Ok what is going on here...

[reefertank]

Ya one powerhead should be fine. Here is my suggestion,

1. Get a bucket and fill with saltwater and a get some circulation in it via small pump and put the rocks you are giving to your friend in it. It can sit in there for over a month and be fine.

2. Now go ahead and scape your rocks how you want your tank to look.

3. Do a 30% water change which should help with your nitrates. Continue to do a 20-30% water change weekly until your nitrates go down. The do 10-20% weekly bases on your livestock bioload.

4. Once you have done your first water change and set your rocks up you can play with exactly where your powerhead should go. Object is to have good flow in your tank without stirring up your sand.

5. Get a CUC, have your LFS test your water to make sure your tank is ready.

6. Enjoy it and don't stress.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Wow, thank you so much for all the info. Very well explained! Basically just wait then eh? Even when these outbreaks, blooms and hair algae shows up, I just wait? I can do the water changes for sure, but I don't have a sump yet - is there any way to introduce the chaeto until I can move it to my sump?

No problem, I'm happy to help. Diatoms feed on silicates coming off the rock and sand. This is that brown film like algae you see. As the available silicate drops their numbers will decline and thus feed the nitrate/nitrite levels. Cyano uses light as well as nitrates for it's growth. This stuff usually doesn't go away on it's own and can eventually cover everything in the tank with a red mat. Treatment methods include 3-4 day blackouts to kill it as well as products like Chemi-clean. These treat the problem, but does nothing for the underlying cause of the outbreak witch is available nutrients in the tank. By treating the cause ie: nutrient export you minimize the likelyhood and/or scope of any cyano outbreak you might encounter. Hair algae and briopsys are notoriously hard to remove once your tank has it. So much so that some have resorted to complete tank tear downs to remove it. There is light at the end of this tunnel as you can often find tank inhabitants such as tangs that will feed on the algae, but it's hit or miss with this as some will happily gorge themselves on it where others if the same species won't touch the stuff. There are products like NoPox and such that bind out the nutrients in the tank effectively lowering them. I have not had much success there but others have. One relatively new method of removing green hair algae (GHA) and briopsys algae is a product called fluconazole. People are reporting, myself included amazing results with this stuff and its ability to rid tanks of this nuisance algae with little to no impact on the rest of the tank inhabitants including corals and inverts.

 

[ABopp]

Ya one powerhead should be fine. Here is my suggestion,

1. Get a bucket and fill with saltwater and a get some circulation in it via small pump and put the rocks you are giving to your friend in it. It can sit in there for over a month and be fine.

2. Now go ahead and scape your rocks how you want your tank to look.

3. Do a 30% water change which should help with your nitrates. Continue to do a 20-30% water change weekly until your nitrates go down. The do 10-20% weekly bases on your livestock bioload.

4. Once you have done your first water change and set your rocks up you can play with exactly where your powerhead should go. Object is to have good flow in your tank without stirring up your sand.

5. Get a CUC, have your LFS test your water to make sure your tank is ready.

6. Enjoy it and don't stress.

Thanks for the tips! I will certainly get a move on this on the weekend! So helpful!

No problem, I'm happy to help. Diatoms feed on silicates coming off the rock and sand. This is that brown film like algae you see. As the available silicate drops their numbers will decline and thus feed the nitrate/nitrite levels. Cyano uses light as well as nitrates for it's growth. This stuff usually doesn't go away on it's own and can eventually cover everything in the tank with a red mat. Treatment methods include 3-4 day blackouts to kill it as well as products like Chemi-clean. These treat the problem, but does nothing for the underlying cause of the outbreak witch is available nutrients in the tank. By treating the cause ie: nutrient export you minimize the likelyhood and/or scope of any cyano outbreak you might encounter. Hair algae and briopsys are notoriously hard to remove once your tank has it. So much so that some have resorted to complete tank tear downs to remove it. There is light at the end of this tunnel as you can often find tank inhabitants such as tangs that will feed on the algae, but it's hit or miss with this as some will happily gorge themselves on it where others if the same species won't touch the stuff. There are products like NoPox and such that bind out the nutrients in the tank effectively lowering them. I have not had much success there but others have. One relatively new method of removing green hair algae (GHA) and briopsys algae is a product called fluconazole. People are reporting, myself included amazing results with this stuff and its ability to rid tanks of this nuisance algae with little to no impact on the rest of the tank inhabitants including corals and inverts.

Wow, I am so glad I can save these threads because this is so specific to understanding what is happening and why which is half the battle. Thank you so much!