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brandon4432
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Around 5 months
Discouraging Reef:/
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Around 5 months
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brandon4432
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I redirected flow, did a 25% water change and siphoned about a lot of debris from the sand bed and things are looking good
chimmike
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What's the water temp and what is your photoperiod?
One thing I found is some new folks like to keep the lights on during the day but keep 'em on well into the night when they're home from work, and the photoperiod tends to turn into 16hrs or something silly. IF you're only home at night and work all day, make your photoperiod something like 12pm-9pm.
One thing I found is some new folks like to keep the lights on during the day but keep 'em on well into the night when they're home from work, and the photoperiod tends to turn into 16hrs or something silly. IF you're only home at night and work all day, make your photoperiod something like 12pm-9pm.
Harry_Y
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That's pretty new, it takes time to get it all running
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brandon4432
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The temperature stays at a constant 79 plus or minus .2 of a degree.
Haha, a very common rookie mistake, the photoperiod is 8 hours. With a half an hour of moon lights that fade into sunrise and sunset
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brandon4432
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There's certainly a lot of potholes in this hobby, although it is so discouraging to look at a hair algae ridden tank. 25% water change and addition of an emerald crab is helping decrease the growth and decrease the amount of algae on the rock!
Harry_Y
Valuable Member
The biggest thing is to not let it get you down, and work through to the goal (a nice tank).
It has it's moments, if you did not have it before this hobby will teach you to have patience.
My current tank has been up for about 7 years, and everything was looking good then I had an equipment issue.
I was at the point (again) of either taking it down or upgrading so I chose to upgrade and clean up some things.
Even the guys who have had tanks up for very long times have had crashes.
We get call out on work or need to visit a sick relative etc and things happen.
That's when we pick up the pieces and press on.
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brandon4432
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You're 150% correct. Do you have any thread dedicated to your tank? I'd love to check it out.
Harry_Y
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djbetterly
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I look at my tank as a constant learning experiment. I'm on my second tank now, and I still do things wrong...and I'll continue to do things wrong. However, keep in mind that you can only learn from those mistakes. Take peoples advice, they are only here to help you. I've learned so much from this forum, much more so than any other forum. People here are genuine, and they care. One other thing, I couldn't help but notice you're using API test kits. Are you still using them? If so, get yourself some new kits. Good kits can be pricey, but in the end they are worth it. I learned a hard mistake recently by having a bad test kit.
Again, don't get discouraged. Just ask questions, and listen to people.
Again, don't get discouraged. Just ask questions, and listen to people.
Dtackett
Valuable Member
most of the points to look at have been hit in this post. but theres a few things I didn't see (I didn't read every word of every comment either)
what are you feeding?
how much are you feeding each time?
list ALL of your live stock
what test kits are you using?
how long has this been doing on?
yes your phos and nitrate kits will probably read 0 due to the algae, your best bet is to reduce it further. ive found the more filtration you run, the less stable your system is. I mean this in the lines of the gfo and carbon. I stopped running either of them a long time ago. you've got a rough road ahead of you, but were here to help.
what are you feeding?
how much are you feeding each time?
list ALL of your live stock
what test kits are you using?
how long has this been doing on?
yes your phos and nitrate kits will probably read 0 due to the algae, your best bet is to reduce it further. ive found the more filtration you run, the less stable your system is. I mean this in the lines of the gfo and carbon. I stopped running either of them a long time ago. you've got a rough road ahead of you, but were here to help.
w0r1d5m1n3
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Maybe the flow going through your canister isn't enough for your gfo to work correctly. Did you say you tested the water coming out of your canister?
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brandon4432
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What kits do you recommend?
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brandon4432
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Feeding New Life Spectrum every other day and a quarter cube of frozen food once a week. Usually Saturday.
I feed a few pellets to them, just enough that I can see all of them got a few. Never enough for them to miss any, I feed one by one or two by two and watch them eat.
Livestock:
6 Astrea Snails
6 Hermit Crabs
3 snails that live in substrate and come out at night
1 Cleaner Shrimp
Mini starfish(came on live rock)
Mini snails( came on live rock)
I emerald crab
2 Clownfish
1 Firefish
I use API test kits for now but I will soon upgrade
Hair algae Has erupted in one week
JSeward
Community Member
My recommendation would be to stop doing water changes. Every water change is adding trace elements and nutrients to your tank. The algae is growing because you don't have any livestock that is consuming those excess supplements and the algae has plenty to feed on. Along with this, stop cleaning the canister. The proper way to clean the canister is with tank water and you won't have any to spare. Finally, turn your lights off and leave them off. Your algae will start to die off and will probably be gone within 2 weeks.
Once it's gone, you'll need to prevent it from coming back once the lights are back on. I'd stick with the no water change and canister cleaning routine for awhile. This will avoid adding food for the algae to feed on while you work on establishing beneficial, nutrient consuming bacteria and pod populations. About a week into the lights out, I'd add an order of pods from AlgaGen or AlgaeBarn. These will hopefully populate your rock work and consume detritus in the crevices and consume algae before you're able to see it. Around the same time, you could add a bacteria product. Not a nitrifying or cycling bacteria, but something like those labeled for cleaning or cyano removal. Like AquaVitro Remmediation or Korallen-Zucht Cyano Clean for example. Once you get these colonies established on your rock and surfaces, algae won't grow on top of it. Hopefully that helps.
Once it's gone, you'll need to prevent it from coming back once the lights are back on. I'd stick with the no water change and canister cleaning routine for awhile. This will avoid adding food for the algae to feed on while you work on establishing beneficial, nutrient consuming bacteria and pod populations. About a week into the lights out, I'd add an order of pods from AlgaGen or AlgaeBarn. These will hopefully populate your rock work and consume detritus in the crevices and consume algae before you're able to see it. Around the same time, you could add a bacteria product. Not a nitrifying or cycling bacteria, but something like those labeled for cleaning or cyano removal. Like AquaVitro Remmediation or Korallen-Zucht Cyano Clean for example. Once you get these colonies established on your rock and surfaces, algae won't grow on top of it. Hopefully that helps.
Betty1964
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I had this same problem a couple of tanks ago. The main culprit in my case was too little surface skimming (too narrow a weir and too small of a return pump) and an under sized protein skimmer. The surface always looked funky and algae...omg... The algae...
srad750c
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Since you have no corals, I would limit light to 2 hrs a day if your room is bright that's good enough, Keep Ca levels at 420 ppm, KH at 10. All you need is a Ca buffer and alkalinity buffer, I use Reefbuilder and Reef Advantage Calcium by Seachem. Don't use a two-part, it has trace elements. Take everything out of cannister filter and replace with one bag of Chemipure Elite or Seachem SeaGel' use for two weeks and toss. Make sure the R/O water is clean. Feed fish brine shrimp once a day and very little at that. If your LFS uses RedSea test kits get you tank and R/O water tested for NO3 and PO4. Make sure you have surface agitation to break up film so skimmer can remove. If worse comes to worse get a brand new tire brush make some fresh salt H2O and scrub as much algae as possible from rocks and put them back in tank, no lights for a month afterwards. Keep temp between 75-77 if possible. Be patient, took me almost 7 months to get tank right. Tanks are crazy, my tank was great for the past 8 years, very stable. Earlier this year I decided to go with some SPS corals, don't know what happened tank crashed, I don't know if I introduced something in tank with corals, bad lighting or bad R/O unit or all of the above. I basically had to start over. I had a terrible Cynobacteria? and hair algae outbreak, never had it before. I scrubbed every rock, gravel vac 2/3 of tank and changed 20% of H2O daily for a week. Could have been anything, I couldn't figure out. I'm still not sure what happened. With some hard word and knowledge worked through it. Never give up!
