What am I doing wrong?

[AmaleeC]

Hello everyone. I started my reef tank in October of 2019 and everything has been running ok. But I’m having trouble with a few things:
1.) My lawnmower blenny has gotten SUPER skinny. How should I go about training him to eat other foods?
2.) My pH is too low (7.4) and my phosphate is too high (3.0) any help is appreciated. I’m running some GFO in my filtration and Kalkwasser in my ATO with no luck. I tested with an ATI kit.
3.) I had a massive cyano outbreak. Only thing that worked was chemiclean and it took care of it right away. Now I’ve got small bits of hair algae growing in random spots - should I use 12% hydrogen peroxide? Or work on my water parameters?

Stock:
- Lots of soft corals (toadstool leather, zoas, and mushrooms)
- One frogspawn
- One maroon clownfish, a Richmond’s wrasse, a neon blue cleaner goby, and a lawnmower blenny
- Chateo and red dragons breath macro algae

Filtration: LOTS of carbon, Chemipure blue, Seachem Matrix, Ammochips, Sponges and Fluval Clearmax Phosphate Remover

 

[Jseimo]

Do you feed nori sheets for your blenny? If not get some toasted sushi nori, unflavored. They are herbivores and love the stuff. I’d double check your parameters with another test kit brand, ati is not the most accurate. (Red sea, salifert are good one to double check with). Me personally, I’d stop all forms of carbon (matrix, and chemipure). Look at adding some bio media bricks or spheres depending on space. To battle the hair algae work on your parameters first. Cut back on feedings, beef up your clean up crew, manual removal. Be patients and don’t do anything drastic

 

[RobW]

What are the other parameters of your water? Ph, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, dkh, etc. API test kits are not accurate at all. I agree... red sea makes nice kits. Hanna checkers are good. What's the temp and salinity? What type of foods do you feed and how much. Is the tank near windows where sunlight hits it? How big is the tank and what type of lights are you using and how long do you have them on for?

 

[Hermie]

Hmm, my advice is don't worry about the hair algae until you get the livestock healthy. From what I read, the main thing wrong is the skinny blenny and that's it. You didn't say any corals were looking bad or dying, so I assume you are happy with them right now. If that's the case, don't go chasing parameters, although the pH is strangely low. Can you test your alkalinity and specific gravity?

 

[RobW]

As for the hair algae... is it bright green or is it slightly brown with bubbles in it. Could be dinos. Grab it with your fingers and peel as much off the rocks while using a syphon to suck it out and do 10-15% water changes weekly. Consistency and stability are key. We've all been there.

 

[RobW]

I've never had lawnmower blennies, so I'm not sure what advice to give you there. I will leave it to the others that know better. The ph is oddly low. Just trying to get a feel of what's going on in the tank. Do you have any pictures that you can post?

 

[AmaleeC]

What are the other parameters of your water? Ph, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, dkh, etc.

I have the saltwater API Master Test Kit.
Nitrite: .25 ppm
Nitrate: 1 ppm
Phosphate: 2.0 ppm
Ammonia: .25
pH: 7.4
Tank size is a Waterbox Cube 20. But I’ll say about 15 gallons just to be on the safer side.

When I test my well established freshwater tanks With the kit - my ammonia and nitrate come out with perfect readings. Idk if it means anything, but I tested that out of curiosity. I can’t buy a salifert kit right away and my nearest LFS is an hour away, so I’m a little limited in options in that aspect (I’m starting a new job )

What's the temp and salinity? What type of foods do you feed and how much. Is the tank near windows where sunlight hits it?

Temp is 79, salinity is .28 (I didn’t even notice!!! I’m going to take some water out so the ATO can do it’s thing). I either feed my fish mysis shrimp, bribe shrimp or something called, “emerald entree” (a mix of different shrimp and algae’s). I also left in some CoralVue Masstick on purpose for my lawnmower blenny in hopes he’d take a bite and eat some. In addition, I used to feed Reef Roids but I stopped after my water parameters went out of wack. Randomly I’ll throw some Coral Frenzy in there to at least try to help everyone.

The tank is in the living room, and we have windows but we’ve got blinds up so it receives small bits of sunlight but not a drastic amount. My lighting is a 18-24” Current USA Orbit Marine

Hmm, my advice is don't worry about the hair algae until you get the livestock healthy

Im definitely worried about my poor blenny. I put some CoralVue Masstick in there in hopes he’d eat up. But I’m also worried about my zoas who aren’t opening up all the way like they used to and my toadstool leather which isn’t releasing its polyps anymore because they’re just barely opening up. But once the parameters are a little better - im sure they’ll be okay.

Additional info on filtration: In the first section of filtration where there was originally a filter sock, I took it out and replaced it with a filter caddy to put in the media I have now. In the center section, I left the carbon and the large sponge that came with the original Waterbox kit. But I took out the biospheres to stick some macro algae back there and some seeded live rock to create a mini refugium, I’m really considering sticking the biospheres back in at @Jseimo’s suggestion. I took them out all at once, and even though it was about a month and a half ago - I’m sure it had SOME affect on the tank. I didn’t realize until way after that I can’t do it that way..

Attached are some photos, hopefully it’s helpful. Everyone is sleeping, which is why they’re more closed than normal. I also tried to get photos of the hair algae which actually is not a colorful bright green, but a dull green.

 

[Topekoms]

First off you can't use a saltwater test kits on fresh water or vice versa. Second I would ditch API I like sailfert they are way more reliable. Are you using API to test PH? What kind of light do you have on your *refugium* if you are not lighting the algae it will do no good and you are better off going with the filtration that the tank came with. I would also put the filter sock back in to catch the big parts of food so that you can export it before it breaks down in to unwanted nutrients

 

[Hermie]

hmm, .28 is not a reading, do you mean 1.028 specific gravity? or 28 PPt ?

One is too high and the other is too low.

 

[Hemmdog]

You need more rock, that doesn’t seem like enough surface area for the biological filtration reefs need. The positive ammonia and nitrite test results are quite alarming as well. Are you using RODI water at least? The high phosphate is most likely from reef roids and frenzy, they always shoot up my phosphate too.
by .28 salinity I hope you mean 1.028. If so that’s not bad, get it back down to 1.026. Drop temp to 76-78 too.

 

[AmaleeC]

First off you can't use a saltwater test kits on fresh water or vice versa. Second I would ditch API I like sailfert they are way more reliable. Are you using API to test PH? What kind of light do you have on your *refugium* if you are not lighting the algae it will do no good and you are better off going with the filtration that the tank came with. I would also put the filter sock back in to catch the big parts of food so that you can export it before it breaks down in to unwanted nutrients

Thank you! && yes, I am using my API to test for pH. It is the only kit I own currently, but I will be upgrading as soon as possible to the Salifert. I bought this cheap light off of Amazon that had high reviews for growing chaeto: . My lights are turn on around 7am, switch to night mode at 1pm and shut off around 10pm. I have the filter sock still, but I took the pieces that hold it up off so to put it back on would be a project.

 

[AmaleeC]

do you mean 1.028 specific gravity? or 28 PPt ?

Sorry. Thank you! 1.028.

 

[Topekoms]

Has the algae grown at all since you put it in?

 

[AmaleeC]

You need more rock, that doesn’t seem like enough surface area for the biological filtration reefs need.

Sorry, yes, 1.028. I’ll lower the temp right now, && yes, my ATO has RODI water with Kalkwasser mixed in. Kinda a relief that the coral food is what’s raising the phosphates - I couldn’t figure out what was happening.

Has the algae grown at all since you put it in?

Honestly, I can’t tell. But I can tell that it hasn’t died either

 

[KHunter0622]

Take it back to basics. Stop everything. Let the tank run no socks, take all the carbon and other controller products out. If the Matrix you have is regular matrix leave that in. If it’s Charcol Matrix take it out. Do a 25 percent water change. Lower temp to 78. Go for a 1.025 on salt. Run lights 6-8 hours a day. Feed 3 times a week with the sump off. If you don’t have a clean up crew get one. If you are running a skimmer turn it off. Do 25% water change once a week and top off with fresh as needed. Stop chasing numbers or you’ll always be chasing. Good luck!

 

[AmaleeC]

Thank you everyone! I took out everything except the sponges, bio-spheres, macro algae and matrix. Water change is complete. Temp is set to 78. I’ll change my feeding schedule and set reminders in my phone. I’ve got two turbo snails, one nassirus snail, and one hermit crab but I’ll be buying three more snails to help out. I’m doing my best not to worry about the numbers lol

I’m changing the lighting schedule now to run for 8 hours a day. In terms of the lighting, should I run more time with the whites or the blues?

 

[Terri Caton]

But feed your blenny nori every day!

 

[AmaleeC]

But feed your blenny nori every day!

Very sound advice! Lol thank you!

 

[AmaleeC]

Hello everyone! Here’s an update on everything. Thank you all again for the advice!

Water Parameters
Nitrate: 2 ppm
Ammonia: .25 ppm — probably a false reading
Phosphates: 2 ppm
pH: 7.6
Salinity: 1.026

In regards to the pH, I test everyday around the same time && I’m going to add a little more Kalkwasser to the mix next time around to improve this a bit. But everything is good otherwise. In my filtration, I left the sponge and matrix. But also ended up adding some Chemipure Nano to help with some water cloudiness.

Corals
I noticed some hydros on a zoa frag and tweezed those suckers out. The one frag they were on is definitely happier and even grew a new head! But it’s definitely not as happy as when I first got it, and neither are the very first ones I added to the tank. Any thoughts on that are appreciated. After adding some distilled water (usually I use RODI but the LFS closed by the time I got home), I noticed some zoas perked up a bit afterwards. Photos attached.

Fish
All of my fish have adapted well to the new feeding schedule (M, W, F) and my blenny is a sucker for the nori. Huge thanks to all of you guys for that suggestion! He’s not plump like when we first got him, but he’s definitely not skin and bones like before.

 

[KrisReef]

Do you test the LFS RODI for phosphates? Sometimes this can be a source too.