Ok help with corals

[mm2meyer]

Hey guys! sory ive been gone so long. Life caught up with me and been stupid busy. BUT great news. since my last thread Ive finally started stocking the tank.

My 180 now consists of
1 sailfin tang
1 foxface rabbitfish
2 cleaner shrimp
4 turbo snails
1 red coris wrasse
1 mandarin goby (doing GREAT as well)
5 green chromis
1 frogspawn
1 open brain
1 wall hammer colony
1 pulsing xenia colony
1 flowerpot colony
The last 4 were added yesterday. My wife went on a shopping spree.
She still hasn't learned to research before you buy pretty things.

So, I need help with the following.
lighting, water flow and "food" for the corals.

my next problem is I have what appears to be green cyano covering ALL of my rock. well the dude at the LFS told me its cyano. took a small piece of rock covered in it and put it in a small container with a scoopfull of chemiclean and nothing.

All my parameters are good except for nitrates. they're a lil high
when the LFS tested phosphate it was at 1 ppm
added phosban and tested the water after an hour and phos was at either 0 or 0.03.

about to test again. What can I do to get rid of the green cyano that has taken over my rock??

Ill post pics of everything once i turn on the lights.

 

[daugherty]

more flow will help and scoop it out with a net or suck it out then do a good water change and do them every week for a while.

 

[mm2meyer]

Ive been religious with my water changes. like 18 gallons twice a week. and 36 every two weeks.

 

[mm2meyer]

nice pic too

 

[daugherty]

what do you have for flow in the tank? you want at the min a 10x turnover i shoot for more in the 20-30

 

[daugherty]

also i would a ton more snails and hermit crabs they will help to keep the sand and rock clean. and maybe look in to getting a few sand conch's they work great at keeping the sand cleaner

 

[mm2meyer]

crap thanks for reminding me. I also have a sand sifting star and an emerald crab. as for flow I'm only at (2) koralia 4's. plan on two more in a week or so. and what snails will eat green cyano???

 

[daugherty]

none that i know of you just need to wait it out. it is a normal thing in newer tanks. i still get some every now and then. you could try to order some marine SAT that is supost to work good

 

[mm2meyer]

yay.....when you set up your tank for the first time how long did you have cyano before the problem cleared up??? And did you have spread onto new rock that you added???

 

[daugherty]

well i just read that sometimes cerith snails will sometime eat cyano. i never had cyano until about 3 months after setting up my tank and it was only on the sand it never spread to the rocks i use to have a ton of flow which i have cut down sum because it was just to much. some people fight cyano for months. i had it for about 1 month before i got rid of it for a year and now that i changed my flow i am getting it back a little bit

 

[mm2meyer]

k now with xenia moderate flow or very low flow??? I've read that they need both. And as far as that goes. what constitiues moderate and low flow???

 

[daugherty]

my xenia are in high light and high flow some are in a low flow area.find a spot that is away from a powerhead and just a bit below the level of it. it should do fine you may have to move it a little bit to find a sweet spot but find a spot and give it a few days and if it looks all shrivled up move it a little bit.

 

[mm2meyer]

sweet deal thank you sir. and what about my frogspawn, wallhammer, and especially what are needs of the flowerpot since I only realised they existed last night when I seen it in my tank. wait no htat changed ;ast night and it's now my wife's reef tank.

 

[daugherty]

some thing like a medium flow and good light.
i think of flow like this high flow close to a power head but not right in the line of fire
medium- is a good current that is away from a power head
low is very slow moving water usually somewere toward the bottom of a tank

 

[mm2meyer]

sweet thank you again. Well its time for me to head to bed now. It's 9 am and I've been up for almost 24 hrs now. So until later today. Goodnight!

 

[daugherty]

have a good night

 

[yote]

To help with that cyano.Siphon out as much as possible while doing a water decent sized (20 to 30%) water change.Then kill the lights for 3 or 4 day.Then the day you turn the lights back on,do another decent sized water change,siphoning out any cyano that you see in the tank.
Give all those corals a moderate flow and they should be good.

 

[mm2meyer]

K done so far, but the cyano won't come off the rocks. I tried that and it's just not coming off. I also tried to see if I could scrub it off and it still didn't come off. next idea???

 

[Bifferwine]

Are you sure it's cyano then? If it's coming off (and if it feels hard) it's probably coralline. Which is good stuff.

 

[mm2meyer]

No it's not coralline. I know what that looks like. and it's NOT coming off at all. and it's slimey to the touch. It's also a bright almost neon green. Ill take a pic and post it.