explain how you prepare the water, filtering, RO or RODI, and if so which unit and how old it is, when the filters were last changed and if there's a TDS meter on it.

And if you can let us know about phosphate levels. Do you test for it.

Although your lighting upgrade is going to be great, I assure you that any algae problems are not because of your present lighting and will not be solved by the new lighting. The solution is in the water chemistry, per the two questions above.

Thx, Dave

[nlgill13]

Biggest things first:

Get a protein skimmer. Bigger the better (ie usually get one rated for a bigger tank then what you have).

Lights would be nice but I would get something to start taking out phosphates in your tank. Look a two little fishes reactors, they are a great price and easy to use. You will also want to get a pump for it....nothing special just something that can run 200 gph. It is also easy to setup GFO in these reactors, which will take some of the unwanted phosphates out (ie algae food).

The purple algae on the tank glass and rock is coralline algae...this is good algae but usually unwanted on the glass/acrylic. You can scrap it off with a credit card.

Your hammer coral might be a strain of peach/gold tips. Was it ever green?

[MoreDakka]

Originally Posted by CoralBeauty13

Wow, not sure what to say. You have a serious alge/cyano problem going on, I would do a lights out for three days to help rid of a lot of that. I did and it took care of everything. I turned on blue lights when I fed my fish and kept it dark. The alge is gonna suck up a lot of oxygen and make some problems. I am also a noob, 8 months in, but I would listen to what others say, but I had this problem once before. You may lose some polys ,but gotta get that under control.

I'll read into getting rid of the cyano problem, looks like my sand bed needs to be turned over more to get rid of that annoyance.

Originally Posted by dppitone

That reefbreeders is a perfectly fine LED and you can actually get very good ones for less than that, so don't feel inadequate on that count. It's more than I'd spend on a light.

From the info you've give, my thoughts immediately go to questions about two things. (1) the water your putting into the system, and (2) phosphate.

If you can explain how you prepare the water, filtering, RO or RODI, and if so which unit and how old it is, when the filters were changed and if there's a TDS meter on it.

And if you can let us know about phosphate levels. Do you test for it.

Thx, Dave

There are cheaper options than the budget reefbreeders LED with still good quality? I've been reading about the cheapo chinese ones and failing/fires and that worries me lots more than spending an extra $50.

I use city water, I had a friend running a 150g tank from and he was always using city water for his changes and always said for me to do the same. I've never really tested the water for anything other than what is in the basic API test kit. That kit doesn't have a phosphate tester. I was going to get one then the internet lots of people don't test for that rather doing a rule of thumb "If you have alge you have phosphates". So I'm going by the assumption that my phosphates are high. I've been doing 10% changes every 2 days to try to get that down but suppose without a test kit no way to know.

When I prep water for a change I use a de-chlorinator, temp to the same and the same salinity. That's all I do, should there be more?
When I'm pulling the water out of the tank I'm scraping the alge with the suction hose (as you can tell by the scrape marks on the back of the tank).

Originally Posted by nlgill13

Biggest things first:

Get a protein skimmer. Bigger the better (ie usually get one rated for a bigger tank then what you have).

Lights would be nice but I would get something to start taking out phosphates in your tank. Look a two little fishes reactors, they are a great price and easy to use. You will also want to get a pump for it....nothing special just something that can run 200 gph. It is also easy to setup GFO in these reactors, which will take some of the unwanted phosphates out (ie algae food).

The purple algae on the tank glass and rock is coralline algae...this is good algae but usually unwanted on the glass/acrylic. You can scrap it off with a credit card.

Your hammer coral might be a strain of peach/gold tips. Was it ever green?

So a skimmer over lights is what would be best recommended to try to fix this tank? I was looking at the CAD Lights skimmer because of it's small footprint. I've only got a 10g sump to hide this stuff in. Same with the CAD Lights reactor, very small foot print. Good or bad things about those products?

That's what I thought about the purple coralline algae, I've left most of it but there has been some green hair algae on there and some coralline got removed when I was scraping the hair algae away.

The hammer was originally green from the store and has always been brown in this tank. Bright green tips.

Thanks again all for all your help.

[dppitone]

Ok I see where you are at. Don't worry about a skimmer right now if the Nitrates are zero, it's not a priority. Rather, you're first priority is to get an RODI water filter to clean up the "city water." Without the DI filtering, you've been importing solids into your tank that are turning into phosphates and fueling all that algae growth. So, to take an intelligent approach to your system, this is first priority. I wouldn't do anything else until this is taken care of. There's loads of info on here about setting up the RODI filters, and you can of course ask questions. After that, you can go to the next thing.

[smom1976]

at the very least go to a lfs and buy salt water for a while wile you shop around for a RO/DI system ..
it may even help

[Spyderturbo007]

I would highly recommend that you ditch the city water and purchase an RO/Di system. You can get a refurbished 90GPD SpectraPure unit for $130.

[julie180]

Are your shaking the nitrate reagent VERY well? I learned that the chemicals in it will go into suspension and if not shaken extremely well, you will get a zero reading where there are really nitrates.

[MoreDakka]

Originally Posted by julie180

Are your shaking the nitrate reagent VERY well? I learned that the chemicals in it will go into suspension and if not shaken extremely well, you will get a zero reading where there are really nitrates.

Yes, I vigorously shake all the bottles if it indicates to or not.

Will this system work:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=5336653614-20

Something portable would work really well, I don't have a lot of space and to make water when I need it would be nice. Having a 5 stage would be nicer but all those units look like you need to mount it. I'll take my lighting money and put it toward an RODI unit instead.

[nlgill13]

Sure. I don't know anything about the brand, but it will work.

Another option (same price) and reputable company:

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-4-...tem-75gpd.html

The big systems don't necessarily need to be mounted. You can use them when needed and then store them for later use.

[R20]

If it was my tank the first thing I would do would be change the bulbs in your fixture you need to replace compact florescent bulbs every 6 to 8 months max old bulbs can cause algae problems of course there are a lot more problems than just those bulbs. You could also by a reef breeder led also depending on how much the bulbs will cost you and led is supposedly better as far not producing as much nuisance algae. Then if you have a by cyano problem problem a few days of dark will help along with a 10 to 20 percent water change depending on how old the tank is 10 if new 20 if the tnk has been running for 6 months there is a **** load of phosphates in tap water sometimes most of the time your putting in more than your taking out with the water change you need to use ro water or you will never get rid of the algae problem. the units are kind of expensive so if its not in the budget you might be able o get some from your lfs or walmart has it for 88 cents a gallon it has a green top and labeled drinking water if you look it say processed by reverse osmosis. weekly water changes with ro water should help get you straightened out. The next thing to by is a skimmer I would save for a good one go with at least one rated for 75 gallons you need to go larger than tank volume 75 for LPS or 90+ for SPS corals depending on what you ultimately want to do make sure it will fit in your sump or go with a hang on back the reef octopus 105s is a good skimmer for the money and would meet your needs for mixed reef If you are any where near parkesburg pa I have one you could have since your on a tight budget. After a skimmer I would recommend a phosphate reactor the sooner the better with all of these thing the longer you neglect these thing the rock and sand will absorb all they can and start leaching phosphate and will need to be cooked or replaced. How old is the tank you might look into replacing the sand bed.

[R20]

With your Zoas it looks like there are white bumps on the side of the polyps. Its hard to see in the picture it could be Zoa pox or nudi's laying eggs do the white bumps look like there is a swirl pattern to them its probably Nudis they will eat Zoas I would try dipping them and see if that helps. You could also see if the LFS will dip it for you. Dips are not to effective on Zoa pox furan dips work the best from what i have heard if you catch it early.

[MoreDakka]

Well looking back on pictures and stats of my tank I noticed when I made a major change (adding in the siphon overflow and sump) that's when my tank took a turn for the worse. Was running great until then.

I can' afford to make all the changes and buy all the equiopent needed to get the water perfect or the lights perfect. I need to work with what I have right now. The city water was working no problem for over a year and this just happened so i'm thinking that something else is the problem and since the only major change was the sump I'm taking that out of the equation and going back to my old HOB sponge filter with a HOB skimmer.

I'll let ya all know how it goes in a month to see if that was the cause of my problems. My budget just can't handle salt water right now. If this doesn't lean it toward good I might have to sell all that i have and dismantle my tank....until I can save for more goodies.

Thanks all for the info, if I had the money I would have an RO/DI filter in place plus a good skimmer and reactor...but unfortunately that isn't the case....make due with what I have.

I'll be bok.

Thanks.

[MoreDakka]

Originally Posted by R20

With your Zoas it looks like there are white bumps on the side of the polyps. Its hard to see in the picture it could be Zoa pox or nudi's laying eggs do the white bumps look like there is a swirl pattern to them its probably Nudis they will eat Zoas I would try dipping them and see if that helps. You could also see if the LFS will dip it for you. Dips are not to effective on Zoa pox furan dips work the best from what i have heard if you catch it early.

I can't tell if there is a swirl pattern, the bumps are too small. I will keep an eye on it and dip if needed.

Thanks.!

[Dozer1one]

"I can' afford to make all the changes and buy all the equiopent needed to get the water perfect or the lights perfect. I need to work with what I have right now. The city water was working no problem for over a year and this just happened so i'm thinking that something else is the problem and since the only major change was the sump I'm taking that out of the equation and going back to my old HOB sponge filter with a HOB skimmer."

That's the main problem "city water" the reason everyone uses an RODI unit is just that, over time using unfiltered water it will cause your tank to devolop a lot of problems such as phosphates, the conditioner your adding to your water does absolutely nothing except remove most of the chloramines but leaves behind all the dissolved solids such as heavy metals this is your main problem right in itself despite what others have told you, you really need to use RODI water especially for a reef tank.

2nd) your lights are they "compact fluorescents" or t5s, compact fluorescents are under powered for a reef tank even with new bulbs and are pretty out dated at this point so replacing bulbs in that fixture is going to be a waste, use that money towards a t5 or led your choice, look for used fixtures on craigslist replace bulbs in a t5 as soon as u get it.

3rd) it looks like you have a lot of coraline algae on the back glass I'm assuming that was there when you purchased the tank and you were unsure of how to get it off? If I'm right in that Assumption, you should scrape it off, not that dyeing coraline causes a huge problem but it will add to the phosphate problems

4th) Protein skimmer, the only time you don't need one is the first few monthes of a newly cycled tank, and even then I always run them to get them broke in and get a jump on waste products in the tank. If you have a hong on the back skimmer run it, stick with the sump as that is a step in the right direction with your system hob filters do little in reef tanks other than clean the water column from floating bi products, their known to cause high nitrates unless you replace the filter pads every other day, their in sightly hanging on the tank and have no room for any additional live rock to be placed. Your sump (even a ten gallon) can be setup many different ways to hide equipment in such as reactors and heaters and add more biological filtration such as a fuge and addional live rock which is all things you would want to look into having a reef tank.

5th) not all hammer corals are neon green some are brown, yours look to be fully open, most likely it's a brown hammer. If there was an issue where it lost all it's green tint the heads would be a clear color and it wouldn't open anymore than it has to to try and stay alive by getting nutrients from lighting.

Suggestions:

1) spend a bunch of money in reactors you don't need yet, chemicals you shouldn't use yet, and media like phosgaurd, carbon, chemi clean for cyano or others and you could nip this in the butt.
2)listen to everyone's advice everywhere you go and take bits and pieces from here and there until you give up and get out of one of the greatest hobbies out there.
3) Start over. Your not that far into the hobby, start fresh before it breaks the bank and your hopes. Put the corals in a container and trade them in at your lfs for credit towards other stuff, none of them are reall expensive you can get them later when you are ready to keep them right now there gonna die off and add to problems.replace all of your water with RODI and fresh salt, you can buy water from your lfs for around .50 cents a gallon so it shouldn't be more that $25/30.let you tank cycle.Get your equipment right during this time sump, skimmer, lights ,RODI unit if you choose to buy one. Almost forgot before setting you tank back up clean it with 50/50 water and vinegar u can use tap water for this. But a 4" razor blade scraper from depot $5.00 and scrape the old coraline off the back glass, it won't scratch it just spray it first with the vinegar a couple times and let it sit for a couple hrs it will scrape right off. But a good test kit the API ones aren't very good but they will get you close........ Sometimes.........salifert or Red Sea if you can spend the money would be best if not you'll need API reef masters test kit if you gonna have a reef tank. Get your equip and parameters in check then start adding livestock, remember you can add corals at a faster rate than fish later when ready, most corals do not add much of a bio load to you system ( some do so do you research before hand for that and other reasons of course) aside from the cycling part you can do everything I spoke of here in a day or two and while it's cycling you can do your research before adding what livestock you want. What city are you located in I'm from the phila area and can recommend a few place up and down the east coast to purchase used equip and livestock from fellow hobbiests to save a lot of money.
Good luck and do your research it'll save you a boat load of money

[MoreDakka]

Hey,

So update:

Got me a HOB aquamax protein skimmer http://www.aquamaxxaquariums.com/Aqu..._Skimmers.html for cheap and it has skimmed lots of grossness out of the tank.
I've changed to the HOB filter and clean it every other day
I blow the grossness off the rocks daily
I've siphoned out the top layer of sand

It has all seemed to help a bit at a time. However there was a huge change when I had my "paradise" snail die. Would a snail that is slowly dying cause something like this to happen? I mean I saw the CUC moving to to clean up and I got him out of the tank withing about 24 hours of him dying (but he wasn't moving lots for about 3 weeks). It just seems like quite the coincidence that the sand clears up and the rocks all clear up once he left the tank. Could that dying snail been the cause of my woes?

[Crooked Reef]

Honestly? Highly doubtful. In a 45 gallon one snail dying shouldn't have any effect on the water quality enough to cause your issues. I would say that it is a combination of everything you did and, I know you don't want to hear this, but a change in the city water. You said that you had no issues with the city water for over a year. Here is the thing about city water, it can have different polutants in it at different times. You may have had a couple of month period where there was an unusually nuber of high nitrates and phosphates coming in and now it has stopped. You say that you didn't have any nitrates, but you did. The algae was feeding on it. Look at it like this. If you buy a pizza for your family and all eat the whole thing, when you then test the box for pizza there is none left. The algae was eating the nitrates as fast as they were being produced. The change in your tank likely just coincidedc with more beneficial bacteris growing in your live rock, a change in the city water and the other changes you made in your tank husbandry. The snail dying was a coincidence.

If you want my opinions I would go this route;

Get a source for ro/di water and use it exclusively.

Set your sump back up. The only thing you need in it is some live rock rubble and some chaeto algae. You can also move your skimmer and filter and hang it on the back of it. The mag 7 is loud but the higher ones like the 9.5 are quieter. For some reason the smaller mags have more noise. The sump will hide your equipment, give you extra water volume for a more stable system and give you more space for live rock which is your biological filter. the rubble will be fine. It is cheaper and you can fit more in it. You are not trying for a display in the sump, just a filter. The chaeto will also outcompete nuisence algae for your nutrients in the tank and the algae in your tank will start to die off and dissapear. For a light for the sump just get a metal clip on light from home depot and a 6500k spiral cfl.

Next add another power head to the display. I would go with a koralia or a jebeo wavemaker. They move alot of water but its not a direct stream. Add it to the right side of your tank as the firs pic looks like you have a pump on the left. The extra water flow will help keep the diatoms and cyano from growing.

Upgrade your lights at some point if you havent already.

All of these changes don't need to happen overnight. If you start to hate your tank maintenance you will hate your tank and then be done with it. These changes will actually start to make you do less work on the tank and more time watching and enjoying it. Take your time and stay in budget. As for the zoas closing what are you using to check your salinity?

[MoreDakka]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

Yeah getting an RODI system is in the works, just waiting for the drinking water one to come in at BRS then I can make the wife happy at the same time ;-)

I found an extra power head and I've added that in, lots of goobies flying around when I added the second one. I want to get a WP-25 and get rid of these things

I found a cheap Quiet One 6000 on kijiji, so picked that up, have to change some plumbing (mag 7 = 1/2", QU6k = 1") plus it's bigger so some sump adjustments have to be made. But I was planning on getting the sump going. Must have been a coincidence that the poor water quality started just after I put the sump in. Then yes, I can move the HOB stuff under and make things look nicer.

The Zoas have started opening more now that the cyano is clearing up. I use a refractometer for salinity checks.

I'll post more pics of what it looks like now, but not right now.

[Crooked Reef]

Are you using calibration fluid for the refractometer of fresh water. Calibration fluid is better. I have a set of red zoas that I couldn't figure out what was wrong with them. I realized my salinity was a little low and fixed it. They opened the next day and have been fine ever since.

[MoreDakka]

No, I just have a small bottle of RO water that I use specifically to calibrate it. What is the difference between calibration fluid and RO water? As long as it has a salinity of 0 then either should work just as good right?

[MoreDakka]

Originally Posted by Dozer1one

"I can' afford to make all the changes and buy all the equiopent needed to get the water perfect or the lights perfect. I need to work with what I have right now. The city water was working no problem for over a year and this just happened so i'm thinking that something else is the problem and since the only major change was the sump I'm taking that out of the equation and going back to my old HOB sponge filter with a HOB skimmer."

That's the main problem "city water" the reason everyone uses an RODI unit is just that, over time using unfiltered water it will cause your tank to devolop a lot of problems such as phosphates, the conditioner your adding to your water does absolutely nothing except remove most of the chloramines but leaves behind all the dissolved solids such as heavy metals this is your main problem right in itself despite what others have told you, you really need to use RODI water especially for a reef tank.

2nd) your lights are they "compact fluorescents" or t5s, compact fluorescents are under powered for a reef tank even with new bulbs and are pretty out dated at this point so replacing bulbs in that fixture is going to be a waste, use that money towards a t5 or led your choice, look for used fixtures on craigslist replace bulbs in a t5 as soon as u get it.

3rd) it looks like you have a lot of coraline algae on the back glass I'm assuming that was there when you purchased the tank and you were unsure of how to get it off? If I'm right in that Assumption, you should scrape it off, not that dyeing coraline causes a huge problem but it will add to the phosphate problems

4th) Protein skimmer, the only time you don't need one is the first few monthes of a newly cycled tank, and even then I always run them to get them broke in and get a jump on waste products in the tank. If you have a hong on the back skimmer run it, stick with the sump as that is a step in the right direction with your system hob filters do little in reef tanks other than clean the water column from floating bi products, their known to cause high nitrates unless you replace the filter pads every other day, their in sightly hanging on the tank and have no room for any additional live rock to be placed. Your sump (even a ten gallon) can be setup many different ways to hide equipment in such as reactors and heaters and add more biological filtration such as a fuge and addional live rock which is all things you would want to look into having a reef tank.

5th) not all hammer corals are neon green some are brown, yours look to be fully open, most likely it's a brown hammer. If there was an issue where it lost all it's green tint the heads would be a clear color and it wouldn't open anymore than it has to to try and stay alive by getting nutrients from lighting.

Suggestions:

1) spend a bunch of money in reactors you don't need yet, chemicals you shouldn't use yet, and media like phosgaurd, carbon, chemi clean for cyano or others and you could nip this in the butt.
2)listen to everyone's advice everywhere you go and take bits and pieces from here and there until you give up and get out of one of the greatest hobbies out there.
3) Start over. Your not that far into the hobby, start fresh before it breaks the bank and your hopes. Put the corals in a container and trade them in at your lfs for credit towards other stuff, none of them are reall expensive you can get them later when you are ready to keep them right now there gonna die off and add to problems.replace all of your water with RODI and fresh salt, you can buy water from your lfs for around .50 cents a gallon so it shouldn't be more that $25/30.let you tank cycle.Get your equipment right during this time sump, skimmer, lights ,RODI unit if you choose to buy one. Almost forgot before setting you tank back up clean it with 50/50 water and vinegar u can use tap water for this. But a 4" razor blade scraper from depot $5.00 and scrape the old coraline off the back glass, it won't scratch it just spray it first with the vinegar a couple times and let it sit for a couple hrs it will scrape right off. But a good test kit the API ones aren't very good but they will get you close........ Sometimes.........salifert or Red Sea if you can spend the money would be best if not you'll need API reef masters test kit if you gonna have a reef tank. Get your equip and parameters in check then start adding livestock, remember you can add corals at a faster rate than fish later when ready, most corals do not add much of a bio load to you system ( some do so do you research before hand for that and other reasons of course) aside from the cycling part you can do everything I spoke of here in a day or two and while it's cycling you can do your research before adding what livestock you want. What city are you located in I'm from the phila area and can recommend a few place up and down the east coast to purchase used equip and livestock from fellow hobbiests to save a lot of money.
Good luck and do your research it'll save you a boat load of money

Oh and forgot to thank Dozer1one plus everyone else that is/has helped me with this. It is quite frustration when you don't know what's happening and with the help from everyone here it'll slowly get better. It is a really cool hobby and I can't wait to have one of Those tanks that everyone is wow'd over ;-) But first, RO water ;-)

[scott3569]

Here is a thought, where do you live? maybe there are people that are in the hobby that are close to you. that have an RO/DI system, and maybe willing to help you out. or maybe charge you less then the LFS would..there are so many AWESOME people on this forum, I would certainly help local people out if I had a set up. might need to charge a small amount for system maintenance.

[intyme]

Ugh, I'm sorry for you! Seems like you are having some big issues. I wish I could help more but I'm new too,. Take thevadvise on the Rodi water tho

[Crooked Reef]

From what I have read it is more accurate if you use calibration fluid. You calibrate the refractometer to be exact at the spg you need and the. There isn't a chance that it will be off.