LF Skimmer Advice

Aquattro · #1 03-12-2015, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jostafew

The last few months it's been 5gal (10%) every 2-3 weeks. Before that was the same every month or so. First couple years using IO, but switched to DD H2Ocean after a bad bucket of IO wiped out nearly all livestock in the tank. (didn't fiure out the cause of that one till it was too late)

I would change at least 25% with that skimmer, and double that until the algae was taken care of.
I came home from out of town to a tank full of hair algae. 2 weeks and a couple 50% water changes, it was gone.
I have no algae issues with 25% regularly every 2 weeks with a high end skimmer.

Aquattro · #2 03-12-2015, 05:16 PM

Oh, and I get 3 hours of direct sunlight every day in the tank. It does not pose any problems.

TimT · #3 03-12-2015, 06:15 PM

If your rocks and sand are saturated with Phosphate the easiest, and cheapest, method to remove it is Foz Down.

Cheers,
Tim

jostafew · #4 03-12-2015, 06:41 PM

Sorry Brad, just want to make sure that I understand. Are you suggesting that I just increase the water changes or also change the skimmer for something else?

Tim, I've been watching the posts about Foz Down. Want to read a little more about how it works and how to apply but will likely be in touch.

Aquattro · #5 03-12-2015, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jostafew

Sorry Brad, just want to make sure that I understand. Are you suggesting that I just increase the water changes or also change the skimmer for something else?

I would A, increase water changes just as a practice. B, I would consider bigger water changes to make up for poorer performance from the skimmer. Honestly, I found the biggest thing you can do to fix almost anything is change water. Some exceptions, but in your case, I'd be doing some 50% changes.

Skimmin · #6 03-12-2015, 06:44 PM

I'd like to suggest vinegar dosing. My tank is completely void of nuissance algae. I believe keeping kh stable between 8 and 9 and keeping up with my vinegar dosing has been the biggest help of keeping algae in control. It also helps keep phosphate down. That being said a good skimmer is strongly recommended for dosing and help with nutrient export. I personally use a re-circ skimmer. I also prefer to skim wetter then dryer. Similar to weak coffee. A little darker then tea.

reef-keeper · #7 03-12-2015, 06:59 PM

I have just a quick question.... Have you been testing your water parameters to see if everything is within the desired levels? If you have how often and did you record it? Recording just show when everything went Ka-flewie and can set you on the right path.

jostafew · #8 03-12-2015, 08:00 PM

Hey Reefkeeper, here's a rundown of the mess

Back when the DT was 70 gal and I had less nuisance issues (aside from the dino) and was growing LPS and SPS and my clam was happy I was watching params every 2-4 weeks and working on methods to maintain them, usual reef keeping stuff. Then over the course of a year things started to go sideways, water changes weren't helping, livestock suffered... I downsized the DT to 35 gal to get more light for the clam. Shortly afterward we sold the condo, so I picked everything up and moved in with my mom in Abby while we waited to take possession of the house. By this point pretty much all livestock was gone, and most corals. It was at this point that I finally nailed down the cause of the illness as a bad batch of salt, but by that time it was too late. It seems extremely obvious to test the new water being put into the tank, but you just take it for granted that fresh RO water with salt = AOK... Won't make that mistake again.

Month or so later we moved into the house and set up as it is now. As part of the previous troubleshooting I was now on 100% new water and new sand (same LR). It was at this point that the nuisance problems started to get bad but I didn't have the time or the funds to do much about it. The one thing I could attribute to the sudden mess was my TDS meter reporting about ten times the amount of junk in the tapwater in Abbotsford as compared to Langley, and for the first time was actually reading something on the output side of my RODI system. Occasional param checks showed everything in line in the tank (pretty much no coral growth to move them) and never any detectable Nitrate or Silicate. Still 1ppm is not huge and I've heard of people running their tank on tap water in the GVRD which is about 15ish ppm TDS. This continued for about a year. Along the way I also had a bacterial bloom which had never happened before. A month or so with a UV sterilizer took care of that.

Fast forward to about 6 months ago and I can finally refresh my RODI cartridges. I hit the tank with a Chemiclean treatment and a 20% WC with the new filters. Tank cleaned up, but shortly thereafter algae grew like mad, followed by a slower but still very heavy growth of Cyano. Now I'm making a better effort to remove as much crap as I can when I do the regular water changes, which is slowing the regrowth of the Cyano, but hair algae is still there (buried under Cyano)....