a newbies tank

jonsbabykake

jonsbabykake

Reefing newb
here are some photos of my 29g long...mind u im having an algae problem (all diff kinds, if any advice how to rid of them be sure to let me know!) and some of my corals are suffering/dying.

too many photos to post on this so im linking an album. please read the description on the photos for more info.

Fish Tank pictures by jonsbabykake - Photobucket

my parameters are as follows:

salinity: 1.025
phosphates: 0.25ppm
nitrates: 5ppm
KH: 12 degree dKH
pH: 8.0
calcium: 460ppm
temp: 78.3 F


usually my phosphates and nitrates are at 0.. this is the first time being above 0.

also, my test kit doesnt come with an ammonia test, i will buy one friday.
 
yeah we did. this current get up has been up since july or august last year. i have ur typical algae like the powdery green kind on the glass that if u dont catch everyday will stick to it very hard and the mag scrubber wont take it off...brown kind that grows to look like mushrooms...grape algae, some bubble algae, green hair algae..some red and green slime..the pink and green circular kind that grows everywhere and i know its good. the grape kind looks like seaweed, miniature kind...theres a feathery type of seaweed/algae and some that look like plants..all pictures of those are in the album.
 
The colorful, harder algae is coraline which is good. That's what makes your LR good looking. The brown algae is most likely diatoms which will go away on their own. The red slime is annoying, you can remove that in pieces very carefully form the tank. It sounds like you could also have some cyanobacteria in there as well. I think I also see some hair algae in there, you can borrow a cow from the LFS and they will chow down on it. Do you have a good clean up crew? Any snails or hermits?
 
a cow? lol elaborate plz :)

i have 2 red leg hermits, one is big one is little. a turbo snail. a tiger cowrie which i havent seen in months so i dont even know if thats alive. 2 other little snails i dunno the species but theres a pic of one on the glass in the album. and an emerald crab. i used to have another but he hid and ive never seen it since, where as this one is very active. thatsss about it.
 
hmmm good question. one is fluorescent blue and the other is a white light..they are meant for corals and i believe theyre t5...coral life brand. if theyre not old then its to be noted that it had been crusted over with salt for a while and i finally took it off to clean it the other day. wasnt too thick, it easily came off but im sure it could have something to do with it.

actually they might be ocean sun brand or something.
 
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Cowry I believe will eat hair algae. IF your bulbs are old they can loose their, "kick" and cause algae. The salt you're referring to is common salt creep, but you can at least prevent it by raising your light or using a glass screen just over the light.
 
i could raise the light..but that would involve putting the optional cables into the ceiling and we have vaulted ceilings for one..2, its in a corner where the ceiling isnt even lol as it sits where it is, i cant raise it without cables. it doesnt creep so much as long as i keep the water level good.

i luv my big fat cowrie but i havent seen him in such a long time. he was gonna be my only snail but since hes been "gone" i had to get backups and even they are lazy bums. hes probably in the very back under the big rock where i will never find him unless i take apart everything ugh. if hes dead i want his pretty shell.
 
IMO it's good to have a mix for your CUC. I have several species of snails and hermits. Plus they add a lot of spunk, they're fun to watch.
 
do u think i have enough or too little?? my husband luvs crabs and i do too but more so crabs that arent hermits lol

i went to my LFS this weekend and picked up the 2 little snails and the emerald crab, they told me for my size tank 2 would do fine for now and more than that they might starve. then i read something that 1 hermit per gallon is proper?! thats a ton of crabs.
 
I would add a bunch of different snails to your CUC, and change your bulbs. I would order some quality ATI bulbs from reefgeeks. Old bulbs will contribute to algae problems.

More questions, please answer with as much info as you have! It will make it much easier to help you sort your algae problem out.
1. Are you using tap water?
2. How often and how much are you doing water changes
3. How much are you feeding?
4. What are you feeding?

Algae problems dont go away on their own, but they can be solve and prevented with education and good reef keeping practices :)
 
little_fish said:
I would add a bunch of different snails to your CUC, and change your bulbs. I would order some quality ATI bulbs from reefgeeks. Old bulbs will contribute to algae problems.

More questions, please answer with as much info as you have! It will make it much easier to help you sort your algae problem out.
1. Are you using tap water?
2. How often and how much are you doing water changes
3. How much are you feeding?
4. What are you feeding?

Algae problems dont go away on their own, but they can be solve and prevented with education and good reef keeping practices :)
Click to expand...

my bulbs are old already or just crummy quality?

1. havent been using tap water...distilled water only.
2. this ties into #1..i use tap water when we do water changes, and honestly its been a long time since we have done one. we dont have a proper size vacuum, its way too big and the tube is so long is almost impossible to get all the air out for suction..this friday or saturday i will go get a new one (so ashamed)
3&4. i feed some microvert food, what it says on the bottle. for the fish i do freeze dried mysis , just a couple little pinches, and now i have frozen mysis instead which i use like..half a little cube. typically i feed every other day.

i am here to learn so please tell me if i am feeding wrong lol obviously the water changes is wrong and ill keep up once i get the proper vacuum.
 
There really isnt a need for a fancy vacuum, just get a siphon going with the hose and empty into a bucket. If you havent done a water change in a while trying to vacuum the sand could cause issues. Just try and suck up the detritus without disturbing the sand. Anyways, you must get into the habit of doing regular water changes. You have a lot more fish in there than you should which inst helping the algae issues.

Keep using the distilled! Good choice in water.

Stop feeding the microvert food, you really dont have anything that will eat that so its just feeding the algae at this point. I would also stop feeding the mysid shrimp (high in phosphate and nitrates, really only good for spot feeding corals because of this) and the freeze dried stuff (even higher in phosphates and nitrates). I would switch to a quality mixed frozen food. Much better for your fish because the variety of foods offered and most of the foods used in them are a little lower in nitrates and phosphate. I would highly suggest looking at rod's food. But you can get good stuff at places like petco/petsmart.

And most bulbs that come with a fixture go bad faster than normal. A high quality bulb only needs to replaced once a year though. Also only having a two bulb fixture puts you a little low on the light spectrum.
 
ok taking off the vacuum part and just using the tube is a good idea..and like u said i can just suck up the crap ontop and not disturb the sand.

the microvert food, i do have a giant feather duster that i thought it was good for and i thought the types of corals i have would eat it? i do have frozen plankton too that i sometimes feed, like once a month. the freeze dried mysis is pretty much out so thats good but i just bought the frozen on saturday cuz thats wut the guy at the LFS told me to get for the pipefish. i feel so dumb not thinking about getting a mixed food lol now i just wasted money grrrr.

i will definitely look into better bulbs. any specific ones i should get from reefgeek?


oh forgot to ask, how many fish should i have? i thought it was like...1 inch of fish per 2 gallon or so
 
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I would look into ATI bulbs, they are best you can get right now. And the feather duster will find plenty of good stuff in the water to eat from the uneaten fish food and fish poop.

And that rule might work for freshwater, but still that would be a TON of fish for that tank. In salt, you only want one small fish for every 10 gallons.
 
well it stinks how cuz if i were to "upgrade" to a 55 i can only get 5 fish! so now i need to aim even BIGGER lol. sure i have the room but the money?!
 

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