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.