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[ssww21]

It looks like you're blowing sand around

 

[lapin]

No bad your tank just lacks life. Do you have a filter of some sorts?
Calcium is a bit low needs to be in the 400's
Phosphate is a bit high needs to be around 0.1

 

[Robert Roswell]

Current USA uses .5 wat led bulbs. Not a lot of penetration. Ok for a very shallow tank.
You should have blues on for closer to 12 hours per day

Would consider upgrading your hob filter, sump being the best option. At a minimum put rock rubble in your hob filter

To get algae under control you need nitrates around 5ppm, and phosphates around .05. Time to do more water changes.

First thing i’d do is raise tank water level way up to rim. Reposition your circ pump lower and pointing upward. You don’t want it blowing sand around. Would also move rocks off the back glass and separate them some more to encourage more flow behind and around rocks. Would then level off sand, blow off rocks with a turkey vaster, and do a 72 hour lights out/black out, followed by a 30% water change

Thank you so much for your help
You are greatly appreciated

 

[Robert Roswell]

No bad your tank just lacks life. Do you have a filter of some sorts?

Seachem tidal 55 hob

 

[lapin]

Seachem tidal 55 hob

Since you have no sump and rock is your other method of filtration, you might think about a bigger filter or another one of these. You could put some phosphate reducing product in 1 and some carbon in the other.

 

[Robert Roswell]

Since you have no sump and rock is your other method of filtration, you might think about a bigger filter or another one of these. You could put some phosphate reducing product in 1 and some carbon in the other.

Would changing the filter media to Chemi pure elite be a good idea?

 

[lapin]

It might help. I dont know what you have now. I dont think it can hurt. To reduce phosphates you might have to change it out a lot.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I would also try to open your rock structure up a little bit. Minimize the contact points of rock on the sand. Try to get more flow going through the tank and through the rock structure.

Using a little bit of GFO will certainly help. Whatever your PO4 reading is, understand that your actual PO4 level is going to be much higher when it isn’t being sequestered by the algae. In other words, if you were to magically make your algae disappear tomorrow, your PO4 would probably jump a fair amount.

To counter that, what I would do is water changes. Not big changes...maybe 5 gal or so. Before doing the water change, turn the pumps off and scrape all of the algae off the glass and brush as much as you can off the rocks. Let it settle to the bottom and siphon it out. Maybe 2 or 3 over a week...hit the algae first and siphon it out.

Then, plug in your GFO. If a lot of algae comes back, just repeat. Eventually the GFO will outpace the algae.

 

[theMeat]

IMO on a 50 gal without much filter/bio bank, with parameters a lil lacking, water changes is the way to go. Chempure or carbon cause swings. When those media’s are new they absorb a lot, as they get used up they don’t, ie swings. Gfo is good but can reduce phosphate too low if not watched and cause dino, which is worse. Figure in price, time and results, water changes

 

[Dburr1014]

What is the salanity of the water?
I ask because the water is low and to me that is an indication of water evaporating and raising the salt content. I didn't see anyone ask yet. So if you do water changes this would be a great time to fix this also.

 

[Robert Roswell]

IMO on a 50 gal without much filter/bio bank, with parameters a lil lacking, water changes is the way to go. Chempure or carbon cause swings. When those media’s are new they absorb a lot, as they get used up they don’t, ie swings. Gfo is good but can reduce phosphate too low if not watched and cause dino, which is worse. Figure in price, time and results, water changes

I was wanting to follow you up after all the help you have given me. I have performed 2 5 gallon water changes, increased my water level to almost the rim, siphoned the the sand and as much off the rocks as I could, and lowered my powerhead and faced it towards the top of the water. The aquarium is already looking so much better after the little i have done. I have ordered chemipure elite which should be arriving soon but I do not plan on using it for a while. I plan on doing a 72 hour blackout as well. Thank you so much for the help.