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New Member
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Last Login: 4/8/2008 10:48:47 PM
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| Here is my problem ..... I have been trying for sometime now (about 3 years in total ) to get a well established and beautiful reef tank up and running. But I always keep running into the same problems. I cannot seem to stop algea from growing EVERYWHERE!! I can never seem to get any coralline algea to grow and the algea that I have is kind of like green hair algea but ti grows on everything including my soft corals inturn killing them. I currently have a 90 gallon reef tank set up with a few fish in it and a mud sump refugium. I also have a canister filter, a marine land Penguin cartridge filter and an aquamedic turbo-floater skimmer that is pulling great Skimate out of the tank. My lighting consists of a hood with two metal halide 10,000k, 4 compact flor. acatinc bulbs and 6 blue moon LED bulbs. I have tried everything from cutting down on the lighting to only 4-6 hours a day, stopping my addition of trace minerals (Calcium, Molybendium,Strotinum, ECT.) Altering my feeding to every 2 days and no matter what I do this crap overwhelms my tank and makes it look horrible. There is also this REALLY hard to scrape off green algea that grows on the glass as well. Even with my chemistries being good (numbers posted below) I cannot get corals to thrive and pretty much everything that I put in there in the way of Corals dies in a little while. I do consistent 20% water changes with either RO/DI water or boxed sea water from petco and I still get the same problems. I am at the end of my rope!!.... I also have two power heads to keep water flow up and still no luck. I have tried snail and everytime I put them in my tank they die and then I have to go fishing for them as well. I have about 60 lbs of natural live rock in there and about 10-15 lbs of aquacultured rock in there as well. Please help me because I am out of ideas here and there are good salt stores here in wyoming to help me. I am used to being able to ask these kinds of questions at my local shop as I moved here from Louisiana. (great shops there) Here is a list of my live stock in the tank: 2 small clowns, 2 small seudochromis, 2 turbosnails (everytime I put some in there they all die), 1 snowflake moray eel (which is pretty small about 4 inches long). Current water chemistries: Ammonia (NH3-4) 0.004 Nitrite (NO2) 0.048 Nitrate (NO3) 2.5 Phosphate (PO4) 0.22 Silica (SiO2-3) 0.3 Potassium (K) 302 Calcium (Ca) 381 Boron (B) 3.4 Molybdenum (Mo) 0.1 Strontium (Sr) 9.9 Magnesium (Mg) 1268 Iodine (I-) 0.03 Copper (Cu++) 0.01 Alkalinity (meq/L) 3.01 Thanks ahead for the help !!!
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Starting Member
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| The basis of the algae problem has to be in nitrate and phosphate levels. These are the fertilizers for nuisance algaes. Find the source and reduce/eliminate it. (I know easier said than done.) What do you feed your fish?. A common mistake I've seen (been guilty of) is thawing frozen food out in a small amount of water then dumping it all in the tank. The water should be drained off and then the food added. This stuff is rocket fuel for algaes. Do you use activated carbon or a phosphate absorbing media in your canister filter? These can be a big help. How about prefilters/aka sponge filters? This type of mechanical filter can actually become nitrate factories if the are not cleaned very frequently. Daily wouldn't be too often, but at least every 3 days. One last question. Your test list is outstanding, what tests are you using to determine all of these parameters?
So many species, so little money!
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Fishkeeping GURU
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I too would like to know what test kits you are using...those are some very specific values for some of the parameters. I do need some more measurements though, particularly pH and salinity/specific gravity. I did notice your alkalinity is a little low for a reef though, and that may lead to a too-low pH and dangerous fluctuations. Your calcium is quite low for a reef too, unless it is just soft corals...try to get it up into the 400-500 range if you have LPS or SPS (a calcium reactor or dripping kalkwasser would help with this). This will help coralline algae to grow better too. Also, when you test your pH, do it once in the early morning (as early as possible) and once at night around lights-out. This will show if there is a large day to night change in pH.
The other issue I see is the fact that you are using canisters and other traditional filtration, but in saltwater tanks they are nitrate factories. How often do you tear them down and clean them out completely, including replacing media and fully wiping them down? You do show a low nitrate reading, but I suspect that number would be much higher if there was no algae taking it up, so I think that is the key to your algae issue. You also have slight ammonia and nitrite readings, which may be indicative of an only partially cycled tank and the algae taking up the rest, but honestly I'm not sure with the readings so low if that isn't just normal but below the range of most test kits.
I would start off by removing all the traditional filters, one at a time with at least a week in between (remove media slowly first, a little bit at a time, and test for ammonia and nitrite daily throughout this process). That would leavejust the refugium, powerheads, and skimmer for filtration/water movement. I would also add several more powerheads to get your water flow into around the 20x turnover range (so 1800 or so gallons per hour...I'm assuiming your two current powerheads would not provide that much flow on their own unless they are pretty big). You want to have flow directed towards every spot in the tank so there are no dead spots. You may need to restack your rock depending on your current aquascaping as well to avoid dead spots. You want an open design with as little rock-on-rock contact as possible while keeping it stable. Rocks stacked on rocks tend to accumulate detritus and don't allow water movement through that area. You can use PVC pipes to build an open structure and then drill the rocks to fit over it or use zip ties to tie the rock to the PVC structure.
These changes should over time help you lower your nitrate and keep it low. Macroalgae can also be used in the refugium (if you light it) or in the tank to lower nitrate, but be aware that it needs to be harvested often and if you put it in the main tank you have to be choosy about what kinds you use (some can quickly become a pest or go sexual, like all caulerpa species). I'd go for a red type if you decide to go this route, but any kind would be fine in a lit sump, especially if you light it 24/7, which will prevent caulerpa from going sexual and may help prevent pH fluctuations in the tank.
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Moderator
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| Maybe I missed something -- but do you have live rock in the tank? I agree that you should get rid of the mechanical filters, as they are really counterproductive -- they trap the things you want to remove from the tank. Finally -- do you have a chemistry lab? How do you get those tolerances on your water chemistry?
*************************** Be warned -- everyone at college has a weird roommate. If you don't have a weird roomate -- then you're the weird roommate.
Conan O'Brien, Stuyvesant High School.
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New Member
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Last Login: 4/8/2008 10:48:47 PM
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| LOL I knew that I would get some weird questions about those chemistry results. I live here in Casper, Wyoming and I use Aquarium Water Testing in Ft. Collins, Colorado which is a god send because I just bottle up two small bottles of water in the morning and ship it off to them and the next morning I have water results in my in box and they are all evaluated by a marine biologist. Quite handy if I do say so myself.... No back to the problem. I thank everyone for their replies and I will post my PH and Salinity readings sometime tomorrow as I am a Flight Paramedic and am at work for 24 hours at a time. I will be back home tomorrow. I will start removing the mech. filters and letting things stabilize inbetween. I will post more tomorrow. Jeremy
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Starting Member
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| I was wondering if you were using AWT. The 14 parameters matched the advertisement. I looked into their service myself but the weekly test rate was a little high for me. Still thinking about the monthly package. David asks a good question about the liverock. What is basis of your biological filtration? Good luck
So many species, so little money!
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Fishkeeping GURU
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There is a mention of live rock in the original post. There is 60lbs of natural live rock and 10-15lbs aquacultured.
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Moderator
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Oops -- missed the live rock. Sorry.
***************************Be warned -- everyone at college has a weird roommate. If you don't have a weird roomate -- then you're the weird roommate.
Conan O'Brien, Stuyvesant High School.
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