where do I begin?

shahrzad1893

Reefing newb
I am not technically newbie anymore. My tank is over 2 years old but it was started out by an uneducated brother with no knowledge and a keen sense of swindeling all of my own money for this tank and since he moved out I am on a mission to rescue what is rightfully my tank!

Where would I begin repair is the question honestly.

my tank is roungly 40-50 gallons (i will me measuring the exact gallons soon)

inhabitents:

- a pair of golden stripe maroon clowns
- a royal gramma
- a christmas wrasse
- another yellow and purple wrassse which name escapes me (don't bother with the info of saying its not a good idea to have 2 wrasse the christmas 3x the size of the other and they get along beautifully)
- a baggai cardinal
- a pearly jaw fish

corals:
-blue candy coral
-knobby wall
-star polyp
-green mushroom rock
-brown musroom rock

inverts:
-bunch of tiny starfish that came from the live rock
- a giant clam

to begin with there is an excessive amount of algea and a reoccuring problem with cyano, the water seems slightly dingey and it seems the glass walls never stay clean.
I have treated for cyano multiple times but the damn thing keeps coming back

ill post pictures with specific issues later :shock:

but since now my brother has delt with the water tests and stuff and im sure if i do it like he did i would be doing it wrong who which tests would i need and what do they need to read and ect ect

thanks for helping me in advance!:^:
 
Welcome to the site!

The christmas wrasse is a peaceful wrasse and they do get along with other peaceful ones that's probably why you have no issues with them. I'll start by saying that your water quality issues may be due to the fact that you have a lot of fish for a smaller tank. What kind of foods do you feed the fish, how much, and how often?
How often and how much of the water are you changing? Do you have a Clean up crew?
As far as the test kits this one is a good choice Aquarium Water Testing: Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Saltwater Master Liquid Test Kit
and if down the road you decide to keep stoney corals you'll need this one Aquarium Water Testing: Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Reef Master Liquid Test Kit
and this to test your salinity Saltwater Aquarium Salinity & Specific Gravity Testing: Portable Refractometer

Your water should read:
salinity 1.024-1.026
pH 8-8.4
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0-10 (you really want this number as close to 0 as possible)
 
I feed the fish 2 cubes of mysis shrimp that i defrost and net out so none of the water gets in the tank once a day

i do a 25% water change every four weeks

and we did have about 4 or 5 snails but im afraid they had died when we had to move the tank to our new home.
is there anything better than snails to take care of the algae?
 
What kind of water are you using? Are you using RO/DI water?

I feed only one cube every other day I have a 29 gal with 4 fish.

Oh Yea! Welcome to the site!!!
 
I feed the fish 2 cubes of mysis shrimp that i defrost and net out so none of the water gets in the tank once a day

i do a 25% water change every four weeks

and we did have about 4 or 5 snails but im afraid they had died when we had to move the tank to our new home.
is there anything better than snails to take care of the algae?
2 cubes everyday may be a bit much, especially since you don't have a clean up crew to take care of leftover food.

25% is a small amount for a tank as stocked as yours. When you get your test kit, you may see that your nitrates are high as a result. You may want to up it to 10-15% every week to get rid of the excess nutrients that is causing your algae problem.
You should have a good mix of snails (nerite, turbo, nassarius, cerith, trochus, and/or astrea snails), a few hermit crabs, and possibly an urchin. Look inot serpent stars also, they'll help to clean up any leftover food your fish don't eat.
 
Welcome to the site.
What are you treating the cyano with? If your using something like Chemi-Clean or Red Slime Remover,the cyano has most likely built up a resistence to it.
 
My suggestions would be to do water changes weekly, 15%. And add some sort of carbon. Personaly, I use chemi-pure elite and Purigen. Macro algae, such as chaeto, would help keep your water clear of nuisance algaes as well.

Welcome to Living Reefs btw! :mrgreen:
 
can you explain what RO/ DI water is?
RO/DI water is Reverse Osmosis / De-Ionized water. It is highly promoted in the reefing hobby b/c bad water quality is the #1 issue of Nuisance Algae problems. RO/DI reduces the TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) of your water significantly (~-98%) bringing it closer to a pure H2O solution. If your curious about the quality of water you are buying you should prolly have them test it or do it yourself. TDS meters go for about $15 online. Sometimes LFS are not on top of changing the filters in their RO/DI units and can have bad water quality(high TDS) because of it.
Another reason we promote buying an RO/DI unit is because they usually pay for themselves over a period of time and can actually save you money in the long run over buying water.
 
Welcome to the site.
What are you treating the cyano with? If your using something like Chemi-Clean or Red Slime Remover,the cyano has most likely built up a resistence to it.
yes i have been using chemi-clean
how can i get rid of it if it has built a resistance?
 
yes i have been using chemi-clean
how can i get rid of it if it has built a resistance?

Fix any water quality issues you may have first, then you can do something like a black out for a few days to get rid of it. Once your water quality issues are taken care of then it shouldn't grow back.
 
You can either buy an RODI unit to make water at home (it costs around $150), but you can also buy RODI water at any grocery store or Walmart. If you are already paying for water from a fish store, it's likely RODI water.
 
Wallmart sells RO/DI water for a few cents per gallon. However, depending on how many gallons you use to do water changes, you might get tired of lugging 5 gallon jugs of water around. I did that for a while with my biocube. Not only does a RO unit pay for itself in the longrun, but you will have RO water at your fingertips whenever you need it! :D

Another thought....if I remember correctly, I ended up paying upwards of 15 bucks apiece for the 5 gallon jugs, but that could have just been my place...other places may charge more/less.
 
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