JB's Reef Tank

[reeffreak]

Is that Tetratest for saltwater?

I believe we called airstone driven skimmers counter-current skimmers back 20 years ago.Consider a new type of needlewheel skimmer such as the Octopus skimmer.Counter current skimmers weren't very good back then and really have been eclipes by better design skimmers.Having high nitrates means you have high organic waste-you really should be getting good skimmmate by now.

[fatman]

Water changes, water changes, water changes. The fact that you have nitrates shows you have a functioning bacteriological system. You should not expect to develop a mature system quickly. If your ammonia is reading zero then your bacteria is actively work at the bottom end. If your waiting for your immature rock and sand bed to lower the nitrate you will have a long wait. Wooden air stone! What are you using for a skimmer? I am not familiar with a Sea Reef protein skimmer, but an air stone. Wow, that is old technology. I would seriously consider at least a cheap needle wheel skimmer. But do at least 50% in water changes. A couple of 25% water changes a couple of days a part. Give the bacteria a load it can more readily handle and thereby convert to nitrates. You will still have to do possibly another water change (a third) if you want to get the nitrate low enough for corals that might come with your Tampa Bay rock. Remember salt is relatively cheap in comparison to the life on and in rock and sand.

[jb61264]

Originally Posted by reeffreak

Is that Tetratest for saltwater?

I believe we called airstone driven skimmers counter-current skimmers back 20 years ago.Consider a new type of needlewheel skimmer such as the Octopus skimmer.Counter current skimmers weren't very good back then and really have been eclipes by better design skimmers.Having high nitrates means you have high organic waste-you really should be getting good skimmmate by now.

I guess that makes me "old school" as far as protein skimmers go I will look at a new skimmer...

[jb61264]

Originally Posted by fatman

Water changes, water changes, water changes.

Originally Posted by fatman

Wooden air stone! What are you using for a skimmer? I am not familiar with a Sea Reef protein skimmer, but an air stone. Wow, that is old technology. I would seriously consider at least a cheap needle wheel skimmer. But do at least 50% in water changes. A couple of 25% water changes a couple of days a part.

I will do a 25% water change today after work and again tomorrow after work and then see what we're at. Also, going to go protein skimmer shopping today. The skimmer I have is old and it was working really well the first week or so after I added live rock. I'll snap a picture to show what it has done so far.

[fatman]

Coralife is about the cheapest needle wheel skimmer that by appearance looks any good. For lower end skimmers I like Turboflotors. It is hard telling though what is out there as needle wheels are being put out by almost every manafacturer now. For good cheap smaller sump type skimmers, needle wheels are the top performers considering cost and operating costs. The range in quality of materials used in construction varies a lot. They even make skimmers with multiple needle wheel pumps for really large tanks. I think Beckett type skimmers are second behind needle wheels with venturis coming in third. Becketts require the largest pumps but work excellently with huge water turnovers. Venturi skimmers work real well but are inherently noisy and have frequent clogging problems and require pumps that are large but usually smaller than Becketts and with lower turnover rates. Probably the biggest problem with todays skimmers is they all have a lot of clear plastic in them which coralline algae grows real well on. It definately cuts skimmate production down to have any coralline algae in your skimmers tower.

[jb61264]

Did about a 10% water change this evening (5pm) and just finished taking some readings...Nitrites and Nitrates are still off the scale. I will do another 10-15% water change tomorrow.

Most likely will have TampaBay Saltwater hold my order until I see some decline here...how frustrating

[jb61264]

Been a while since I posted to my tank thread. It's been up and running now for just over two months. After waiting for my tank to complete cycling, I was able to receive 25lbs of rock from TBSW...AMAZING rock, every piece is full of life, little feather dusters, anenomes, had some cup coral on a couple pieces. At first I didn't think I had any hitchhikers...a week later I had spotted a porcelin crab, decorator crab, 5-7 different snails...AND a green mantis shrimp...awesome. I also received 5lbs of live sand from TBSW that I put into my fuge which now has three different types of algae in it and lots of little pods buzzing around in the sand bed.

Here are some pictures that I also posted in another thread but wanted to get into my tank thread as well

[RyanG]

Looks great still like the macro in the display.

[Bifferwine]

I love the zoanthid rock. Can you take a close up pic of it?

[fatman]

Bio balls are still a good method of filtration for a tank with a really heavy bio load of large fish, as you would like more open space with larger fish and that would mean less live rock. Bio Balls are still better at the conversion process to nitrites and nitrates, but the fact that they are a system where organics build up on their surface means they are also a system that dumps large amounts of organics at one time into your system. The bio balls shed their coating of organic when they get heavy. It just sloughs off back into the water streams where it quickly increases the amount of nitrates in suspension. This happens without warning and happens nearly instantly when it happens. The remedy is to rotate the removal of part of the bio balls weekly, take a portion out and wash them thoroughly and return them to the bottom of the bio ball containment area, and repeat this process at least weekly. In the days where higher nitrates levels were more expected to regularly occur this pattern of rapid occasional increases was either ignored or not widely known. Most people find the easiest solution is to not use bio balls or their equivalents.
A modified trickle filter box would still make a good sump/refugium and is easy to drill for a non water warming external pump.
Glass-holes, closed dedicated circulation loops without gaudy, obtrusive heat generating power heads.
T-5's will give more bang for the buck for small tanks than other lighting systems. Always try to go for a good light fixture with indidual reflectors for your bulbs.