dacia
Active Member
Wow. It's been a couple of years since I posted. But, then again, my tank has been diong wonderful since then...until recently. Here's what I have:
55 gallon reef tank with 30 gallon sump/fuge under the 55 in the stand
ASM-g1 skimmer in the sump
2 Maxi-jet 900 powerheads in the main tank on each end (there was a third in the middle of the tank, but it conked out on me and I haven't replaced it yet)
Lifereef overflow with Magdrive return (I think it is a 500, but it's been so long since I've looked at it...)
My ammonia and nitrite levels are at 0 and my ph is 8.2. The temp stays around 80 24/7. My lights are 4x65W 10,000k white and 2x65 actinic 03 which stay on 9 hours a day and some moonlights on the rest of the time.
---My fish: 2 percs, 1 tomato clown, 1 purple pseudochromis
---My corals: finger leather, lots of green and purple shrooms, colt, green star polyps, ricordias, red button polyps
---I also have a red tree sponge, lots of white sponges that have just "appeared," something that looks like a red plant that just "appeared," a green brittle starfish, cleaner shrimp, tons and tons of little snails (they're multiplying!!!), lots of little unidentified starfish (I think they hitchhiked on the rocks), and a couple of blue legged hermits...I haven't seen my other hermits or little green crab lately, so I'm guessing they are dead??
---I also have a couple of damsels in the fuge with a handful of macros that are not flourishing like I had hoped...
Here's the problem:
My rocks are getting brown tint to them...my sand is getting covered in brown algae...I have to scrape walls with a razor blade to get the hard calcareous green algae off everyday...and my colt coral seems to be shrinking...
SO: How do I get rid of this problem? How big of a water change, how frequent??? Do I scrub the rocks, or will that crap die off eventually with the tips you are about to give me? Anything that I can buy which will eat the crud off the sand (I'm tired of scraping it and cleaning it everyday)?
Thanks for the help!!!
55 gallon reef tank with 30 gallon sump/fuge under the 55 in the stand
ASM-g1 skimmer in the sump
2 Maxi-jet 900 powerheads in the main tank on each end (there was a third in the middle of the tank, but it conked out on me and I haven't replaced it yet)
Lifereef overflow with Magdrive return (I think it is a 500, but it's been so long since I've looked at it...)
My ammonia and nitrite levels are at 0 and my ph is 8.2. The temp stays around 80 24/7. My lights are 4x65W 10,000k white and 2x65 actinic 03 which stay on 9 hours a day and some moonlights on the rest of the time.
---My fish: 2 percs, 1 tomato clown, 1 purple pseudochromis
---My corals: finger leather, lots of green and purple shrooms, colt, green star polyps, ricordias, red button polyps
---I also have a red tree sponge, lots of white sponges that have just "appeared," something that looks like a red plant that just "appeared," a green brittle starfish, cleaner shrimp, tons and tons of little snails (they're multiplying!!!), lots of little unidentified starfish (I think they hitchhiked on the rocks), and a couple of blue legged hermits...I haven't seen my other hermits or little green crab lately, so I'm guessing they are dead??
---I also have a couple of damsels in the fuge with a handful of macros that are not flourishing like I had hoped...
Here's the problem:
My rocks are getting brown tint to them...my sand is getting covered in brown algae...I have to scrape walls with a razor blade to get the hard calcareous green algae off everyday...and my colt coral seems to be shrinking...
SO: How do I get rid of this problem? How big of a water change, how frequent??? Do I scrub the rocks, or will that crap die off eventually with the tips you are about to give me? Anything that I can buy which will eat the crud off the sand (I'm tired of scraping it and cleaning it everyday)?
Thanks for the help!!!