Having A Few Issues

livelifelow · Oct 5, 2018

Hello, I’m relatively new to the salty side. Years ago I helped a friend set up and grow a reef, but my role was more following instructions than having real knowledge.

Brief history on my tank (apologies if my autocorrect spits out Spanish).
Oct 2017: purchased used tank with rocks, stand, and equipment. Rocks used to be live, but had been allowed to dry out. 75g tank btw. Brought it home, bought a piece of live rock, and tubbed it all.
March 2018: Set up 20g qt, bought 1 sunrise dottyback, CUC, caught a sps frag sale and ended up with 6. Put DT on new stand, added aragonite sand, rocks that didn’t go into the qt tank, and water.
April 2018: added last invert to qt tank
June 2018: lost 2-3 corals, moved everybody to DT. Proceeded to break thermometer in DT, coral banded shrimp was only casualty.
August 2018: restocked qt tanks, this time have an invert/coral tank and a fish tank. Invert has 1 fire shrimp, 6 nasarius snails, 4 nitrile snails, 6 blue legs, 4 lps corals. Fish qt has 2 engineer gobies. Did I use copper? Nope. Should I or can I wait a couple weeks, throw them in DT, and use copper next time?
Sept 2018: lost 1 more sps, 2 blue legs
Oct 2018: suddenly my tank is cloudy and my sea hare died, not sure how long he had been dead for, definitely less than a week. My sand has also sprouted colors and is hairy.

Salinity: 1.025
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 0
pH: 8.2
PO4: 0
KH with api test: 125.3-143.2
Going to test Ca, Mg, and KH with Red Sea test after water change.

Is there anything I can do about my colorful sand, or just let it run it’s course? Any thoughts on what happened to my sea hare? Why is my water suddenly scuzzy looking? Isn’t there a good way to put weight on my dottyback? How often can I safely feed him? I’m down to him, 2 sps corals, 2-3 blue legs, and 1 nasarius in a 75g. I do have 2 power heads going, a sea clone 100 protein skimmer, but no sump.

Thank you in advance for the help, I greatly appreciate it.

bsn_rn_cen · Oct 5, 2018

I am a newb as well but I would personally start with a water change, add some carbon, and redirect some flow for the cyano.
Welcome to reef2reef. Lots of very knowledgeable people here shouldn't be long for one of them to comment

Jason mack · Oct 5, 2018

Welcome to R2R, first I would advise raising your po4 and no3 ( phos and nitrate) second add more flow to the left side of your tank near the sand ..the red is cyno bacteria , but with zero po4 and no3 you run the risk of getting dinoflagellates.. also do a large water change first then run some carbon .. give your sps corals to someone with a mature tank too look after for you .. your tank is way unstable and new for sps corals just now ..first get your parameters in check and take it from there !!

livelifelow · Oct 6, 2018

Thank you! I’ve put out feelers for the sps to find a new home, hopefully I can find someone. I lowered one of the power heads and it looks like I’ve got more flow in that corner. How can I raise the phosphates and nitrates? Won’t adding carbon starve my ammonia bacteria and remove the nitrates and phosphorus from the system?