tips how you stablize your water!
 

Hey everyone didn't see a thread on this yet !
I'm struggling with a 33 gallon right now so I'm up for any advice .

My tank has been going for 7+ months and I'm having a hard time stavlizing my tank .

What do you do with your tank that keeps everything happy .

33 gal 20 gal sump
40+ lbs live rock
20 frags
1 mandarin dragonet
1 dwarf lion
1 Niger trigger
3 emerald crabs
1 chocolate starfish (sump)
1 turbo snail ( they die off so quick )

Having a film algae problem and its pestering my zoas

Maintence :
5 gallon water change every three days .
Top up every two days (fresh)

Tap water for your water changes?
Aquarium near a window?
What's your photo-period?
Have you tested for phosphate/nitrite/nitrate and if so what are the values?
Salinity? Temperature?
Over feeding maybe? It's hard not to spoil our little babies...

If your turbos are dying so quickly what is the cause? That could be an indication of what is causing an issue in your tank. You have a predator tank, I've heard lionfish are pretty messy eaters, not sure about triggers.

If you want an educated guess from people try including some of the parameters I mentioned, chances are one of them is out of line. As a starting point I'd suggest more cleanup crew. More snails, hermits, etc.

Next time your by bring I'm a cup of water and ill do a full test for you:)

Hope your new bud settled in nicely :)

53 gallons total, 40 pounds of rock, 20+ frags .... and Im guessing no dosing or chemicals added to stabilize alk/ca/mg ?

What I would like to ask is what do you mean by stable? Do you mean a particular element in your tank to be stable? Stability is very broad, but comes down to a few key elements. You never mentioned which part of your tank is unstable ?

Also, do you have a picture of this film algae?

I do water changes to keep my cal up , if I do forget to do a water change I dose cal but I have a hard time with test kits as my house lighting sucks in my apartment . So try to stay away.


Most reefers I talked to say more water changes and screw dosing .
Concepts advice was to use a better salt and a phos reactor .

I have picked up the salt and now waiting on the reactor in the mail .

Most of my frags have less then 5 heads .
And I only have three sps .. that are doing fine maybe should be more fuzzy.
.
Its only my zoas and leather that's being picky .
My zoas are still making new heads every other day .
But there long and half closed . When they are open there skirts look shribbled or not there

Il stop by tomorrow ! And my trigger is still adjusting .

I barely feed my tank , once every four days ? Spot feed mandarin and anomone and few palys .


My hammer coral split yesterday ! And my mushrooms look awesome
Same with my brain coral .

What I mean by stable is my tank goes from clean and happy to ****ed off and dirty in a few days . What I think I need is .

A better skimmer mine is old and not pulling much out latley
A better return pump
More clean up crew
Phosban reactor

My tank is algae clean just a flim or copper looking stuff on sand and glass .
That comes back everyday . I clean it off everyday .

I also blow off my rocks everyday or other day .

like i mentioned to you at the shop , basically phosphates is one parameter that needs to be in check , this is the cause of your film algae any reading above 0.09 and i would be worried shoot for 0.02 to 0.06 and use a quality test kit as most for phos is pretty off(i have the hanna at the store)

as for calcium and alk basically you just need to keep those in a specific range but if you can keep them from changing then youll be golden as for color and growth and nuisance algae

some corals will handle high phosphates quite well while others(like zoas) will not tolerate it for long.

if your phosphates are as high as you told me then chances are your nitrates are measurable as well, good news is nitrates are removable manually.

bring a water sample to the store for testing i have good top of the line kits and can get you a solid reading for your parameters.

as for dosing, its based on what you use unless you can pinpoint or get an accurate reading on either cal or alk then i would avoid dosing as how do you tell what to dose right?

using a quality salt with a tank as small as 30g and not much for coral its safe to say you shouldnt need to dose anything for a while

smaller frags will consume less elemenets then larger colonies as well.

as for feeding i try to feed frozen every other day and pellets as my main food, when feeding frozen its a good practise to rinse untill the frozen food water is clear or even blotch the food on a papertowel before feeding.

and remember what i said about brine, its not very nutritious and adds pollutiuon to your tank.

keep in mind for every action is a reaction , knowing what the reactions are before doing stuff will help you make solid decisions in both livestock and water quality.

any questions feel free to shooot ill help you as best i can:)

when you get your reactor go with a iron based media not aluminum, and start slow a mild drop in phosphates is better than a quick one.

water changes wont clear up phosphates that high and when adding stuff to your tank think "rotting" would you want any of that stuff rotting or decaying in your tank...equals pollution right? so a good practise is feed only what you must, add only what you trust and dont overoad your bioload(what your rock can physically handle)

hope this helps:)

Solid advice. Without some idea of your current parameters it is near impossible to zero in on what you are looking for.

P.S. Hey Reefwars, where you been? Check your PM's :P

It sounds like you have excessive nutrient issues and you're well on your way to tackling the issue with the great advice provided. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

my pm box is messed up if i didnt reply it may have got deleted or missed by mistake , pm me again ill get it this time:) sorry about that buddy:)

or just text me at 403-554-2196:)

Maybe stop doing water changes so often. I've gone 8 months before without a water change and everything was great.

On a 33 gallon system, a 5 gallon water change will cause swings

I do a 5 gal wc every 3 days on a 42g system. Works great. I would prefer it over a 20g every two weeks which would have higher swings

8 months :0 without making a nitrite factory ?

My fresh I can go months on ... But I still do it once a week .

Great advice everyone !

I'm going to look into getting a better skimmer .
And wait for my reactor to get in .
I'm going to continue making frequent water changes
Until I can fix the problem
Also going to get my water checked tomorrow get some real readings
Thanks everyone

But why so often? I'm sure you could do a 5 gallon once a week and it would be fine

I have auto water changes setup now and I still only do about 40 gallons every 2 weeks. But I introduce the new water over 3-4 days

is that a 'real' time frame or just an indicator for..a long time..?

I have gone about 3 weeks with no water change on my freshwater and the same with my saltwater each time my nitrates start to climb. I guess I am so used to 0's on my test kits. On my saltwater tank I would say I 'over' filter (not that I really believe you can do that) I have a large skimmer and lots of live rock and I can see the water clarity changing after about 3 weeks and I run carbon and GFO...

I agree . I couldnt wait more then a month with my fresh .
Can't wait to get gfo on the go ! I don't run carbon anymore though

yup real time frame. there are other ways to remove nitrates other than water changes.

i was also dosing everything during that time

freshwater is different. there are no bio pellets or DSB

got to love when you accidentally pick 24hr shipping and your reactor and media show up the next day.. all plugged in. hope this works !

someone asked for a picture!

yes my trigger got mauled by my lion already.
he asked for it though
my corals are upset atm i did a small glass scrub before the picture

Good news :
my leather was shedding and is happy again
my reactor came in
and my ro unit is up and running

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...92889040_o.jpg

Does your tank get a lot of sunlight?

Nope.

I run royals 730am till 730pm
Run blues 830am till 630pm
And whites 10:00am to 530pm

And royals as moon light all nite

i like to do one thing a week to my tank.
if it doesnt help in a week i do something different

so the reactor is slowly helping
algae was coming in full force
same with cyano

last night did a water change and gave my frags a small rub and swish get all the stuff off them.

well today is the first time in 2 weeks iv seem them open and its kinda a relief.
and the lights are only on blue *crosses fingers*


buying a Tunze Skimmer today, i feel as mine crapped the bed. 3 fish 3 crabs and it doesn't pull anything out