Gift Horse?

Dlhirst · 02/20/2010, 03:57 PM

I know, I probably should just be thanking my lucky stars, but... I want to understand this:

I have had GHA blooming like crazy in my tank lately. NH3 and Phos both zero, NO3 <5.0... RODI water only... Didn't think I was overfeeding anything. ALL (Rods original) food gets consumed within 60 seconds, by seven small fish.

Last week, we had to leave the tank unattended for seven days. Left the lights on a timer, but changed it to 12PM-8:30PM, so folks would think we were home. Normally, that cycle starts about two hours earlier, and ends two hours earlier. I do not have any kind of food dispenser, but our fish are VERY small, and we were hoping for the best. (Originally, we were only going to be gone five days, but that's another story...)

When we got home, the GHA is almost completely gone! I expected it to be pushing the lid off the tank, but it is 95% gone.

What happened?

Is it possible I was WAY overfeeding? And the week off starved the algae? Or, did the week of no food make the fish eat the algae? I only have one turbo snail in the tank now, and I know he didn't eat it all. The tank was started early December, so possibly the "cycle" just finally ran its course?

I am glad for the RESULT, of course, but I don't want to REPEAT any mistakes I may have made. Hoping somebody can clue me in.

As always, thanks for the advice!

bertoni · 02/20/2010, 04:03 PM

I'd guess that you were overfeeding, but part of the change might have been the normal progression of tanks. I wouldn't worry, but I would watch the feeding in the future.

AndrewG · 02/20/2010, 08:03 PM

You're tank is less that 3 months old. Things are likely still sorting themselves out. If you have a reasonable amount of rock, fish really don't need much food. I'm sure the fish looked fine when you got home. Feed lightly and make changes to your tank slowly.

Dlhirst · 02/21/2010, 08:24 AM

Andrew, what do you mean "enough rock" to feed the fish? I have about 30# of LR in the tank, and six small fish. What would they be feeding on from the LR? I assumed that since the food was being consumed so quickly, they were "hungry" and eating it all...

But, you were correct, the fish looked great when we got home... save one. I HAD three chromis when we left, now just two. I have no idea what became of the third, but he is nowhere to be found! I have checked the rockwork as closely as possible, cuz I don't want a body in the tank. Could it have been eaten that completely?

AndrewG · 02/21/2010, 02:05 PM

The live rock will be loaded with little shrimp and other corepods. Also algae will grow on the rocks. This gives the fish food to pick at. Mandarin gobies exclusively eat off of pods on the rock and spend their days hunting in the nooks and crannies. 30 pounds in a 34 gal tank is pretty stocked.

Missing fish can be a mystery. I had a chromis gone for weeks and suddenly show up. Check the carpet behind the tank, unless you have a cat... Hermit crabs and shrimp can make quick work of a body, so can other fish.

Good luck.

Vin7250 · 02/22/2010, 09:31 AM

your tanks is 2 and a half months old, and you have:

2 chromis, 2 baby ocellaris, 2 firefish, 1 turbo snail, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp, 'shrooms, zoas, palys, rics, faviids, and a hitchhiking xenia
, its just a 34 gallon???? Not to be that guy but SLOW DOWN. You have more live stock in a tank thats been up for like 70 days then i ahve in my 40 breeder thats been set up for 4 years. The GHA is a natural progression your tank is going through. Patients Patients Patients. Remember Rome wasnt built in a day.....yet it burned that fast!

Dlhirst · 02/22/2010, 10:47 AM

Vin7250 - of course you are right. My tank was void of all critters for the first 30 days, and we witnessed what we THOUGHT was an algae bloom around Christmas, when the first ammonia producers were introduced (the Chromis). NH3 had gone to 0.5 after that, and then returned to zero. Since we had started with cycled live rock, sand, etc - we (me and the LFS) thought it was over. Kids required the nemos a few weeks later, and the corals SOUND like a lot more than there really are... Everything seemed balanced, but a chromis died (we had three), so he was replaced with two small firefish, that probably have the same body mass as the one dead chromis... probably should not have gotten them, I now know. When the largest remaining chromis started terrorizing the tank, the LFS said "its cuz you have two" and said that adding a third would fix it. We did, and it did. With three chromis, the bully behaved himself, even though the added fish was smaller. Go figure.
And, that is about when the real GHA spike occurred. The now missing chromis may have been the bully, cuz the two remaining seem to get along fine. We won't be adding any more fish to this tank.
I will be adding more coral diversity, but it is my understanding that the corals are basically bio-load neutral. Is that a fair statement?

The corals have been growing well. The favia which started with 7 polyps now has 11, and the candy cane has gone from 4 to 6. One ric now has 3 mouths, where it started with just one. another is dividing into two as we speak. Water params are only improving, too. I checked ammonia and nitrates yesterday, and they now read zero, before a water change.

And yes, I will not be making that mistake again. At this point, I just want stuff to grow a little bigger.

Thanks to all!

Vin7250 · 02/22/2010, 10:54 AM

70 days + A LOT of livestock for the size tank you have = problems. Im not trying to be the guy that picks a fight i really am not, im just saying. IMO you are moving WAY to fast. Slow down, enjoy the beginning stages of this hobby. You arent just throwing some living things in a bucket and hoping it works you, you are creating a full ecosystem. Reefs are the holy grail of fishkeeping. Your LFS does not care abotu you, your kids feelings (if a fish dies) or your tanks. They only care about their bottom line. We have all made these mistakes though so dont worry about it. 6 fish although they are small is a lot for a 34 gallon, and 30lbs of live rock is bare minimum. Cycled rock and cycled sand?? is that what the LFS told you?? or did you get it from a friends tank that you know very well?? They all tell you its cycled so that you pay the premium bucks for it. Like i said you will be fine, just slow down. Dont add anything for a while!! Good luck

02/20/2010, 03:57 PM	#1
Dlhirst Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Detroit Posts: 112	Gift Horse? I know, I probably should just be thanking my lucky stars, but... I want to understand this: I have had GHA blooming like crazy in my tank lately. NH3 and Phos both zero, NO3 <5.0... RODI water only... Didn't think I was overfeeding anything. ALL (Rods original) food gets consumed within 60 seconds, by seven small fish. Last week, we had to leave the tank unattended for seven days. Left the lights on a timer, but changed it to 12PM-8:30PM, so folks would think we were home. Normally, that cycle starts about two hours earlier, and ends two hours earlier. I do not have any kind of food dispenser, but our fish are VERY small, and we were hoping for the best. (Originally, we were only going to be gone five days, but that's another story...) When we got home, the GHA is almost completely gone! I expected it to be pushing the lid off the tank, but it is 95% gone. What happened? Is it possible I was WAY overfeeding? And the week off starved the algae? Or, did the week of no food make the fish eat the algae? I only have one turbo snail in the tank now, and I know he didn't eat it all. The tank was started early December, so possibly the "cycle" just finally ran its course? I am glad for the RESULT, of course, but I don't want to REPEAT any mistakes I may have made. Hoping somebody can clue me in. As always, thanks for the advice! __________________ My biggest fear is that when I die, my wife will sell off all my stuff for the prices I told her I paid for them! Current Tank Info: 66 gal Red Sea Max, 2 ocellaris, Yellow Tang, Flame Wrasse, Coral Beuty, CuC totalling a dozen or so varmints. And some Live Rock covered in 'shrooms, zoas, palys, and more.

02/20/2010, 04:03 PM	#2
bertoni RC Mod Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Mountain View, CA, USA Posts: 88,616	I'd guess that you were overfeeding, but part of the change might have been the normal progression of tanks. I wouldn't worry, but I would watch the feeding in the future. __________________ Jonathan Bertoni

02/21/2010, 08:24 AM	#4
Dlhirst Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Detroit Posts: 112	Andrew, what do you mean "enough rock" to feed the fish? I have about 30# of LR in the tank, and six small fish. What would they be feeding on from the LR? I assumed that since the food was being consumed so quickly, they were "hungry" and eating it all... But, you were correct, the fish looked great when we got home... save one. I HAD three chromis when we left, now just two. I have no idea what became of the third, but he is nowhere to be found! I have checked the rockwork as closely as possible, cuz I don't want a body in the tank. Could it have been eaten that completely? __________________ My biggest fear is that when I die, my wife will sell off all my stuff for the prices I told her I paid for them! Current Tank Info: 66 gal Red Sea Max, 2 ocellaris, Yellow Tang, Flame Wrasse, Coral Beuty, CuC totalling a dozen or so varmints. And some Live Rock covered in 'shrooms, zoas, palys, and more.

02/22/2010, 10:47 AM	#7
Dlhirst Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Detroit Posts: 112	Vin7250 - of course you are right. My tank was void of all critters for the first 30 days, and we witnessed what we THOUGHT was an algae bloom around Christmas, when the first ammonia producers were introduced (the Chromis). NH3 had gone to 0.5 after that, and then returned to zero. Since we had started with cycled live rock, sand, etc - we (me and the LFS) thought it was over. Kids required the nemos a few weeks later, and the corals SOUND like a lot more than there really are... Everything seemed balanced, but a chromis died (we had three), so he was replaced with two small firefish, that probably have the same body mass as the one dead chromis... probably should not have gotten them, I now know. When the largest remaining chromis started terrorizing the tank, the LFS said "its cuz you have two" and said that adding a third would fix it. We did, and it did. With three chromis, the bully behaved himself, even though the added fish was smaller. Go figure. And, that is about when the real GHA spike occurred. The now missing chromis may have been the bully, cuz the two remaining seem to get along fine. We won't be adding any more fish to this tank. I will be adding more coral diversity, but it is my understanding that the corals are basically bio-load neutral. Is that a fair statement? The corals have been growing well. The favia which started with 7 polyps now has 11, and the candy cane has gone from 4 to 6. One ric now has 3 mouths, where it started with just one. another is dividing into two as we speak. Water params are only improving, too. I checked ammonia and nitrates yesterday, and they now read zero, before a water change. And yes, I will not be making that mistake again. At this point, I just want stuff to grow a little bigger. Thanks to all! __________________ My biggest fear is that when I die, my wife will sell off all my stuff for the prices I told her I paid for them! Current Tank Info: 66 gal Red Sea Max, 2 ocellaris, Yellow Tang, Flame Wrasse, Coral Beuty, CuC totalling a dozen or so varmints. And some Live Rock covered in 'shrooms, zoas, palys, and more.

02/20/2010, 08:03 PM	#3
AndrewG Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Brownsburg IN Posts: 97	You're tank is less that 3 months old. Things are likely still sorting themselves out. If you have a reasonable amount of rock, fish really don't need much food. I'm sure the fish looked fine when you got home. Feed lightly and make changes to your tank slowly.

02/21/2010, 02:05 PM	#5
AndrewG Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Brownsburg IN Posts: 97	The live rock will be loaded with little shrimp and other corepods. Also algae will grow on the rocks. This gives the fish food to pick at. Mandarin gobies exclusively eat off of pods on the rock and spend their days hunting in the nooks and crannies. 30 pounds in a 34 gal tank is pretty stocked. Missing fish can be a mystery. I had a chromis gone for weeks and suddenly show up. Check the carpet behind the tank, unless you have a cat... Hermit crabs and shrimp can make quick work of a body, so can other fish. Good luck.

02/22/2010, 09:31 AM	#6
Vin7250 Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Connecticut "The Big East" Posts: 1,144	your tanks is 2 and a half months old, and you have: 2 chromis, 2 baby ocellaris, 2 firefish, 1 turbo snail, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp, 'shrooms, zoas, palys, rics, faviids, and a hitchhiking xenia , its just a 34 gallon???? Not to be that guy but SLOW DOWN. You have more live stock in a tank thats been up for like 70 days then i ahve in my 40 breeder thats been set up for 4 years. The GHA is a natural progression your tank is going through. Patients Patients Patients. Remember Rome wasnt built in a day.....yet it burned that fast!

02/22/2010, 10:54 AM	#8
Vin7250 Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Connecticut "The Big East" Posts: 1,144	70 days + A LOT of livestock for the size tank you have = problems. Im not trying to be the guy that picks a fight i really am not, im just saying. IMO you are moving WAY to fast. Slow down, enjoy the beginning stages of this hobby. You arent just throwing some living things in a bucket and hoping it works you, you are creating a full ecosystem. Reefs are the holy grail of fishkeeping. Your LFS does not care abotu you, your kids feelings (if a fish dies) or your tanks. They only care about their bottom line. We have all made these mistakes though so dont worry about it. 6 fish although they are small is a lot for a 34 gallon, and 30lbs of live rock is bare minimum. Cycled rock and cycled sand?? is that what the LFS told you?? or did you get it from a friends tank that you know very well?? They all tell you its cycled so that you pay the premium bucks for it. Like i said you will be fine, just slow down. Dont add anything for a while!! Good luck