Acan issues

[Retro Reefer]

Yes, the question is I have a two part dose for calcium and alk, can I use the alk part only of the dose or do I need to purchase a separate alk booster?

As others have said just use the part you need, in your case Alk supplement

Ok, after that how do I get my ammonia and nitrite down? I'm looking to rehome two fish so hopefully lower bio load.

rehoming fish will definitely help.. Are you doing regular water changes? With your issues I would be doing at least 10% a week or even every 4-5 days, this will help raise your Alk and lower your ammonia and nitrate

 

[Chaley88]

I

As others have said just use the part you need, in your case Alk supplement



rehoming fish will definitely help.. Are you doing regular water changes? With your issues I would be doing at least 10% a week or even every 4-5 days, this will help raise your Alk and lower your ammonia and nitrate

I Do a 20 gallon water change once a week. I have a 90 gallon tank. I honestly would like to redo my rock work and i have some aiptasia on some rocks. I would of liked to start from scratch but couldn't pass up $600 for a tank plus it was already stocked. Live and learn I suppose. How bad would it screw me up if I redid my rock work and maybe replaced the sand? Could my livestock survive?

 

[Chaley88]

In order to get to the aiptasia I would have to remove some rocks and part of me thinks I have to much rock for the tank or again just need to take time to remodel. We had to rush to set up last time and hardly knew what we were doing. I would have to move all my coral around too. But i have rock on both sides preventing me from cleaning some of the glass. Unless it doesnt really matter and would be best to leave it alone.

 

[Retro Reefer]

I

I Do a 20 gallon water change once a week. I have a 90 gallon tank. I honestly would like to redo my rock work and have some aiptasia on some rocks. I would of liked to start from scratch but couldn't pass up $600 for a tank plus it was already stocked. Live and learn I suppose. How bad would it screw me up if I redid my rock work and maybe replaced the sand? Could my livestock survive?

The more you do the more disruptive it’s going to be for your livestock.. you could vacuum out a little of the old sand each time you do a water change. moving rocks around shouldn’t hurt to much, I occasionally pull one or two to remove critters I don’t want.

 

[Chaley88]

What

The more you do the more disruptive it’s going to be for your livestock.. you could vacuum out a little of the old sand each time you do a water change. moving rocks around shouldn’t hurt to much, I occasionally pull one or two to remove critters I don’t want.

What about adding new sand? Iv considered barebottom but I'm not sure how that would affect the sand sifter starfish,conch and other sand dwelling clean up crew. Also my goby and shrimp couple. I kind of like the sand too I guess. Also how do I clean my sump?

 

[Chaley88]

What

The more you do the more disruptive it’s going to be for your livestock.. you could vacuum out a little of the old sand each time you do a water change. moving rocks around shouldn’t hurt to much, I occasionally pull one or two to remove critters I don’t want.

What about adding new sand? Iv considered barebottom but I'm not sure how that would affect the sand sifter starfish,conch and other sand dwelling clean up crew. Also my goby and shrimp couple. I kind of like the sand too I guess. Also how do I clean my sump?

 

[Retro Reefer]

What I have done in the past is just add new sand to the areas where you vacuum out the old, I just do a little at a time and will have the new sand thoroughly rinsed and ready to use before I start.. when I’m adding the new sand I scoop it up in a plastic cup and carefully lower it to the bottom of my tank and gently dump it out to help prevent making a mess or making my water cloudy.

I don’t worry about my sump to much but I’ll occasionally use a turkey baster to suck detritus off bottom, some people will use a small power head attached to a hose like a vacuum to suck the dirt out of their sumps.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Do a water change. before that though, grab a water sample and take to a trusted LFS for a second opinion and comparison to see what they come up with. Acan and favia favor moderate water flow, FEEDING is a must and moderate lighting on the blue side. run some carbon also

 

[jarjor1982]

This is what I’d do:

• Keep your sand
• Keep your rocks the way they are
• Get 2-3 Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata boggessi) for Aiptasia (yes they actually work and eat when lights out)
• Rehome Coral Beauty
• Start dosing Seachem Prime and Stability as per direction on bottle.
• Feed acans pellet food

 

[Auto-pilot]

I

I Do a 20 gallon water change once a week. I have a 90 gallon tank. I honestly would like to redo my rock work and i have some aiptasia on some rocks. I would of liked to start from scratch but couldn't pass up $600 for a tank plus it was already stocked. Live and learn I suppose. How bad would it screw me up if I redid my rock work and maybe replaced the sand? Could my livestock survive?

Also live rock is where all that bacteria lives that is converting your ammonia and nitrite to nitrate. If you get rid of it that surface are is going to decrease lowering the amount of nitrite and ammonia that can be processed. If you add more rock bacteria will eventually grow in it an your cycling power will increase. Same with sand, if you get rid of a bunch of it that bacteria will go with it and that surface area for bacteria to grow will also be decreased. That's why a canister filter can be effective, not only can you put a lot of media increasing the surface area to grow bacteria but it has a pump that will keep a constant flow though it. When it comes to aquariums realize that what you put in must also come out, I personally like to carbon dose. Removing fish will decrease the amount of food you will be putting in the tank making the amount of nutrients you have to remove less. You need to get to a point where you are exporting your nitrate faster than you are creating it.

 

[Chaley88]

Ok so I retested alk today and its 120 according to good old hanna and calcium is 447. Also tested my fresh water from my rodi in my api master and I got what looked like a 0.25 reading on ammonia. How does that happen? Gonna test it in my red sea and then test my fresh salt water too. But if that's the case what do I do? We have well water, I could have containment cause my water is stored and made outside in trash cans with lids so maybe bugs and pollen in it. What are the odds it's the tests are bad? I checked dates and they all say expire in 2020.

 

[Chaley88]

I currently only run a 4 chamber rodi. It mat be time to change filter but the tds reads 0.

 

[Auto-pilot]

I currently only run a 4 chamber rodi. It mat be time to change filter but the tds reads 0.

API is well know for amonia false positives, test with Red Sea. Amonia is an ion so a tds meter will read something if you have amonia in it

 

[Chaley88]

I tested the red sea with fresh water too, knowing they arnt suppose to really be tested with fresh water Nd that it might not be accurate, I went ahead and tested a small fresh batch of salt water too. Of course the api came back on both the fresh and salt with 0.25. The red sea for fresh came back between 0.4 and 0.8 but no nitrites. So could just be the fresh water. Tested the salt water and these are my readings.

 

[Chaley88]

I'm about to change my rodi stuff so maybe my waters fine in the tank and I'm adding the ammonia when I do water changes?

 

[Auto-pilot]

Hmmm looks like the Red Sea ammonia kit indicates zero but that's me looking at a picture taken by a camera. The API nitrite looks like it is zero in your previous tests it was purple. If your water has ammonia in it a new DI resin filter might be what you need.

 

[Ali KOKSAL]

Feed acans with micro plankton and invertebrates food.” Frozen ones”
Get rid off coral beauty.
Dose bacteria for ammonia and nitrite.
Don’t change your live rock or sand. If you have to - little amount at a time.

 

[Dburr1014]

I just read all the posts.
Nobody mentioned that GFO removes phosphates to you. So I would definitely remove your GFO to try and raise your phosphates.

It seems that you may be adding ammonia with water changes....

 

[GrumpyAlison]

Water quality aside, could you also try putting a little cage over the acans? One that has enough holes to keep fish out but not enough to block the light or flow.
I've no experience with coral beauties, but if you have nowhere else to put it, that might help.

As a few other people mentioned, I also do find that feeding acans regularly (I feed them just like I do my NPS corals with pellets or frozen) helps them get happy if they're looking bad after I get them. Usually after a week or so and feeding they regrow any skin they didn't have, puff up and get super happy and beg for food all the time.

In my experience, they do seem to do much better in med-low light, but also just really don't like the light in my one tank (vipaspectra) but they get really happy under my cheap aqua knight light if I dump them in the corner of the tank where it's dimmer. For flow I've found mine will take whatever as long as their flesh isn't blowing off, but I like keeping them at low-medium flow.

 

[Kal93]

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[Kal93]

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[Kal93]

Do you feed your favia/acans? I feed 3-4x per a week due to my low nutrients (7-12ppm nitrate, 0.05ppm phosphate).

Also, what is the PAR reading where they are placed? I keep mine at 80-150 PAR and they are expanded/have their feeders out

EDIT: I don't think that it's due to fish nipping, otherwise other fleshy corals, like your candy canes, or your clam, would also be retracted