Best equipment to prevent algae?

Aimulator64 · Mar 13, 2019

dansreef said:
Welcome to R2R! There are a lot of guys and gals here who can help guide you! The key piece is to take some deep breaths... and dare I say relax...

New tanks go through all sorts of uglies.... I dont know what you have experienced in the last month.... but you WILL be experiencing more in the months to come. Let the cycle on your new tank run its course. A good cycle will take weeks not neccessarily hours or days. If yours is shorter...are you using some sort of fast cycle solution? ok... Are you watcing the amonia, nitrite and nitrate levels? Dont move your fish until the amonia and nitrate levels are zero! You may see your nitrate levels elevate. You may want to do some water changes to bring it down if it is way too high. Again, not sure how you started and are completing your cycle. Make sure you are tracking your temp, PH, Nitrate, Phosphates....and salinity at a bare minimum. Get the kits and get familiar with the process and the levels. Strive to find stability... Since your nutrient export is limited with a hang on back filter, you will want to make sure you are not feeding a lot...and not stocking you tank too fast. Strive to keep your phosphates < .05 and Nitrates not much higher than 20... lower in the 10-15 range is better.

Your new tank looks nice and will be a great improvement to the other one. Go slow... Nothing good happens in reef tanks going fast. There are all sorts of shortcuts... that manufacturers sell. None, IMHO, are as good as going slow and deliberate. Do your research on here (R2R) on proper cycling of tanks. Look for smaller tanks and how people are managing their filtration, how they are exporting nutrients....etc. Learn all you can here on R2R. IT is an awesome resource for new reefers. I can tell you I would have saved thousands of dollars if it were around when I first started many years ago.

Your LFS did you no favors by suggesting that RODI isn't essential. It is! It will cost you a few bucks more to buy from them or a bit more to get your own RODI system. Never put anything but RODI water in your tank as topoff or as water for mixing salt.

Good Luck! Take it slow. Welcome to R2R!

Thank you very much for the help. I am monitoring the mains every day. The fish won’t move until I have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites. The last tank cycled for about a week before everything was at 0 and ready to go. This tank has been cycling for maybe 3 days and will likely not see the fish for another week, but of course not until levels go to zero across the board. I’m going to pick up a phosphate test tonight just to monitor levels. I should have known better than to assume I don’t need rodi water, so shame on me. But alas, I’m going to take this new tank slow.

I would prefer I have any system in place now that I should need or want, that way the water stays the same forever and I don’t fluctuate any more than I have to. So I already ordered the RODI unit and am still considering a reactor just to have. It can’t hurt right?

I’m a believer in reflection and I tried to take the cheap way out at first.

KyOsIBa515 · Mar 13, 2019

Don’t know if someone put this but I saw you were running your light 8 hours? I’d cut back on the lighting a little. That will also help to combat an algae problem.