Lem
Community Member
Ok so I am new to the hobby and I am having issues with my tank. It started out so colorful, crystal clear water and now I have a mess of brown blah. I dont know what happened.
Here is what the tank looked like, some of you may remember from my intro post...
Now, this is what it looks like...
Can someone please tell me what happened?
Some back ground. All the parameters in the tank are good. 20% or more of the water is changed weekly. Fish are not over fed, and everyone in the tank seem to be happy. Minus a few SPS that arrived with very few active polyps and have now pretty much all gone and one of my Acans isnt too happy either. Not sure why. Maybe because I went on vacation for a week an a half and my cousin might not have done a very good job of taking care of the whole. I really regret that I was away for so long. You can ask my parents, whom I was visiting in FL, I was constantly watching my tank using my security camera. They got tired of it. haha. Either way, I am having the browning problem and dont know how to solve it.
On a perhaps related note, cleaning crews, how do you use them and how long do you keep them in tank? My start up cleaning crew is still alive and healthy in my tank. I never moved them but most of the coralline algae that was on the rocks is gone and doesnt seem to be coming back. Could they be the culprits? I keep reading that nutrients can cause the brown mess but I have yet to figure out how to control them.
Here is more on my tank:
55g tank with built in overflow. 30g sump with substrate, some live rock and macro algae, few hermits and snails, one unidentified crab.
Skimmer labled up to 350g (not sure if working properly, I never get it to pull enough out of water and it gets all covered in slime and brown much)
In display tank:
1 Royal Gamma, Peterson Shrimp, 2 feather dusters, pearly jawfish, basket star,
3 green chromies, 3 blue devil damsels, 2 blue/yellow tail damsels.
Pencil Urchin, Peppermint shrimp, Porcelain Crab, Randall Pistol shrimp, Rock Anemone,
Live feeder shrimp, Red/blue/white legged hermits, multiple nassarius/cerith/nerite/turbo snails.
2 rose petal montiporas, baby kenya tree, Speckled grape zoa frag, Aussie Acan Lord frag,
Neon blast Ancora Hammer, two-headed Red People Eater Paly frag, green aussie duncan,
Blue Ricordea, Purple nano whip. (Shell/leftover of a Yellow Vaughani Acro, Blue tip tenius acro)
Here is what the tank looked like, some of you may remember from my intro post...
Now, this is what it looks like...
Can someone please tell me what happened?
Some back ground. All the parameters in the tank are good. 20% or more of the water is changed weekly. Fish are not over fed, and everyone in the tank seem to be happy. Minus a few SPS that arrived with very few active polyps and have now pretty much all gone and one of my Acans isnt too happy either. Not sure why. Maybe because I went on vacation for a week an a half and my cousin might not have done a very good job of taking care of the whole. I really regret that I was away for so long. You can ask my parents, whom I was visiting in FL, I was constantly watching my tank using my security camera. They got tired of it. haha. Either way, I am having the browning problem and dont know how to solve it.
On a perhaps related note, cleaning crews, how do you use them and how long do you keep them in tank? My start up cleaning crew is still alive and healthy in my tank. I never moved them but most of the coralline algae that was on the rocks is gone and doesnt seem to be coming back. Could they be the culprits? I keep reading that nutrients can cause the brown mess but I have yet to figure out how to control them.
Here is more on my tank:
55g tank with built in overflow. 30g sump with substrate, some live rock and macro algae, few hermits and snails, one unidentified crab.
Skimmer labled up to 350g (not sure if working properly, I never get it to pull enough out of water and it gets all covered in slime and brown much)
In display tank:
1 Royal Gamma, Peterson Shrimp, 2 feather dusters, pearly jawfish, basket star,
3 green chromies, 3 blue devil damsels, 2 blue/yellow tail damsels.
Pencil Urchin, Peppermint shrimp, Porcelain Crab, Randall Pistol shrimp, Rock Anemone,
Live feeder shrimp, Red/blue/white legged hermits, multiple nassarius/cerith/nerite/turbo snails.
2 rose petal montiporas, baby kenya tree, Speckled grape zoa frag, Aussie Acan Lord frag,
Neon blast Ancora Hammer, two-headed Red People Eater Paly frag, green aussie duncan,
Blue Ricordea, Purple nano whip. (Shell/leftover of a Yellow Vaughani Acro, Blue tip tenius acro)
