Are we doing this right,Or are we way off?????

[Shane and John]

..Hello everyone..Other than using Tap water to mix our salt ,Is there something else that we are doing wrong??............. In our living room we have a 120 gallon...measures 2' high...2' wide by4'long..We have 2 48" coralife 260 watt power compacts that are set to a coralife timer...Actinics start @ 9 am with the daylights starting at 10am...daylights shut of at 7 with the actinics shutting down at 8 pm..We are running a cascade 1500 canister filter..We have a Prizm skimmer that hangs on the back,also skimms the surface..We are running an Aqua clear 50 power head with an aditional hang on filter for micro particals...We have a whisper 100 air pump with a 12" air stone...we have about an inch and a half of crushed coral as our substrate...we have about 100-110 lbs of live rock...we have several corals...most of which are on the top third of the live rock...we have 5 or 6 different annenomies...A very large carpet...a cpl of bubble tips..two condi's and a seabe...we have 4 fish...we have a full grown Volitan Lion..we have a Christmas wrasse..we have a Sailfin tang of about 4 inches and a tomato clown who thinks all the annenomies are his...Is Very Agressive..]

As for in Johns room...John has a 29 gallon Oceanic bio cube...In that he has about 30 lbs of Live rock and about 5 different annenomies...As far a fish go he has 3 fish...A pink and blue spotted goby.....a juvenile dragon wrasse and a Gold stripped maroon clown..
As far as water changes go....John and i do water changes every other saturday morning..usually between 20 and 25%...We use Oceanic Sea salt which we get in a 5 gallon bucket...We use water right out the tap and mix our water in a 5 gallon bucket...with the Salinity of 1.023 for the 120 and about 1.021 for his...we Use Novaqua water conditioner every time we change water...We do Filter changes every 4'th saturday replacing charcoal and sponges for our media...daily we us a two part additive called Sea Balance to maintain out trace elements......We buff for ph using Kent marine superbuffer
We try very hard to maintain our tanks as this is a hobby we both enjoy together....But we are struggling with the different algea...we both get hair and Red slime algea which we dont want....And in the 120 i can not get my coraline to grow....It also seems we have a green shade or tint to the live rock.....
We use the Master kit Fastest tester kit to check out our Ph. ammonia ,Nitrates and and nitrite and all seem to be at reasonable levels
Hopefully this is the info you need to possibly Guide us to what we are doin Wrong,or what we need to do differently......Other than changing to R/O DI WATER
Again...We appreciate your input and help as we have no one else to guide us.........Thank you for your time...Shane and John

 

[DonW]

Your doing everything right if you want to grow algae. Of course the tap water isnt helping. Salinity is a little low 1.026 or 35ppt is where it should be. Oceanic salt is wacked out of balance and contains plenty of P to fuel your algae. Crushed coral hold detritus great so it has more than ample time to rot and feed your algae. Air stone, isnt doing anything for you except maybe pumping in some extra co2 to feed the algae.

How about listing your actual water parameters?

Don

 

[dailydriven911]

If you want to do it right it might mean spending a bit more money on a bigger skimmer, ro/di unit, supplements and so on...otherwise the algae will continue to grow:shock:

 

[trido]

These two about said it all........
Better skimmer, RO/DI water purifier, maybe better test kits to ensure accuracy.

 

[theJ]

Doesn't Don have a special way with words He is right though :/

I wouldn't worry about your salt all that much at this time (other than sal/sg is too low). Heck I use Oceanic, I have some algae issues, but I also don't have a $300 skimmer, an over abundance of liverock, and I am still new to the game, dealing with issues I caused on my own.

My suggestions would be to create a long term plan involving:
Switch to ro/di immediately (buy it from your LFS if you cant get a filter)
Start water changes weekly, 25% if you can swing it, and don't miss a weekend -ever-
In a few weeks, start phasing out that crushed coral for sugar sand- its not doing much for a biological filter right now (not enough surface area) but go slow removing it, just in case. 2-lbs at a time should be ok.
Bump up that sg/sal to 1.026/35, over a period of a few water changes
Get a better skimmer, save for a few months if you need to.
Remove the airstone as soon as you:
Get a couple few power heads. Maxijet 1200's are like 30$ (15 used), and a good bang for the buck (Maxis for now... But Seio 1100's would be nice in your 120)

Can you show us your actual test results for nitrates/nitrites, PH, KH, Ca, sal/sg (refractometer), phosphates? Maybe take a sample to the LFS and have them run some tests? By the way, how often are you feeding, and how much?

Hang in there

 

[DonW]

Doesn't Don have a special way with words He is right though :/

Give me a break, I refrained from discussing the prism skimmer. It sound to me like a LFS made a quick buck and gave some bad advice.

Don

 

[theJ]

Haha, I did say you were right though!

 

[Holygral]

IMHO, I would not buy a RODI unit from your LFS as you will pay double the price that you would pay on the net. Ebay has some inexpensive units all the time, my personal favorite on the net is The Filter Guys, that are EXCELLENT at customer service and helping you understanding and setting up you unit. I would also look at Hydro Koralla power heads also as they are about the same cost as Maxi Jets with much more flow and a wider pattern and a MUCH better long term mount.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

IMHO, I would not buy a RODI unit from your LFS as you will pay double the price that you would pay on the net. Ebay has some inexpensive units all the time, my personal favorite on the net is The Filter Guys, that are EXCELLENT at customer service and helping you understanding and setting up you unit. I would also look at Hydro Koralla power heads also as they are about the same cost as Maxi Jets with much more flow and a wider pattern and a MUCH better long term mount.

What is there to add other than SEIO powerheads are a little more but awesome for the money.

 

[theJ]

IMHO, I would not buy a RODI unit from your LFS as you will pay double the price that you would pay on the net.

Yes most definitely. What I meant by "buy it from your LFS if you cant get a filter" was to buy the already processed RO/DI water in BUCKETS from your LFS if you cant afford an RO/DI system at this time. The filter guys are excellent, great customer service and prices.

 

[dnjan]

Perhaps I didn't read carefully enough, but how long has the tank been up?

A major problem with crushed coral for a substrate is that detritus is able to work its way between the particles all the way to the bottom. There it sits, slowly decomposing and releasing organics into your tank, which is perfect fuel for nuisance algaes. For a 120-gal tank, you would probably need at least a half dozen prism skimmers to keep up with what is being released from the decomposing detritus. Hence the above suggestion to gradually replace the crushed coral with fine sand - the detritus does not get as far into the fine sand, and can be more easily removed by vacuuming when you do a water change.

In the mean time, use a gravel-cleaner (siphon hose with a large end that sucks up the substrate, sucks out the detritus, and lets the sand particles fall back down) to clean about 1/4 of the substrate each time you do a water change. Suck up the crushed coral all the way to the bottom of the tank. You will be amazed at the accumulation of tan/brown water in your waste water bucket.

Also, what is your feeding regimen? You have some major detritus-producers in those four fish, and overfeeding just adds to the waste build-up.

 

[knowcrap]

1) Water can be purchased at Safeway, or any other store that sells the Glacier Water (Safeway .41¢ per gallon) - this is what I use for water changes (have for the last two years) and it's just fine. I am sure someone will make a comment about this, just remember advice like DonW's is like celery, might fill you up but has no nutritional value. In this case you can test the water when you get home before and after adding anything to it to verify it is plain pure water.

And please do not take my word for it, search the net (I did with ["Glacier Water" Saltwater Tank] and found many others are doing the same with success). Of course I have an RO/DI unit that I use to make top off water with...but with a few 5G buckets you can limit trips to the store to once or twice a week and save up for a nice unit...there are probably a dozen people here that would be more than happy to get rid of a few buckets for free.

2) Get a better skimmer. This is kind of a hard thing to grasp when you are new to the hobby but what you will learn is that not all skimmers are the same and this is a case where you really do get what you pay for. One thing you can do is look for a good used skimmer (when someone upgrades) and search the forums for skimmer talk (here and reefcentral.com)...locally you can go to Barrier Reef and talk to Mark who will talk to you ad nauseum about skimmers and skimmer technology and can recommend a skimmer that will meet your needs and fit your budget. It's what I did and I have been nothing short of happy the skimmer he suggested (and slightly modified) for our tank. Basically you will find that you are going to need a stronger skimmer, over time, to manage the bioload.

3) Oceanic salt is fine, the one thing to note is that is can be high in calcium and needs alkalinity buffering...it's what I would call a "high maintenance" salt (because of its need for vigilant alkalinity buffering). I actually used to use it but am a little lazy and switched to Seachem Reef salt as I have found their salts batches to be consistent and fairly balanced. At this point I think the salt you use is going to be secondary until you are more familiar with your tanks routine tank maintenance needs.

4) Water changes are a widely argued subject, some people claim to never do them over the course of a year or two while others do 25% (or more) every week. Personally I have found doing 25G every other week (on a 180G tank) works out fine for me. Personally I am in the camp that agrees that water changes are necessary (replace trace minerals, clean water, etc.) but not to the extent of a weekly, large volume.

In the case of the smaller Nano, if there is no skimmer I would suggest at least 5G every week as you need to make sure you are getting out the waste on a more regular basis. We also have the same tank upstairs and find that if you are not doing a weekly water change things will get bad fast...and do note that in a smaller thank you have less room for error and if something bad happens is will happen faster where there is less overall water.

Of course in some cases, like a nitrate spike or salinity dip you will find that you can get things back into balance by doing many water changes over time (e.g. nitrate spike/algae bloom you can use small daily water changes to get your levels back into acceptable ranges). Not that I am recommending that for you now...and the reality is you can provide a short tem fix with water changes but always need to find the root of the problem to provide a truly lasting stable environment.

5) I think the most important thing early on is to develop an understanding of your tank...this would be regular maintenance, water parameters, etc. and I usually suggest people do this via a tank log. Just record everything you do...water change, test results, additions to the tank etc. After just a couple/few months you should really know your tank inside and out and will develop a much better maintenance schedule to fit your time and budget needs...you'll just know when things are wrong.

Since you already have livestock you just need to pay close attention to this as you go along so as not to harm anything...and you shouldn't if you take things slowly. Overtime it should become second nature to maintain your tank.

6) As far as algae or diatom blooms are concerned, there are many ways to combat them. I found, over time, two ways to successfully attack the heart of the problem. First was water flow, this is helpful especially in a reef system as it helps keep particles moving (and is needed by many corals, not all mind you) and can prevent algae from having a place to plant itself. Second was the addition of a refugium...using macro algae is a natural way to combat the bad nutrients in your system (algae needs bad things like phosphates to grow, so why not add some to you tank and let it use those nutrients up rather than letting is grow where it wants to). DonW will tell you that it will not grow in his system because his nutrient levels are so low and that they are worthless...but a refugium can also be used to create a "pod" lifecycle in your system which can provide natural feeding to the cycle of life in your system. Many fish, like mandarins are “pod” eaters and require them to survive.

I personally dealt with algae problems for 6 or 7 months and by adding the aforementioned I now have a nice and healthy system that is otherwise algae free. People have experienced these issues for years (and years and years) so there is a wealth of information out there to glean from…i.e. don’t just take my advice.

Now, with all that said...my opinion on advice is this - maybe people tell you what they do and expect it to work for you...all systems are going to vary from one another so the best thing to do is educate yourself (here, reefcentral, wetwebmedia...and a good local fish store, and please support your local fish store if you feel that are supporting you...Barrier Reef is good in my personal opinion...and I support them) and extrapolate from peoples advice and develop both knowledge and a system that works for you. No one person is going to be able to give you all the knowledge you need to maintain your system and this will become more evident as your time in the hobby increases.

Personally, I have been at this for just 3 years now and find that I am still learning...the initial learning curve can feel steep but once you get past that you'll be doing just fine. It seems to me you are making a great start (just by asking questions you are doing the right thing(s)) and with a little help (e.g. recommendation to move to a different substrate other than crushed coral…read up on deep sand beds, shallow sand beds and bare bottom tanks and raising your salinity levels) you’ll be at least as successful as many others and will have years to enjoy the hobby. You may experience a few setbacks which is normal, but with a simple desire to learn and be successful you’ll do just fine.

 

[Reeferdude]

crap that's a long post...

 

[Shane and John]

.Thanks everyone who has replied...I realize now after a bit of research that my skimmer Sucks...that will be my first upgrade..We are going to get our own r/o di unit at the house so that shouldn't be a problem either...Now..as for the crushed coral...do i just start to slowly remove it..Or do i get out as much as i can during my next water change..Sat morning????...As for a refugium..I dont know much about those...what size would i need on the 120??How many pumps does it take to run one??We do not have any overflows in our tank so how do you go about setting it up??How many power heads are recomended for this size tank??...We feed our fish once daily.they eat a frozen variety cube...and get a few small Krill and or silversides..As for our lfs..we get lots of advise...but its hard to roll with advise as we have gotten so much conflicting ideas on what is right.....Again...thanks everyone..i do appreciate it...i will get it right..

 

[Shane and John]

Btw...Tank has been up and running about 3 yrs...2 as a fish only tank and the last yrs with corals and annenomies..

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Go slow on the changes, one at a time and let it settle in. I really wouldn't mess with the gravel until you had a decent skimmer going. Messing with your sand unless done perfectly will not only cloud the tank, will add more nutrients and spike the nitrates and perhaps ammonia. If possible, siphon out PART of the gravel for your next water change. Replace with clean sand, carefully lowered into place with some bowlfulls.

 

[roscoe]

I hope it is not the LFS in Lakewood or the one on Canyon RD. you are going to! I won't say any names but they are on S. Tacoma way. I know they will feed you everything you want to hear and nothing positve ever came from their advice. They sold lots of junk products to me when I 1st started to do this reef thingy. I would not trust that LFS advice ever again especially if you are new to the game! They are only out to take your money rather giving you the proper advice on how to take care of your reef.

 

[dnjan]

If that has been the same crushed coral since you started as a FO, it will definitely be full of crud.

Don't siphon it out all at once. The crushed coral has a lot of surface area coated with bacteria that are helping process waste in your tank. Taking it all out at once will lead to a significant (short-term: say days to weeks) loss of nutrient-processing capability.

Siphon out about a quarter of it, starting at one end. You can then add some fine (sugar-sized) sand if you want, but try to keep a space between the new and the old. The following week, siphon another quarter, and add more new. After the fourth week you should have it all replaced.

To add new sand, get a large funnel (I got mine from Shucks) and a foot or two of flexible tubing with an ID of 1" or larger. Fit the tubing over the end of the funnel (like an extension). You may need to cut off some of the funnel if it gets too narrow in diameter.
I prefer to pour in dry sand. It flows down the funnel better. Put the large diameter tubing into the tank, holding it just off the bottom of where you want the new sand to go. The top of the funnel should be above the top of the water. Pour the sand into the funnel, and it should flow down the tubing to where you want it. To help the sand flow down the tube, move the funnel up-and-down slightly (less than an inch).
This way you will be able to add the new, fine sand with minimal clouding.

 

[DonW]

I hope it is not the LFS in Lakewood or the one on Canyon RD. you are going to! I won't say any names but they are on S. Tacoma way. I know they will feed you everything you want to hear and nothing positve ever came from their advice. They sold lots of junk products to me when I 1st started to do this reef thingy. I would not trust that LFS advice ever again especially if you are new to the game! They are only out to take your money rather giving you the proper advice on how to take care of your reef.

Their not that bad. Keep in mind they are new to reef keeping and the owner is a oldschool FO guy.

Don

 

[roscoe]

Yeah I know he is Don. I never could get a strait forward advice from them everything was always conflicting, but anyways back to the subject.