Ghost Feed The Frag Tank?

Rcpilot

Rcpilot

Reef enthusiast
Since I got rid of the 6-line, I haven't been feeding the frag tank. There's only an emerald crab and a couple snails in there now. I'm fighting a hair algae problem and running carbon 24/7 in my little Rapids canister. Changing the carbon every 3 days and rinsing the media bag to avoid nitrate build up. I could probably just run it for a week at a time and rely on the DSB and cheato in the refugium to handle any nitrates. But I'm trying to get things "sterile" in there and get rid of the hair algae, so will continue to change and rinse the canister every 3 days.

Skimmer action has decreased quite a bit in the last few weeks. Not a lot of dissolved organics in the tank anymore. I think I got rid of the 6-line about 3 or 4 weeks ago. I don't want to feed the hair algae so I'm trying to reduce the nutrient levels as low as I can get them. Should I just continue with regular water changes for now?

As long as I do my weekly water changes my corals won't starve, will they?
 
as long as you're feeding the corals something, they should be fine without any "ghost" feeding. I rotate between cyclops, rotifers, and oysterfeast in my frag tank.
 
Rcpilot said:
Assorted mushrooms, zoas, palys and some LPS acans and some other kind of LPS enchinophyllia or enchanita
Click to expand...

Enchanita? Sounds like something I could order from Taco Bell :mrgreen:
j/k
Your acans probably like meaty foods right? If you target feed krill/mysis to those without rinsing, the juices alone would probably add some nutrition into the water IMO
 
I'm trying to avoid putting ANY food in the tank. The goal is to lower nutrient levels so much that the hair algae has nothing to feed off......... and consequently DIES.

Let me re-phrase my question:
Will my corals suffer if I don't feed them at all and ONLY do regular weekly water changes?
 
Rcpilot said:
I'm trying to avoid putting ANY food in the tank. The goal is to lower nutrient levels so much that the hair algae has nothing to feed off......... and consequently DIES.

Let me re-phrase my question:
Will my corals suffer if I don't feed them at all and ONLY do regular weekly water changes?
Click to expand...


so far that is not working for me i have not put a drop of food in my tank for 2 months almost 3 and the alage still growes i change water every week to every other week and noting is working my alage prob is not real bad but more than i like to have. were does it get all the nitrient from? the best of luck to you RC hope you have a better outcome than i am having trying to starve the tank
 
One of the problems with keeping the nutrients that low,is it starts effecting the colors of the corals.
Its easy to forget that the zooxanthellae needs nutrients to survive and support the corals.The trick is to ballance the nutrients and control the algae.
 
Why not add something to eat the algae, maybe a lettuce nudibranch or 2 (these only eat algae so once its gone you would need to feed them nori) Turbo snails also do a good job on hair algae.

Are you sure its not briopsis? which is a type of hair algae but horrible to get rid of most things won't eat it and if you try to pull it out it will spread like crazy.
 
What are your nitrate and phos levels, RC? You actually probably WANT about 5ppm 'trates to feed those corals, especially since you have LPS. Yote's dead on about the zooxanthellae needing food. What is your TDS from your RO? It could be fuelling your algae with undesirable deposits that maybe the membranes are missing. I have 8ppm TDS and want to get it ideally to 1 or 0, which means a new system. To keep my hair algae at bay, I have a DSB, 10 gal fuge LOADED with chaeto, plus I dose 1/2 tsp sugar every other day as a carbon source. Those options would be sorta outta the question with a standalone frag tank, probably, but worth looking into maybe. If looks aren't a big deal, couldn't you stuff some chaeto under your eggcrate, or maybe run a plastic tub full of live sand and macro and have it overflow into the frag tank? Just brainstorming...
 
There's a DSB in the HOB refugium. It's about 5" or 6" deep.

There's a big huge chunk of cheato in the refugium.

Nitrates - 0
Phosphates - 0
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
ph - 8.1
Calcium 400
Magnesium - 1250
Iodine .02

TDS out of the RO unit 1ppm

freshwater tests out of the RO unit:
ph - 7.6
nitrates - 0
ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
Copper - 0

Running a Rapids canister full of Marineland activated carbon. I change the carbon every 3 days and clean the canister out with hot fresh water and a sponge. So, thats not a nitrate source.

Running 78w of PC lighting on this 10g tank about 10hrs a day.
Bulbs:
(2) 10k @ 13w each
(2) Actinic @ 13w each
(2) 460 @ 13w each

I've done manual removal on about 50% of the tank. The rest of the rocks are covered in corals and I really can't move them around.

When I had the 6-line in there I was feeding him daily. Since the 6-line was removed I haven't added any food or nutrients to the tank. Not a thing. The skimmer cup used to fill up about 1/2 a cup per week. I usually dumped it once a week when I did my water changes.

Since the lack of nutrients in the tank the skimmer cup is taking longer and longer to reach the 1/2 full mark. I haven't emptied it in 2 weeks and it's only 3/8 full. Checked the venturi and foam collection on the skimmer. All clean, no obstructions, so I know the skimmer is working properly. I keep the air intake line blown out with RO water daily to prevent salt creep and subsequent clogging of the intake line. This keeps the skimmer operating at max efficiency pretty much all the time. I also clean the powerhead that runs the skimmer and HOB refugium about once every 2 weeks. Take it out, scrub it inside and out. Clean the impeller. Clean the intake screen. Clean the intake airline out with a pipe cleaner. Rinse and repeat.

I'm completely baffled. Thinking about a blackout for a week, then massive water changes (50%) every 2 or 3 days for a week. I know a blackout will kill the algae. And I know that I have to remove that dead algae via water changes so it doesn't just turn into organic waste and fuel the algae that lived through the blackout. I know this.

Still can't get rid of the crap. :grumble:
 
:dunno:

Could be I have a ton of phosphates in the tank and don't know it. We all know phosphates can be absorbed by the algae so quickly it won't register on a test.

I could run some phosban in my canister next time I clean it (tomorrow). But I don't know if the canister will crush the phosban because the flow might be too high. Worth a try anyway.

Phosban in one chamber........ carbon in the other chamber? The canister has 2 chambers. I could put the carbon in the first chamber to slow down the flow and hopefully that would prevent the phosban from crushing and blowing into the tank.

Just thinking...............
 
Theres a misconception on testing for phosphates.
The dropper kits we buy,will only read the inorganic phosphates.So the organic kind goes undetected.
 
+1 Bio
Algae cant handle higher alkalinity,or a higher PH.
I've found that if I can keep my PH in the 8.4 to 8.5 range,that algae just dont grow.
 

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