my tank

[spongebob lover]

Well FINALLY !!! my camera works ... after who knows how many moths without it, IT WORKS !!! (i'd never leave my kid touch my camera again)
Anyways, this is how my tank looks right now , algae is taking sort of taking over it (i took this pictures a few mins after lights went off).
Right now, i believe the problem is how much i'm feeding, i got a sun coral i believe about a month a go and i've been feeding quite heavy frozen cyclo peeze + frozen formula to my fishes and flakes.... i mean my amphipods are getting chunky, my shrimp gets well fed after i feed the coral.
Tomorrow hopefully i can find some toys that i need so i can add a little help to the tank.
Right now i'm just changing 4 gals of water every wednesday, my ph is 8.3, my nitrate and nitrite says 0 ,and my alk says that it's normal. my salinity says 1.024.
Ohhh and i use my tooth brush every water change to try to scrape off the algae .

my algae wall

 

[liveforphysics]

Time for cheato!

I will give you all you need, and help you setup proper lighting for it in your sump.

It would be a wonderful chance to do before and afters, and I promise you will love it!

 

[Krish]

Gabbs...Atleast you've got great coraline growth! I think when you hook up your new toy it may help a bit. Atleast now that your camera is working you can show us your progress on your tank. What test kits are you using and how old are they?

 

[szidls]

Hey Gabby,
Looks like the tank could use a few snails also. Drive on over and I have some for ya.
Scott&Colleen

 

[spongebob lover]

LOL !!! Krish yeah my coraline looks super :lol:.
I hope the lfs has the stuff i need, so i can get that baby working.
Thank you very much Scott , may be yours snails could get some groove on like mine :lol:, i'll try posting a picture of it today they have some long hairs :lol:.
Krish about the test kit, who knows what i'm using the husband got them for me but they are not salifert .

 

[sryder]

gaby check around for a sea hare they work pretty well. I had to remove the rock from the tank and scrub outside. It was alot of work but i was able to clean around the rock and the back as well.The problem is nutrients that feed the algae. do plenty of water changes and skimm heavy or wet it helps. I still have some but only around 5- 10% of what it was. I also upgraded my skimmer to an asm and was surprised how well it realy works. keep us posted dudette.

 

[rainier29]

The Wild Side in Puyallup has a couple of Sea Hares.

 

[spongebob lover]

I'll check out those Sea hares and see if i can get one.
My skimmer is another problem , it's a Red Sea Prizm, I'm gonna try making a thread about my old Skimmer and see if anyone can help me put it back in action even though it's not a good one either ( who knows what brand it is ), but yeah my feeding is definetly hurting me, i hope that my sun coral gets healthy so i can give it away .
Luke, i will add Chaeto at some point and thank you for offering it.
Right now i really don't wanna just dump anything like that in my tank/sump, but may be in a few months, i'll get a real sump and i'm sure i'll add Chaeto.
About my new toy, i got it yesterday (Thank you Blazer88) and it's a phosban reactor, today i just went and got a ball valve for it and since i couldn't find the phosban media i wanted for it, i'll be ordering it pretty soon on line.

 

[Krish]

I'm going to make you a DIY waterproof weed whacker Gabby! It will get rid of all that hair(LOL) Since you aren't too sure about your test kits, why don't you take some water to the LFS and let them test it for you to see what your nitrates are like.

 

[spongebob lover]

I'm going to make you a DIY waterproof weed whacker Gabby! It will get rid of all that hair(LOL) Since you aren't too sure about your test kits, why don't you take some water to the LFS and let them test it for you to see what your nitrates are like

LOL !!! yeah dood that'd be awesome .
I was gonna take some water to my lfs, but i forgot about it and besides i know how busy they are during the weekend, but i will.

 

[Krish]

I know everyone doesn't have OCD bad like me , but if it were my tank, and it were high nitrates in there, I'd probably take out some of the rocks, scrub off the hair and then do a nice 50% water change to see if it helps. That's just me though and it has been said many times that I'm not too normal:lol:

 

[spongebob lover]

I know everyone doesn't have OCD bad like me , but if it were my tank, and it were high nitrates in there, I'd probably take out some of the rocks, scrub off the hair and then do a nice 50% water change to see if it helps. That's just me though and it has been said many times that I'm not too normal

LOL !!! true, you're a little tini mini bit more crazy than i am, but i was thinking about that.
I have taken the rocks out before and scrub them with the hard tooth brush, i just don't like doing it to often because of the corals, but i think at this point the algae is faster than me may be since i siphon and scrub as much as i can.
Now when you say 500% percent water change, how many gals is that for my 37? because i'm only used to do 4 gals... you know me .

 

[Krish]

Now when you say 500% percent water change, how many gals is that for my 37? because i'm only used to do 4 gals... you know me

You may go broke if you tried a 500% water change:lol: I said 50% water change ding dong(LOL) That's half which is about 18 gals in your tank. Check your water parameters first with the LFS and see what it is like first. Also, if you were to do a big water change like that, you'd need to make sure that the salinity, temp, and ph of your makeup water is the same as the tank so your corals and fish don't experience any kind of shock.

 

[spongebob lover]

You may go broke if you tried a 500% water change I said 50% water change ding dong(LOL) That's half which is about 18 gals in your tank. Check your water parameters first with the LFS and see what it is like first. Also, if you were to do a big water change like that, you'd need to make sure that the salinity, temp, and ph of your makeup water is the same as the tank so your corals and fish don't experience any kind of shock.

LMBO!!! i meant 50... sheesh talk about pressure :lol:.
I'll see if i can go to the lfs tomorrow to check it out.

 

[jesshimom]

Are you planning to use phosban in the phosban reactor? I know that sounds dumb but sometimes people use charcoal.... if you want to use phosban, i have a big container of it we can get you going with.

I think a major renovation and a major water change. I think everything needs to come out and be rinsed and scrubbed and go from there and quit feeding so much. If the sun coral isn't healthy, maybe you should give it to someone who can bring it back to health so it won't die.

if you want help renovating/reorganizing I'd be happy to come over and help; not this coming weekend but the next..

Colleen

 

[spongebob lover]

Are you planning to use phosban in the phosban reactor? I know that sounds dumb but sometimes people use charcoal.... if you want to use phosban, i have a big container of it we can get you going with.

I think a major renovation and a major water change. I think everything needs to come out and be rinsed and scrubbed and go from there and quit feeding so much. If the sun coral isn't healthy, maybe you should give it to someone who can bring it back to health so it won't die.

if you want help renovating/reorganizing I'd be happy to come over and help; not this coming weekend but the next..

About the phosban reactor, yes i'm gonna be putting phosban in it.
when you mean renovation? you mean re aquascaping? when you say rinse it you mean with fresh water or ro/di?.
Usually what i do, is i use the old water that i just took out of the tank and brush a little some of the rocks, because i'm afraid i'm gonna hurt the corals.
Thank you for the help Colleen that's really nice and you can come anytime you'd like .
The coral is right now eating, but i like to feed it quite heavy to make sure he's getting plenty because it was dying at the begining, and now that it's finally opening i wanna make sure it does good.

 

[wrightme43]

Hey Gabby. Glad to see your camera is working. If I were in your shoes. I would hook up with Collene, do that 50% water change, take out that rock and scrub it in the water you remove. Add that reactor and run like you want phosban. I would definitley start growing some chaeto, or something to compete with the algae. I know your probley attached but it would be good to trade that sun coral off to someone with a big enough skimmer to handle the feeding. Someone on here has a skimmer just sitting doing nothing, I bet you will get a offer on one. It will all work out if you take things just like you are, one step at a time. I would really try to work out a way to run cheato in your sump. It really is a great algae.

 

[liveforphysics]

Make sure when you do a 50% water change (which I also agree would be a really good idea), that you dont simply take out 5gal, then replace 5gal, then take out five gal, replace 5gal etc. If we call your tank 40gal, and you do 5 4gal water changes, you actaully only cut nutrient concentration by 63% which is equal to 1 single 37% (14.8gal) water change done at one time, even though you used the same amount of salt and water as a 1 setup 50% water change would use.

This effect gets really bad as tanks get larger.

 

[wrightme43]

Make sure when you do a 50% water change (which I also agree would be a really good idea), that you dont simply take out 5gal, then replace 5gal, then take out five gal, replace 5gal etc. If we call your tank 40gal, and you do 5 4gal water changes, you actaully only cut nutrient concentration by 63% which is equal to 1 single 37% (14.8gal) water change done at one time, even though you used the same amount of salt and water as a 1 setup 50% water change would use.

This effect gets really bad as tanks get larger.

Very Very true. Its good that your doing them weekly, but they are just too small, since your nutrients are overloading the tank, and the export is too small. A few weeks of large water changes will help out alot.

 

[MarineTeng]

i think this skimmer is calling your name i'm not even selling it, though you can have more seaclone for $60...jk i'm hoping to sell it on ebay when i have time...here's the one that's just like mine
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13452
though i must confess i have algae problems too, lettuce nudi's are also at blue sierra, think they were under $20 probalby under $15