My 90 gallon tank

Sailor Steve · May 26, 2018

So here’s some insight on my 90 gallon.

I started this tank about 4 months ago upgrading from my 47 gallon and it finished it cycle in April and that’s when I started moving my fish over. In the first week I moved my pink spotted watchman goby, and and my Fiji blue devil. I definitely regret the damsel but that was the one fish my wife wanted to keep.
After 2 weeks went by I transferred over a six line wrass, a clown, cleaner shrimp and my coral. Although the six line jumped after the damsel bullying it.

For my equipment I have an overflow box that drops into a two chamber sump with a Hydor prein skimmer. I also have two power heads in the display at either head.

As of right now all the fish are happy and the coral is great with some nice growth. But the problems going on right now are my nitrates and phosephates.
My nitrates are sitting at 25 ppm
My phosphates are at . 25 if I have that correct.
But so far there hasn’t been any problems with algae. I have a little bit of cyano that I’m trying to eradicate before it gets bad.

I did a 1/3 waterchange and it didn’t seem like any of the levels changed. I’m kinda stumped on this. I had the same problems with my last tank aswell and was hoping that a sump and protein skimmer would help with this.

DLHDesign · May 26, 2018

First; welcome to R2R! Glad you signed up and thanks for sharing your nice looking tank right off!

Is there a target you have in mind for nitrates? For phosphates?
How much (and often) do you feed the tank?

Sailor Steve · May 26, 2018

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DLHDesign said:
First; welcome to R2R! Glad you signed up and thanks for sharing your nice looking tank right off!

Is there a target you have in mind for nitrates? For phosphates?
How much (and often) do you feed the tank?

Thanks I’d like my nitrates to stick around 10 ppm so the soft coral and lps have something to feed off and my phosphates around 0
I feed half of a frozen cube most of the time and I skip a day here and there

DLHDesign · May 26, 2018

Sounds like you're not that far off from your goal. As the tank develops more, I'd suspect that it will reach more of the balance you are aiming at. My general approach is to not chase specific numbers, but to let the tank tell me what it likes/doesn't like. Sounds (and looks) like you have a happy tank right now.

Sailor Steve · May 26, 2018

DLHDesign said:
Sounds like you're not that far off from your goal. As the tank develops more, I'd suspect that it will reach more of the balance you are aiming at. My general approach is to not chase specific numbers, but to let the tank tell me what it likes/doesn't like. Sounds (and looks) like you have a happy tank right now.

Thanks, I’ve heard that from a few people, the biggest thing for me is I don’t want to have a bad algae outbreak.

Adele · May 26, 2018

I totally agree with @DLHDesign . .after a Dino scare I found that 0 of either are not so good. It’s all about balance and if the tank is happy, ignore the numbers. My No3 is prettt high comparably to others but other than one bubble algae that I am keeping a close eye on, all else is going swimmingly (pun intended)

Sailor Steve · May 27, 2018

For me it’s the cyano that worries me. My last tank was just covered in all that stuff, I know the cause was poor filtration but I guess after going through the hassle of that I’d just hate to see this tank go through it.

samnaz · May 27, 2018

Welcome

Following.

Sailor Steve · May 27, 2018

samnaz said:
Welcome Following.

Thanks, I hope you will enjoy the thread and don’t be afraid to offer any advice or let me know if you have an opinion.

Sailor Steve · May 30, 2018

Sailor Steve said:
So here’s some insight on my 90 gallon.

I started this tank about 4 months ago upgrading from my 47 gallon and it finished it cycle in April and that’s when I started moving my fish over. In the first week I moved my pink spotted watchman goby, and and my Fiji blue devil. I definitely regret the damsel but that was the one fish my wife wanted to keep.
After 2 weeks went by I transferred over a six line wrass, a clown, cleaner shrimp and my coral. Although the six line jumped after the damsel bullying it.

For my equipment I have an overflow box that drops into a two chamber sump with a Hydor prein skimmer. I also have two power heads in the display at either head.

As of right now all the fish are happy and the coral is great with some nice growth. But the problems going on right now are my nitrates and phosephates.
My nitrates are sitting at 25 ppm
My phosphates are at . 25 if I have that correct.
But so far there hasn’t been any problems with algae. I have a little bit of cyano that I’m trying to eradicate before it gets bad.

I did a 1/3 waterchange and it didn’t seem like any of the levels changed. I’m kinda stumped on this. I had the same problems with my last tank aswell and was hoping that a sump and protein skimmer would help with this.

I went to the LFS the other day and I saw a nice looking healthy yellow tang. I tried my best to resist buying it but I ended up going home with it. It didn’t take long for it to warm up to the tank. It was eating that night and the next day swimming around like it has lived there it’s whole life.
The sad part is when I returned home with it I found my clown that I got two weeks prior dried out on the floor. My guess is that it had jumped trying to run from my Fiji devil.

On the bright side after a couple 1/3 water changes I am starting to see my nitrates drop. I also picked up some me chemiclean to deal with the little bit of cyano before it becomes a major problem.

samnaz · May 30, 2018

My guess is it jumped cause you don’t have a lid? ;-)

NY_Caveman · May 30, 2018

Sailor Steve said:
I went to the LFS the other day and I saw a nice looking healthy yellow tang. I tried my best to resist buying it but I ended up going home with it. It didn’t take long for it to warm up to the tank. It was eating that night and the next day swimming around like it has lived there it’s whole life.
The sad part is when I returned home with it I found my clown that I got two weeks prior dried out on the floor. My guess is that it had jumped trying to run from my Fiji devil.

On the bright side after a couple 1/3 water changes I am starting to see my nitrates drop. I also picked up some me chemiclean to deal with the little bit of cyano before it becomes a major problem.

Glad to hear your levels are closer to your liking! I would be very patient and let this tank mature a while after the move. It looks like you have added some new dry rock also that would benefit from this. I assume you added it to an existing structure which makes sense. Having that bare rock right under the light though may invite algae, so I would keep an eye on that (as you likely know).

Looks good, Sailor and welcome to R2R!

Sailor Steve · May 30, 2018

NY_Caveman said:
Glad to hear your levels are closer to your liking! I would be very patient and let this tank mature a while after the move. It looks like you have added some new dry rock also that would benefit from this. I assume you added it to an existing structure which makes sense. Having that bare rock right under the light though may invite algae, so I would keep an eye on that (as you likely know).

Looks good, Sailor and welcome to R2R!

Thanks I plan on doing things slowly this time around. I rushed my last tank and it didn’t quite work out so well.

Sailor Steve · Aug 9, 2018

It’s been awhile since I posted on here, I have been really busy with work and my 2 month only daughter. I still get time to work on the tank fortunately and even got upgraded lights.
I’m going to try and set them up in the next couple days.