Guys I'm so discouraged, P***** Off, ready to give up

[mandyplo]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

I couldn't find an exact spec on the skimmer but it looks to be of a CPR BakPak style design, which for this tank I wouldn't call grossly inadequate but certainly on the lower end. That said, I grew SPS happily for many years skimmerless and with a CPR skimmer on a similar sized tank.

Mandyplo: what kind of skimmer are you running there?

I agree with you though: tank looks young. I don't think that's the problem at hand but without the tank's "immune system" at full speed, it's more of a battle keeping things in check.

I bet the clams are lovin' the excess phyto though

Hi tank is a year old in January. Should I keep the clams in and let someone babysit my corals? Also I am running the octopus BH-2000 skimmer.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by mandyplo

Hi tank is a year old in January. Should I keep the clams in and let someone babysit my corals? Also I am running the octopus BH-2000 skimmer.

That skimmer should suffice for now but in the future you should try looking for something more powerful like a Vertex, SWc, etc (I know, more money, right?)

I was going to say that if you're good at matching the temperature and salinity of the tank when doing water changes then you could leave the corals and clams in when doing big changes but I'd feel better saying just get someone to just look after them for a couple weeks while the battle rages on. I do 50% water changes in an SPS tank every once in a while without issue (taking great care to match parameters) but I've got a better feel for my own tank and feel comfortable enough hitting the reset button in the tank (and the possible consequences).

My biggest concern with leaving the clams in when doing this is that you might stress them out and they spawn as a result (weird stress reaction mechanism, eh? Such a reaction would make exam time far more exciting... errrr... awkward...). The resulting spawn would just exacerbate the current issue (in fact when I first looked at your tank I thought the clams had spawned until you said the water was green).

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

My biggest concern with leaving the clams in when doing this is that you might stress them out and they spawn as a result (weird stress reaction mechanism, eh? Such a reaction would make exam time far more exciting... errrr... awkward...). The resulting spawn would just exacerbate the current issue (in fact when I first looked at your tank I thought the clams had spawned until you said the water was green).

Yes, and I would move the clam to another tank. Maybe the LFS can watch it or I'm sure you can get a raise of hands here.

[asylumdown]

The water in that tank is what my 40 gallon QT started to look like when I had 7 large fish in it and was feeding heavily every day. It would take 70% water changed to get it to clear up, though with that many fish it would look like that 4 days later again.

I'm not suggesting that you do such huge water changes, but what I am wondering is along the same line as Daniella, it looks like a bacterial bloom caused by an overload in nutrients in the water column without enough robust benthic processes to process/lock them up. I can't find it on the boards, when did you move the tank? Depending on what happened during the move, a tank move can be like re-setting the clock on your live rock, if it got too cold, too dry, or was out of water for too long. It might be re-curing right now. From what I can see, you've got enough biological activity going on in the tank to be masking out of whack nutrient profiles, as your test kits can only test what's free and available in the water, not what's bound up in the cells of bacteria and algae. It's not uncommon for tanks with the worst algae problems to test the 'cleanest' for nutrients.

If you can find a temporary home for the things you're worried about losing, I would also have to agree with Brad and Skimmer King. Bacterial blooms/pelagic algae outbreaks are a stage you see in the early months of a tank's life-cycle, but they're almost always stages that start out small, build to a peak, and then subside. The worst thing you can do is suddenly go and change a whole bunch of other parameters in a knee jerk reaction which will only confound a process that is likely going to work itself out in time anyway. If you've got all the elements that normally keep a tank running - heat, rocks, flow, lights, and a nutrient export system that matches the level of input, eventually this will work itself out. I know the tank was almost a year old, but considering what you're seeing since the move, it honestly looks to me like you should be thinking about this as though it's a new system, and 99 times out of 100, all you need to do for a new system is wait.

[Aquattro]

I've got a slightly different take on this. The tank is young, but not new. It's settled, biologically, for the most part. The cloudiness also looks like clam spawn, but if you say it's green, ok, maybe algae.

If this was my tank, and I'll probably get some disagreement, I would leave it alone. I would take the filter off the back, add some carbon to a bag and toss it in the sump. With no measurable PO4, I wouldn't worry about GFO right now.
I would not be doing large water changes, and in fact, would do no water changes. If it's algae, let it burn itself out. Feed sparingly. Keep the tank aerated. Buy a real skimmer for in sump. Stop messing with it, there is nothing in your parameters that dings any alarms.
I would remove the glass tops, let the light in. Don't move the lights around, don't change their cycle. Make a pot of coffee, relax. It's not an emergency or something to quit over. It just needs TLC.
I assume the fish are fine? Not gasping for air at the surface? Then algae isn't consuming excess O2. Still not sure that's algae. Is it green? Or is the water just cloudy?
Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Often you can cause more problems than you solve by trying to fix everything overnight.

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I've got a slightly different take on this. The tank is young, but not new. It's settled, biologically, for the most part. The cloudiness also looks like clam spawn, but if you say it's green, ok, maybe algae.

If this was my tank, and I'll probably get some disagreement, I would leave it alone. I would take the filter off the back, add some carbon to a bag and toss it in the sump. With no measurable PO4, I wouldn't worry about GFO right now.
I would not be doing large water changes, and in fact, would do no water changes. If it's algae, let it burn itself out. Feed sparingly. Keep the tank aerated. Buy a real skimmer for in sump. Stop messing with it, there is nothing in your parameters that dings any alarms.
I would remove the glass tops, let the light in. Don't move the lights around, don't change their cycle. Make a pot of coffee, relax. It's not an emergency or something to quit over. It just needs TLC.
I assume the fish are fine? Not gasping for air at the surface? Then algae isn't consuming excess O2. Still not sure that's algae. Is it green? Or is the water just cloudy?
Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Often you can cause more problems than you solve by trying to fix everything overnight.

Brad I agree with you too since I phone Mandy and talked to her for about 45 mins on FaceTime and got to see her tank first hand. Lots of advice I gave her pretty much the same effect on what u have said here. Pretty much let it take it's course and do the basics to get by.