New Aquarium build

[Fin]

 

[Daniel 123]

Hi guys, Thank you again for the warm welcome, currently were dealing with a bit of an algae problem, brown algae on the bottom of the sand bed within a couple of hours following a vaccum. Well my thought is he has vastly overstocked the tank and the nutrient level is really high, in fact I put together a list and he has about 78" of fish in a 150 gallon tank, that's 2 gallons per inch of fish which doesn't seem like much. He is now fully stocked and isn't too interested in adding any more fish however this new algae problem is really taking a toll. What are your thoughts?

In anycase I purchased my dad a whole bunch of sps frags I am very confident in the work he puts in the tank so hopefully all goes well with them, maybe il take some photos and get a time lapse of the tank.
Good hearing from everyone.

 

[saltyhog]

To answer some questions Saltyhog, at first he set up a small frag tank where he and I picked out a bunch of frags we liked, however after months of these corals not growing a mm, I decided to purchase him a "colony" from our local fish store Absolutely fish and sea level aquarium, as well as live aquaria. Then I added some carbon to the 20g frag tank and that pretty much necessitated the larger corals purchased as the carbon wiped out all the sps frags we had. Ha I should have posed questions here earlier, live and learn. Salty is it frowned upon that they have not been grown to this point in his tank?
​

Not at all! Most of the time when colonies are available they are either wild harvested or maricultured. Wild colonies have been very difficult to keep for me. Maricultured corals have done a lot better but still do not have as good of a survival rate in my tank as aquacultured frags. Keep us updated as the tank changes and matures!

 

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[Daniel 123]

Not at all! Most of the time when colonies are available they are either wild harvested or maricultured. Wild colonies have been very difficult to keep for me. Maricultured corals have done a lot better but still do not have as good of a survival rate in my tank as aquacultured frags. Keep us updated as the tank changes and matures!

Well salty hog I bit the bullet again and purchased a whole variety of frags for my dads tank to give his budding reef a more home grown sense. Correct me if im wrong but when I looked at these colonies from live aquaria they look synthesized or fake its hard to describe but somethings off about some of them. I didn't think they would be maricultured but what do I know.

Anyway 78" of fish in a 150 gallon tank, to me sounds like an algae outbreak waiting to happen, and it has. I tried telling my dad this but with no avail as hes waiting for better direction elsewhere, or more experience. any thoughts?

 

[saltyhog]

Well salty hog I bit the bullet again and purchased a whole variety of frags for my dads tank to give his budding reef a more home grown sense. Correct me if im wrong but when I looked at these colonies from live aquaria they look synthesized or fake its hard to describe but somethings off about some of them. I didn't think they would be maricultured but what do I know.

Anyway 78" of fish in a 150 gallon tank, to me sounds like an algae outbreak waiting to happen, and it has. I tried telling my dad this but with no avail as hes waiting for better direction elsewhere, or more experience. any thoughts?

On Diver's Den they have a section of SPS....these are almost all wild colonies. You will see them laying on their side a lot of times. They also have an entire section that is all maricultured. LA does a really bad job of photographing, they don't appear to do any post editing either. I think that's what makes them look so odd.

Can you post some current pictures of the tank? Maybe some of the guys can help. Also post present parameters too?!

 

[Daniel 123]

Salty as requested here is the tank as it sits today. I just helped my dad take tank parameters here they are.
1/11/2019
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0.2ppm
Nitrate - 7 ppm
DkH - 8.6
Calcium - 508
Magnesium - 1380
Phosphates - 0.06

Calcium dkh and phosphates taken by hanna checker, the rest using a red sea test kit. A water change was done 1/2/2019, 40 gallons changed on 150gal display and 30gal sump. Water parameters following that water change -
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0.02ppm
Nitrate - 1ppm

I believe the algae outbreak, the nitrite and rising nitrates are a clear sign of an over stocked tank. Feeding is kept to a minimum. We'll see.

 

[Daniel 123]

Hi guys,

I recently have gotten my hands on an apogee sq420 light meter. I took some measurements of the tank at different points. Please tell me what you think or the direction I should proceed to get better measurements.

Light fixture is a 4 bulb T5 ..two 10k bulbs two actinics , also a reef brite LED tech light 48" white blue leds.
T5 bulbs 5 months old. Appox 2" beneath T5 fixture a reading of 580PAR. Approx 2" beneath reef brite LED fixture reading of 270PAR.

The top 210PAR measurement is approx. 12" and total tank depth is 30" Fixtures are about 3.5"from water surface.

​

 

[Daniel Waters]

Anyway 78" of fish in a 150 gallon tank, to me sounds like an algae outbreak waiting to happen, and it has. I tried telling my dad this but with no avail as hes waiting for better direction elsewhere, or more experience. any thoughts?

That is an extremely over-stocked tank in my opinion. From one picture, it appears you all have 6 tangs including a hippo tang and a sailfin tang that are going to get much larger. Plus, you all have a large angel, foxface, and a blue throat trigger, which all are large fish. Throw in all the smaller fish that you have, I can't imagine how much you all must have to feed each day for that size tank! I would expect nutrients to elevate over time, unless you have a very good skimmer and algae reactor / refugium helping export all the waste.

 

[Daniel 123]

That is an extremely over-stocked tank in my opinion. From one picture, it appears you all have 6 tangs including a hippo tang and a sailfin tang that are going to get much larger. Plus, you all have a large angel, foxface, and a blue throat trigger, which all are large fish. Throw in all the smaller fish that you have, I can't imagine how much you all must have to feed each day for that size tank! I would expect nutrients to elevate over time, unless you have a very good skimmer and algae reactor / refugium helping export all the waste.

Im not sure how to convey that information to my dad so that he believes me as employees at the LFS wont say it is over stocked.. Im not sure what I believe as parameters have been stable, nitrates between 5-10ppm between weekly water changes of about 30-40gallons usually performed through a gravel vacuum. Phosphates at 0.05ppm. Feeding has been cut back dramatically, however everybody is pretty fat especially after a feeding. He puts in a lot of work and so far its paid off, it seems he has a much better idea of taking care of his fish than I.

 

[Daniel Waters]

Im not sure how to convey that information to my dad so that he believes me as employees at the LFS wont say it is over stocked.. Im not sure what I believe as parameters have been stable, nitrates between 5-10ppm between weekly water changes of about 30-40gallons usually performed through a gravel vacuum. Phosphates at 0.05ppm. Feeding has been cut back dramatically, however everybody is pretty fat especially after a feeding. He puts in a lot of work and so far its paid off, it seems he has a much better idea of taking care of his fish than I.

It seems he has good husbandry practices, so hopefully he is able to maintain things over the long term. But I think he will figure it out in about a year when some of these fish get a bit bigger....or when something goes awry and the problem gets magnified very quickly from the bio load.

There are certainly many sources online that make suggestions for fish stocking levels that would suggest your current tank is over stocked. I included a couple of links below. I doubt that such references will change your father's mind, though.

http://clearwatersaquarium.com/article_stocking.htm#.XEP7hWlOmdM

http://www.instantocean.com/Instant-Answers/Instant-Ocean-FAQs/General-Questions.aspx