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Desperate help needed

cfide

cfide

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Hi there. I posted here about a year ago, with so much excitement to start my reef tank. Things were going slow for the first 6 months and I was hoping my corals would start growing so that I could come to the swaps but they were not growing fast enough. So I started feeding them with live plankton and that is pretty much when all hell broke loose. I think I overfed and got hair algae. And I got more and more and more. I am about to cross to the "dark side" and turn it into a cichlid tank since I am really tired of looking/picking algae for the past 6 months. I did research online and got suggestions on how to get rid off it etc etc but it keeps coming back. Let me state what I did wrong and how I corrected it and what I am currently doing:

Tank specs: 50 gal + 10 gal sump, 2x39W 10000k and 2x39W actinic(total 4 bulbs) - 10 hrs a day of light, ESV bionic 10ml of each solution every day, 1 clown loach, 1 royal gramma, 1 dwarf angel, 1 cleaner shrimp, 3 crabs, 60-70lbs of live rock, 80 lbs of live sand, 2x koralia 4, Coralife XL skimmer(rated for 70gal), some chaeto in the sump which keeps shrinking in size, I feed the fish about 8-10 micropellets a day. I only a have sump which circulates the water but only filtration I have is poly filter.

ph; 8.5, Ca 450, Salinity 1.022-1.025

1) OLD; I was using tap water. SJ has 20ppm nitrates in water.
NEW; I use RO water from the store.
2) OLD; I used to have 2x 96W PC light
NEW; t5s
3) OLD; Water change(10%- 1-2 times a month)
NEW; once a week
4) OLD; Feed corals every day
NEW; once a week

Other notes; My Salinity is not very stable, I dont have a autotop doser so it must vary few points every now and then. I even tried "Poly filter" to remove the phosphates and nitrates. The test kit shows 0 for each but I dont trust it. Since algae is growing , I know there are nutrients water. Now, I am very confused. I do not think I overfeed. But I cant seem to control this algae. For one week I tried water changes every day, and it was retreating but as soon as I decreased the frequency to 1 week, it came back. It is not practical for me to water changes every day since I need to buy the water from the store, carry it, mix salt, dump it, etc etc.

Is there anything in this picture that is sticking out as THE PROBLEM? Do I definitely need a de-nitrator or something? I thought keeping the live stock low in numbers would not require one.
Thanks in advance.
 
A couple of ideas off the top of my head are:
lighting for more like 7-8 hours (very important)
tank is on the small side for Tangs, but you could use a small one temporarily to graze
snails!
Emerald crab(s), not sure what type you have
phosphate removal media in sump or better yet a reactor
better skimmer
the test kits read zero because the nutrients are being used by the algae, not because they don't exist
10% weekly changes should be plenty!
 
Ok cfide...

First of all, don't get discouraged. I've been reefing for a while and still am having problems with this tank and algae.

So I didn't see which corals you have, but odds are they aren't needing the feedings. So until you get the algae under control, I would say go ahead and hold off on feeding them indefinitely to help get the nutrient problem down. Also, when you feed the fish, do they eat all of the pellets? Nothing should be left, hence the extra nutrients. For that matter, what's a clown loach (in SW terms)?

As Mike said, cutting down the lighting will help with the algae as well. I would suggest dropping down to even 6 hrs of light for now. Corals should be able to tolerate it for now.

If possible, look into getting a GFO reactor, or a phosban reactor. Both will help. Water changes once a week should be more than often enough. Combine it with some manual removal and decreased feedings and you should see an improvement.

So good luck with it, keep to the faith. Also, get some snails.
 
RO water (like from the drinking store?) still has high phosphates. My friend was using that for a year, until I got my RODI unit. He gets water from me now... and has much better water quality. He also added GFO and GAC, which helped bring the phosphates and nitrates down faster. He also had shrinking chaeto, but its growing back now, but he also added a better light bulb too for the sump.
 
+1 stop feeding corals unless they're non-photosynthetic
+1 getting snails--I recommend turbo snails
+1 for getting a better light bulb for your sump if your chaeto isnt growing

Don't get a tang--your tank is too small for it. Instead you could get a smaller fish like an algae blenny. Or get a sea hare (they're especially good for hair algae removal).

Finally, have patience and stick with it and realize that everyone has algae problems to some extent--it's a never ending battle. Hang in there.
 
I agree with Patrick on lighting the cheato well enough to grow. Otherwise your new system and my system are alike. I went through two six month long bouts with rock covered algae. It goes away on its own as the tank matures. be patient and keep pulling it out by hand for now to keep it off the corals.

I do not have an auto water top off and I keep the salinity between 1.025 and 1.026. I add water every morning and every evening. Mine is about 40g of water and a pint or so twice a day works for now. At this point I use a journal to help me stay consistent.
 
yardartist said:
I do not have an auto water top off and I keep the salinity between 1.025 and 1.026. I add water every morning and every evening. Mine is about 40g of water and a pint or so twice a day works for now. At this point I use a journal to help me stay consistent.
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ATO is so nice if you can do it.
I like to be able to leave for a few days and not worry about that.
Any way possible to create stability is a good thing.
 
Sorry about the "clown loach" , i meant clown fish. :)

I forgot to mention i had reduced the hours to 7. I only keep softies, some zoos and mushrooms.

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions. I am using a 13w t5 bulb from home depot for the sump. Any improvement suggestions?

So i will reduce the light from 7 to 6. Stop all coral feeding. I am not sure if there is leftover fish food. With all the current a few might escape. I will also get some turbos.
 
If you ever kept a fresh planted tank think of that lighting for your macros to grow. Sure they may grow with less at times, but you want it to be a machine and pump out new plant material to be removed getting the N out of the system.

Full sun is hitting mine for about three hours each day right now, and the plants are thick green, and need to be thinned about every other week.
 
yellojello said:
RO water (like from the drinking store?) still has high phosphates. My friend was using that for a year, until I got my RODI unit. He gets water from me now... and has much better water quality. He also added GFO and GAC, which helped bring the phosphates and nitrates down faster. He also had shrinking chaeto, but its growing back now, but he also added a better light bulb too for the sump.
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GAC really doesn't remove Nitrate. it removes ammonia stopping the production of nitrite/nitrate.
 
:) I was gonna leave that one alone Jeremy... but yah, in theory and practice RO is devoid of PO4 unless the membrane has a leak, but then it's not "RO".
 
Sorry for the misinformation. I'm still learning. =)

But I assume, leaving all the science behind, that switching from RO water to RODI water will help?
 
Thanks for the hints guys. I never bothered to test the RO water i buy from the store. Well i just did and it had 1 ppm phophates. I went to Dolphin and bought some ready made saltwater and it had 0ppm phosphates. So now i know why i have been farming algae. In the long run it does not make sense to keep buyin the water. Is there any decent ro/di unit which does not waste too much water? I only need 2-3gpd. I suppose there is no good alternative to ro/di.

Ohh i also bought 2 turbo snails. Do i need more for a 50 gal? Will they breed in captivity? Thanks
 
yellojello said:
Sorry for the misinformation. I'm still learning. =)

But I assume, leaving all the science behind, that switching from RO water to RODI water will help?
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In situations where the silicate is high some of that can slip past the membrane, especially if the water pressure is low, but otherwise DI really isn't necessary.
 
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