General Care

lukeg1981

lukeg1981

Member
Below are a picture of the tank I would like to model my tank after, as well as my tank. You can probably guess which is which. The water quality in my tank is as follows: Phosphate:0, Ammonia:0, Nitrate:0, Calcium:440ppm, Nitrites:0, Alkalinity:10dKH, pH:8.4, Salinity:1.024, Temp:79. I have a Tunze skimmer, Cree LED system from RapidLed, InTank Media Basket with Cheato and Chemi-pure. Also I am running a RO/DI filter for water changes. 15 red leg hermit crabs, 5 snails, 6 line wrasse, clownfish, royal gramma, chromis, and an emerald crab.
Here is my question: what can I do to get my tank to look like the one pictured?

 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Clean the algae off of the Korallias first. Pluck as much of the algae off the rocks as you can. How is the Chaeto growing? Have you harvested any recently? Every time your remove any alge you are removing nutrients with it. How often do you do water changes? Do you use a turkey baster or pump head to blow the rocks off before doing a water change?? This will get any accumulated stuff up into the water column for removal during the water change and by your flitration. Speaking of which what type of media to you have in the top of the media basket? You should be running some pads and or some floss that is changed out often. Pads at least once per week and floss daily. You can purchase cheap polyester fiber fil at the local fabric stores. It is used to fill pillows with. Just make sure you get the stuff that is just the fiber fil. No additives. How often are you changing the chemi pure?
As you can see I have concentrated on getting the water in your tank clean and stable. You are not reading phophates or nitrates because they are being consumed by the algae fast than you can register them. But they are there.
 
lukeg1981

lukeg1981

Member
Spanko-
All really good advice. I'm going to get some polyester fill and I have a turkey baster I'll start using.
I had Cynobacteria outbreak a couple months back that killed my last batch of Cheato, I have since replaced it...but it's only doing ok. Definitely not enough to harvest yet. I do 5 gallons water changes weekly. I run a blue and white filter media on top of the basket. I change it during water changes. The chemi pure I've been changes about every 3 months. I probably should up that.
Do you think if I do all that it'll clear up all the algae...or should I go with more of a cleanup crew too?
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
I would add some Cerith and Nassarius snails to your crew. 3 months is okay on the chemi pure. Have you checked the levels coming from your RO/DI unit?
 
lukeg1981

lukeg1981

Member
I tested the water with a friends TDS meter about a month ago and it had a very low reading like 2.
A friend saw my tank last night and suggested I feed less. I've been using half an emerald entrée 3.5 ounce cube for four fish. He suggested going with a quarter cube. He also suggested a green nudibranch (which I am skeptical about) and to dose iodine and purple up. What do you think?
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
First of all 2 TDS is not low IMO. That would tell me that it is time to change your filters. Here is a discussion from Randy Holmes-Farley
What is a TDS meter and do I need one?
A TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter measures the conductivity of the water, which is an indication of water purity. Without one, it's difficult to tell how well the RO/DI unit is working.
Read your tap water first. Readings in the 50-500 PPM range are typical. The RO output should be less than 10% of the tap water. The DI reading should be 0 or 1. For example, if your tap water reads 200, your RO output should be less than 20 and your DI output should be 0 or 1.
Always let the unit run for a few minutes before measuring TDS on the output. The first half-gallon or so of output will normally have an elevated reading. That's because impurities will tend to equalize across the RO membrane over time when the unit is idle.
New RO/DI units may need to be thoroughly flushed out before reading the TDS values. Let the manufacturer's instructions guide you on that.
Note that TDS is not a good measure of water quality. You can have perfectly good water with a reading of 500 and toxic water with a reading of 50. Also note that some impurities don't register. The purpose of the TDS meter is to measure the efficiency of your RO/DI unit, not cast judgement on your water.
Lowering the feeding could not hurt anything.
On the Nudibranch why?
On the purple up why?
 
lukeg1981

lukeg1981

Member
Spanko-
I bought a TDI meter. Should get it in the next few days. And I'm going to lower the feeding. What about the iodine?
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Not trying to be harsh here but until you can answer the questions better than my friend told me I would hold off on anything I did to the tank. You need to have an understanding of what it is you are doing to the aquarium and the critters and the environment before you go ahead with things.
So......................
On the Nudibranch why?
On the purple up why?
On the Iodine why?
By the way that should go for anything I might suggest or anyone else on the boards your visit.
 
lukeg1981

lukeg1981

Member
Spanko-
Yeah, doesn't sound harsh. You're offering advice just to be nice.
Um...I did research the nudibranch, which is why it didn't seem to make sense.
As far as the iodine, I do use reef crystals for water changes so I am probably good there. I test for Phosphate, Ammonia, Nitrate, Calcium, Nitrites, Alkalinity, PH, and Salinity. But on things like Magnesium, Strontium, Iodine and Iron, I don't test for those and am relying on water changes to keep those things in check.
People seem to have mixed results with purple up, but it does dose iodine and calcium.
I don't know if that answers all the whys. You are totally right. It's important to know why and do your own research.
 
kiefers

kiefers

Active Member
As for you iodine,.... do not suppliment if you have not tested for it. That goes for Mg, Ca too. You can do more harm than good by doing so. JMO. Personally, I would forget the nudi and the purple up. Your rocks will purple up on their own in time. Focus on Spankos advice first and then research what you would like to add later.
 
rfedeleo

rfedeleo

New Member
Hi Lukeg,
My apologies I don't mean to hijack your thread but I wasn't sure how to get in contact with you. I saw one of your other posts regarding the rapidled upgrade you did for your BIOcube 29.
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/388932/biocube-29-led-retrofit-kit
I am doing the same thing as a surprise for my wife's Nanocube 28. I'm not really an "aquarium" person but my wife is so I am totally going to surprise her when she turns on her lights the day after Christmas.
On your post you mentioned buying the 3 regular blue and 3 neutral white instead of doing the 50/50 split of the CW and RB leds. My question is, how did you layout your leds with the regular blue and neutral white. Looking at your other thread you mentioned you were happy with the results so I figured to try this setup.
I was just going to lay everything out in alternating fashion and I'm sure if my wife wants me to move things around I can since I am buying the solderless type connections.
It's funny how trying to research a Christmas gift is turing me into an amateur reef hobbyist. :)
Thanks!
Roger
 
florida joe

florida joe

Well-Known Member
I remember asking Spanko the same question about a tank I had seen. He told me that in my case the best thing I could do was take a picture of the tank I wanted to model my tank after and print the picture out and tape it to my tank. I guess he did take into consideration my expertise in the hobby
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
*****HIGH JACK ALERT*********HIGH JACK ALERT*********HIGH JACK ALERT*********HIGH JACK ALERT****
Hello Joe!
*****RETURNING CONTROL TO OUR THREAD AUTHOR*****
 
new2salt1

new2salt1

Member
Is it me, or is the tank you are aspiring towards rocking a black wall? I like how dark the back is, it will add contrast to the colorful corals. Also, mimicking his type of aquascaping will be very difficult if you already have an algae problem. if you want that centered, mountain look i would try to run a little rio pump in to the center of the rocks
for adequate flow.
 
lukeg1981

lukeg1981

Member
Sorry rdefeleo, just now saw all these responses. Let me know what happened.
Spanko-
I followed your advice. It took a while to get a TDI meter by mail and then I realized I needed to replace the filters on my RO/DI unit and those took a couple weeks to come in the mail. I added to my snails and crabs. (3 turbos, 10 nassarius, 5 astraea, 10 red leg hermits) Change the floss daily and have been on top of water changes. I cut in half the amount I am feeding (to half an emerald entrée cube). And I'm using the turkey baster. The only thing I just realized I forgot to do was change the chemi-pure, which I will do.
The Cyanobacteria is back, but a lot of the green algae is gone. Any more advice?
Here are the current tank parameters: Magnesium 1320, Phosphate 0, Ammonia 0.3, Nitrate 0, Calcium 420, 79 degrees, Alkalinity 3.4, PH 8.6, Salinity 1.0245
 
lukeg1981

lukeg1981

Member
The royal gramma and six line wrasse get along great. The clownfish nips at the chromis when the clownfish gets hungry.
 
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