tank

[spongebob lover]

hi !! this is my tank, as you can see i have bubbles under the sand and on the sand and they are covered with some kind of light green layer. I also i have a lot of flat worms, algae and a little bit of red slime .
My tank it has been up for a year i feed my 2 clowns, a yellow tail damsel and a bicolor pseudochromis some kind of frozen food which has shrimp and all the good stuff . About the maintenance i check the salt with a hydrometer and i have a test kit so every month i do check the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate,ph and alkalinity. My light bulb is about one year, so i'm changing it today finally , ohh and i add about one table spoon every water change of white powder which i think its call the superpuffer which keeps the tank DKH and its PH fine.
so does anyone know if these bubbles are ok? and what should i do to make this tank look like the way it was before ( with no ugly stuff hehe )

ohh and did i mention that some of my xenas are death

 

[mojoreef]

Wow that doesnt look good. Educated guess would be that you have a cyano problem and it is traping excess co2 coming from the dsb. Syphoning it out would be a good first plan.


Mike

 

[damer]

wow, sorry mate, not good!!! i dint think you are going to have much luck at manually getting rid of all those flat worms.

could be cyanobacteria.

how big is the tank. how much circulation do you have. what are you test kit results.
how often do you feed "the good stuff". how often do you change water. do you top up with RO or tap water. NSW or artificial? how long are you lights on for.

sorry about all the questions but this info. is needed to try and fix your problems.

are the lights halide or fluoro. fluoro lose their spectrum at around 6 months, therefore cyano will often come.

if you have a DSB the bubbles in the sand may be nitrogen gas.

damien

 

[wrassehole]

if you siphoned your gravel, it would be clean. My recommendation is a little elbow grease. I literally clean atleast one thing per day, wheather it be the glass, the pumps, the gravl, the live rock. just keep on it. one year is still a young aquarium. i didnt have smooth sailing till about 3-4 years into this hobby.

 

[wrightme43]

Mike Damien and Wrassehole all have given you good advice. If it were mine, I would prepare a 20% waterchange, match temp/sal. Do a large pruning of your macro algae, siphon as much of the junk off your sand bed as possible, with small diameter airline tubing. Try to get as many flatworms as you can at the same time. Fill it back with the new water. The macro algae you have will grow back rather quickly and help to use the nutrients in the tank. Once the cyano and sand bed problem are under control, then I would begin to mess with the planiria (sp?) Try to do one thing at a time so you know what could be a problem if it pops up. You may end up replacing your sand bed or going to barebottom. I am becoming more and more tempted to go BB myself. This is only my opinion and how I would handle my tank. There are lots of very talented people here who may have better ideas. I would not fail to use every test kit you have and tell us what the reading are. If you dont have one get a ACCURATE phosphate test kit. I use Sailifert. Keep posting photos and asking questions. Thanks Steve

 

[mojoreef]

On the flat worms try this. Get a peice of white plastic board (cutting type board) put it on the sand. When the lights go off, shine a flash light or simular on the board over night. Next morning the board will be covered in them, just syphon them out.

Mike

 

[NaH2O]

Spongeboblover - I think there are some great ideas here - I also love the cutting board idea for getting the flatworms. I, too, would like to look at your system as a whole, so we can figure out where the nutrients are coming from. Damer has some great starting questions. Do you use ro/di water, how often are your water changes, how often do you feed? Run your water tests and post the results so we can have a look at your most recent readings. Also, as wrightme43 suggested, try pruning your macroaglaes back to serve as nutrient export.

 

[wrightme43]

Mikes a genius, I would of never thought of the cutting board idea.

 

[Rob Schwartz]

While I have no flatworms, I have to write down tht cutting board idea as one of the most creative I have ever heard!

Thanks Mojo!

Rob