10 Gallon Tank Help

alex&fish · Oct 29, 2016

Looking for help on 10 gallon tank!!!!

Been in the hobby, with small 5 gallon tank for years. Decided in May to start up larger tank with Reef Capable lighting, hoping to move beyond basic tank with just a Goby and Kenya tree.

Now in new tank I have struggled with cyanno bacteria and algae growth but have never had any parameter problems, levels measured by myself and LFS have always been zero or perfect. I have done multiple cyano treatments, with minimal results. With the bacteria problems I have delayed putting in any corals besides transferring Kenya tree, fish, and a star poly frag.

I am wondering if I need to add corals to the tank to combat the bacteria and use up some of the light, change out live rock (started with dry) to introduce new bacteria colony or any other recommendations? I am getting really frustrated that my larger tank (up to 10 from 5 g) is harder and that I have not been able to start coral growth.

helen ann · Oct 29, 2016

Can you post a pic?
Cyanobacteria can be caused by high phosphates, have you tested?
Are you using RO/DI water for water changes and top off?

By the way ... Hello and

DeniseAndy · Oct 29, 2016

Need some more info as Helen Ann says. What exactly are parameters and what is your feeding and lighting and nutrients like? Equipment? Welcome!

alex&fish · Oct 29, 2016

So realized I have practically no pictures of my tank... blue light on now and tried to get a picture. White areas are clean sand, blobs to right are green rock, smaller areas on left are dragon breath algae. The other pictures are from months ago when I took pictures of the cyano bacteria at its worst, the rocks are now green...
How in the world to people get good fish tank pictures?????

The light is the Marineland reef capable led lighting system, I have it set to turn on blue light at 9 am, white on at 10 am and then white off at 3:30 pm and blue off at 4:30 pm.

I feed frozen brine shrimp, that I rinse with DI water multiple times to remove extra gunk and small pieces the fish miss. I do small amounts by syringe to the fish over a 10 minute time period making sure all is eaten before more is added.

I change a gallon of salt water bought from LFS about every week and do a liter change in between each of those using DI water bought with aquavitro salinity.

Parameters checked using the API saltwater test kit, colors always appear within normal ranges, I will have to look later on what exactly the numbner are.

Coastie Reefer · Oct 29, 2016

If you started with all dry rock and sand, this is often time a normal part of breaking in a new tank. Siphon out as much as possible and consider running a little gfo. What kind d of clean up crew do you have? If you only have a snail or two consider contacting John @reefcleaners for a crew. He can get you hooked up with stuff that eats all kinds of algae and cyano.

Bknip · Oct 29, 2016

Like stated above suck as much out as you can and run some gfo. Also how much flow do you have in your tank you might want to increase that as well.

TheEngineer · Oct 29, 2016

That doesn't look like Cyanobacteria to me. Cyanobacteria is typically (maybe always?) reddish purple and covers like a mat. That appears to be dynoflagellates to me. Is it brown with air pockets/bubbles?

The person to ask is @twilliard. He's been doing awesome research into combatting these pests with peroxide.

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 29, 2016

icecool2 said:
That doesn't look like Cyanobacteria to me. Cyanobacteria is typically (maybe always?) reddish purple and covers like a mat. That appears to be dynoflagellates to me. Is it brown with air pockets/bubbles?

The person to ask is @twilliard. He's been doing awesome research into combatting these pests with peroxide.

plus 1 not cyano. it should fade away but some cuc members will eat it up.
a lot of these organisms feed upon the mineral diet released when you put coral skeleton into salt water(silica being one) as the minerals on the surface are absorbed or used up by either the organism ot filtration they usually fade. Thus on aspect of the the ugly phase esp with dry rock.

Nano101 · Oct 29, 2016

alex&fish said:
So realized I have practically no pictures of my tank... blue light on now and tried to get a picture. White areas are clean sand, blobs to right are green rock, smaller areas on left are dragon breath algae. The other pictures are from months ago when I took pictures of the cyano bacteria at its worst, the rocks are now green...
How in the world to people get good fish tank pictures?????

The light is the Marineland reef capable led lighting system, I have it set to turn on blue light at 9 am, white on at 10 am and then white off at 3:30 pm and blue off at 4:30 pm.

I feed frozen brine shrimp, that I rinse with DI water multiple times to remove extra gunk and small pieces the fish miss. I do small amounts by syringe to the fish over a 10 minute time period making sure all is eaten before more is added.

I change a gallon of salt water bought from LFS about every week and do a liter change in between each of those using DI water bought with aquavitro salinity.

Parameters checked using the API saltwater test kit, colors always appear within normal ranges, I will have to look later on what exactly the numbner are.

My 12 gallon started like that during the cycling process as I used dry sand, dry rock, an no nitryfying bacteria. Increased water flow from powerheads, some chemiclean, a water change, and you'll be good to go. A blackout doesn't hurt when using chemiclean either.

NanaReefer · Oct 29, 2016

What substrate is in this tank?

ngvu1 · Oct 29, 2016

That stuff should go away once the tank is cycled. This appears to most new tanks I have seen

NanaReefer · Oct 29, 2016

ngvu1 said:
That stuff should go away once the tank is cycled. This appears to most new tanks I have seen

You're right if it were Diatoms he was dealing with. However it's looks more like Dinoflagellates which is a totally different nuisance all together.

alex&fish · Oct 29, 2016

ngvu1 said:
That stuff should go away once the tank is cycled. This appears to most new tanks I have seen

Is the tank still new though? I started cycling it in January of this year (realized I lied in my original post it was January when started the tank I think, or maybe February), added fish and such in May. and by July began developing problems (brown sludge picture).

alex&fish · Oct 29, 2016

Nano101 said:
My 12 gallon started like that during the cycling process as I used dry sand, dry rock, an no nitryfying bacteria. Increased water flow from powerheads, some chemiclean, a water change, and you'll be good to go. A blackout doesn't hurt when using chemiclean either.

I have a power head in the tank, will get a beter picture in the morning of the set up...
I have tried chemiclean around 6 times, done 7 gallon water changes twice and done 4 day black out periods twice. Should black out times be longer? I worry about the fish going longer than that

alex&fish · Oct 29, 2016

NanaReefer said:
What substrate is in this tank?

The substrate was/is live sand I bought from my LFS.

Nano101 · Oct 29, 2016

alex&fish said:
I have a power head in the tank, will get a beter picture in the morning of the set up...
I have tried chemiclean around 6 times, done 7 gallon water changes twice and done 4 day black out periods twice. Should black out times be longer? I worry about the fish going longer than that

You've got me stumped.

alex&fish · Oct 29, 2016

Coastie Reefer said:
If you started with all dry rock and sand, this is often time a normal part of breaking in a new tank. Siphon out as much as possible and consider running a little gfo. What kind d of clean up crew do you have? If you only have a snail or two consider contacting John @reefcleaners for a crew. He can get you hooked up with stuff that eats all kinds of algae and cyano.

I have not used a siphon, tried to vacuum with little success, I mostly do stirring up the tank and then large water changes to remove the waste with use of a net to catch particles. What would you recommend to use as a siphon?

I do have three snails and tho hermit crabs, I honestly have not clue what they are. They are smaller in size (maybe nickel size around). I know I probly had the name down once but have forgotten, they are just the traditional algae eaters. I will look into the Reefcleaners you recommended though if you think I would need more?

alex&fish · Oct 29, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
plus 1 not cyano. it should fade away but some cuc members will eat it up.
a lot of these organisms feed upon the mineral diet released when you put coral skeleton into salt water(silica being one) as the minerals on the surface are absorbed or used up by either the organism ot filtration they usually fade. Thus on aspect of the the ugly phase esp with dry rock.

So glad to hear it may not be cyano, possibly why chemiclean did nothing then. What do you mean by coral skeleton? How is this added or is this from the dry rock? I did expect an ugly phase with my dry rock (which I had with starting up my old 5 gallon tank) this phase just seems really long to me.

ngvu1 · Oct 29, 2016

The rocks are white....I thought the tank was like 2-3 months and just cycled...the thing does look like diatom and should go away when the tank is matured....

alex&fish said:
Is the tank still new though? I started cycling it in January of this year (realized I lied in my original post it was January when started the tank I think, or maybe February), added fish and such in May. and by July began developing problems (brown sludge picture).

alex&fish · Oct 29, 2016

ngvu1 said:
The rocks are white....I thought the tank was like 2-3 months and just cycled...the thing does look like diatom and should go away when the tank is matured....

Sorry that picture was from a couple of months ago.... I probably should of not posted it. I did not have any other pictures of the tank and didn't want to turn the white light back on after it cycled off... will try to get better pictures tomorrow, and change the post then with updated pictures. The rocks are green now.

Super encouraging to hear it may go away with time if it is diatoms! I would really prefer that over cyano that is not affected by chemiclean.