HELP! MY 10 gallons needs some work!

[mermaid05]

See the picture of my tank in my gallery....


My 10 gallon is a big mess! Between red algae that keeps coming back (even though I've used ChemiClean 3 times) and flatworms (green and purple) it's hard to notice anything nice about the tank. My corals needs some help too. I don't really like adding chemicals because everything else gets messed up. My red sea xenias use to look amazing but now they never open up and my green mushrooms have turned brown.

Any suggestions on what I absolutely MUST add for the corals or anything else I could change would be helpful.

Thanks!

[kau_cinta_ku]

could you please tell us a little about your system so we can get a better understanding of it.
how long has it been set up?

what are your water parameters?: sg, ph, ammonia, calcium, alk, nitrite, nitrate.

what type of equipment?

when and how much do you do water changes?

what types of fish? (bioload)

have you done anything diff. latly to the tank?

any of this info would help out alot. thanks

[mermaid05]

It has been set up for about 5 months.

Equipment: Seaclone 100 skimmer

Don’t test alk or calcium. Other water parameters are generally exactly what they should be (according to the test kit). If they are off I do a water change and it always corrects itself.

I do about a 2 gallon water change every week (mostly to siphon out another batch of flatworms). Sometimes it's 50% if the water parameters are off.

I have 2 ocellaris clowns and a firefish (along with a red sea star and a flame scallop). See tank info at the bottom.

Changes:
Added the skimmer a month ago
Dosed with ChemiClean 2 weeks prior (but did water change after)

[sttroyiii]

It almost sounds like your light bulbs might be causing problems. Ive read that you should start thinking about replacing them at 6 months. Are the bulbs 5 months old as well? I guess they would still be good at 5 months.

If its not that, you might want to consider how much you feed. You can also try cutting your lights back, although some say this just masks the problem. I cut my lights back to 6-8 hours a day and it helped out a lot with green algae.

[mermaid05]

The lights are about 4 months old.
I don't feed too much, just a pinch of flake food once a day.
Will lifting the light off of the tank help at all? Right now the timer is set for the lights to be on for 12 hours.

[reefgeek84]

First, welcome... and congrats on graduating.

how long did you let the tank cycle before you added things?... smaller tanks tend to take longer to go through the cycle and sometimes, they do it more then once.


If you are doing multiple 50% water changes, you could be causing a mini-cycle again, which might aid in some of the cause to the algae... there is no real proof of this but in my expeirence I have seen this happen.

[mg426]

cutting back your lighting may help but just remember. Lighting does not cause algae by itsellf. Light + excess nutrients = algae.
Look at your nitrate/phosphate/silicate levels. The problem is there somewhere.

[ricks]

What type of water are you using??? Small tanks are less forgiving than large tanks... Do you have sand or bare bottom??? How much live rock??? How much flow? Do you have any form of surface extraction for your water. Proteins will rise to the surface. Would need to know all your exact tank params. not just tests ok??? any temp swings, only a few questions. That need to be addressed.

[jdieck]

I think on the lines of what has been said.
I think the addition of the skimmer is a good move but excess worms and the algae may indicate excess nutrients.
You do not seem to have heavy consumers of Calcium but for stability and although water changes may replace required Alkalinity I would recommend testing your Alkalinity and adjust if necessary for a more stable PH. I have seen my small Q tank drop alkalinity significantly in just one day.
You mentioned Red algae, is it Cyanobacteria you are referring to?
I noticed a powerhead so you shall have enough flow but again it seems to point into nutrients either high Nitrate (which gets diluted with the water changes) or high Phosphates (which get in the rock and sand and keep on feeding the issue even with water changes).
Regarding lighting what kind and what is the power? Although it has been said to cut on lighting to reduce the algae issue I think that might help more with hair alge but will not help much to get rid of Cyano. The fact that the shrooms changed to brown may indicate low lighting levels.
Cyano feeds on Nitrate, Nitrogen, Phosphate and some Organics. Chemi clean acts on the Organics and Nitrogenous compounds but do little or nothing to help with phosphates and Nitrates so if it did not work you may need to use a phosphate adsorber (recomend Phosban) to reduce the phosphates and keep with 25% water changes per week

So in summary:
a) Ramp up your skimmer and keep it clean for maximum efficiency
b) Reduce your feeding to every two days for a month or so.
c) Use Phosphate adsorbing media and keep on syphoning out as much Cyano as you can if in two to four weeks it does not reduce you may need to use Red slime out which kills the Cyano directly rather than its nutrients.
d) Check the power of your lights, those shrooms may need more, this will also help your Anemones and help to feed them less.
e) If you do not have them, get test kits for Ammonia, Nitrate and Alkalinity, test regularly and act accordingly.
f) How long have you had the Flame scallop? You may want to consider taking it back, they need a lot of feeding and suspended matter that will make difficult to keep up with low nutrients. If you are target feeding it whatever you feed it might be compounding the Nutrient issue.

Good Luck and keep up, when you beat this it feels great!

[TitansFan]

All the suggestions so far sound good. jdieck did a nice summary The one thing though that helped my nano the most was switching to ro water for topoffs. A few weeks after going to ro water it was like my tank did a 360. Algea was gone for the most part.

[mermaid05]

Ok, we took everything out of the tank, added some new sand, blew off all the rocks to get rid of the flatworms, and cleaned all the ugly algae off the front of the tank.
Then we put everything back in, positioned the rocks in a more free standing position but so that they covered the equipment a little better and added a skunk cleaner shrimp and some new corals:
pink carnation
yellow sun coral
toadstool leather frag
branching hammer coral frag


Everything tested find except that the ammonia was a little high - .1


I thought we got rid of all of the flatworms but its only been a day and they are already making a comeback.
I hate to use chemicals so I really don't want to get any flatworm exit. I've been told that a sixline wrasse will work also but I already have 3 fish in my 10 gallon tank.
Do you think it would work to get one just for a couple of weeks to clear up the flatworms? Or will they still continue to be a problem?

[jdieck]

First you need to get your tank stabilized, the Ammonia indicate that because of the clean up and the new sand you are having a new cycle.
Reduce your feeding to the min possible and change water frequently to keep Ammonia below 0.05 for the sake of your Fish.
Once you have no ammonia and no Nitrite at all you can start thinking on the flat worms and decide on the six line or the flat worm exit. Do not add any new stock and get some good kits for Alkalinity at least.