New to canreef :-)

[Myka]

Originally Posted by brutus187

A bunch of what I have found out are Red flatworms...ANY IDEAS???

what do you guys think about my water peramiters (tested with an API test kit)?

PH 8.3
Ammonia 0.0
Nitrite 0.0
Nitrate 20
SG - 1.024



Thanks for all the knowledge you guys have compiled into one place!!!

Welcome!

Bummer about the red planaria (flatworms). They can be a real pain in the butt to get rid of. To give an idea of the population...how many do you think are on the front glass?

Your params look ok, but you need to get that Nitrate down. You want to be 0, but at least below 10. What skimmer are you running? How often do you do waterchanges, and of what size (# of gallons)? How long has the tank been setup?

[brutus187]

Originally Posted by Myka

Welcome!

Bummer about the red planaria (flatworms). They can be a real pain in the butt to get rid of. To give an idea of the population...how many do you think are on the front glass?

Your params look ok, but you need to get that Nitrate down. You want to be 0, but at least below 10. What skimmer are you running? How often do you do waterchanges, and of what size (# of gallons)? How long has the tank been setup?

I can see the flatworms more on the rocks than the glass...about 5-10 on the glass maybe but a bunch more on some of the rock.

The tank is a 75 gallon with about a 30 gallon sump. I do waterchanges weekly as well as top up every 2 days. I am not sure of the skimmer that I have I don't think it is working right...i have yet to see anything but a tiny bit of murky water in the collection cup. Rarely do the bubbles flow into the collection cup. I'm thinking i'm going to have to get a new one soon

Is there any way to lower the nitrates besides water changes?

The tank has been set up at my place for about 1 month now ( i think the previous owner had it for about 1-2 years)

Thanks again guys!

[Slipstream]

Hmm, im thinking of buying a tank thats already set up.. how hard was the move?

[brutus187]

Originally Posted by Slipstream

Hmm, im thinking of buying a tank thats already set up.. how hard was the move?

Move was not that bad at all...just a little stressful! I took as much of her old water as I could and tried to have as much as possible in styrofoam coolers instead of rubbermaid containers. Everybody survived the move which was great! Just have enough containers and a truck and you're good to go.


As for feeding less... i only feed once per day and feed one of the frozen brine shrimp cubes. maybe i'll just give er a big water change this weekend.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

You could also rinse the shrimp in fresh water before feeding.

[brutus187]

anyone have any ideas why my skimmer would not be making any "skim"??? the collection cup barely has anything in it. it looks like there are no adjustments on the skimmer either...

[fkshiu]

The only adjustment you can do with the Remora is to move the collection cup up and down using the rubber o-ring that holds it in place.

The Remora is very touchy and not the best skimmer around (it's not the worst one either). Assuming you've re-broken it in there are a number of ways to improve skimmate (the crud) production.

What pump are you using with it? If it's the old Rio, then you can upgrade to a Maxijet 1200. If it's already the Maxijet, upping it to a Mag3 for even more ooomph can help at the expense of a fugly looking pump and added heat.

There's a surface skimmer box you can add as well. This helps because it forces the skimmer to collect water from the water's surface which is most of the dissolved organic compounds (DOC) - the stuff the skimmer is supposed to remove - end up. Another way I used of achieving the same thing is to attached a Hagen surface skimmer attachment to the intake of whatever pump you're using to achieve the same effect.

Another thing I noticed that the Remora seems to skim better with a higher specific gravity. I'm not sure if there's any correlation, but when I bumped my SG up to 1.026 I got more skimmate. This may be because a change in salinity affects the surface tension of the water which is water allows the bubbles to climb on top of each other and collect in the cup.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Originally Posted by brutus187

Is there any way to lower the nitrates besides water changes?

Feed less. Or rather, feed only what the fish actually eat. Food that drifts into the rock, etc. will only cause problems further down the road.

And yeah....regular water changes