bcollett
Member
First I'll get the tank Parameters out of the way.
90 gal tank (200lbs of LR 130lbs of sand)
20 gal Refugium with Cheato, Mangroves, and LR
2x250 MH with 4x65w PC actinics (Light cycle reduced to actinics - 8 hours MH - 6 hours a day) Also tank not in a location that gets very much Natural Sunlight
As of last test:
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 0-10ppm (depending on time of last water change)
Phosphate = 0
Silica = 0
pH = 8.2
KH = 9
Calcium = 420
Temp = 80°f
S.G. = 1.024-25
Livestock:
3 zebra gobies
1 madirin goby
1 rock blenny
1 false percula
1 yellow tang
1 yellow wrasse
2 purple fire fish
dozen or so small hermits,
4 large turbo snails
dozen or so small nassarius nails
2 mitrhax crabs.
1 sand sifting star fish
The tank took a turn in a hurry on me. I've been dealing with little bits of hair algae growing in certain places and i thought it was finally under control. all the rocks were clean and no more hair was growing then suddenly within 1-2 weeks everything went south. The hair algae is everywhere and i have red slime on the rocks, sand, glass, on my gorgonian. Its been a major chore to deal with every day. I dont know what else to try changing.
I've done a check and everyone is accounted for in the tank, so i dont have a dead fish rotting and screwing things up.
I reduced my lighting cycle by a couple hours to help slow the algae. I've been changing at least 40 gallons of water a week to get the nitrates down from the 10ppm to 0 ppm but it never seems to test any differently.
I only feed my fish 1 small cube of frozen food every other day.
Ive used a spare PH with a clear line on the end to blow in all the cracks and crevices of the LR in the display to get all the detritus stirred up so it will get sucked in to the skimmer/refugium.
Also, the overflows from my DT to filters down below actually run through the skimmer first then in to the refugium so every drop of water that is in circulation see's the skimmer.
ive also got a large wad of cheato in the main DT.
I have 2-Koralia 3 power heads circulating water as well as another smaller 200gph power head and a Fluval 405 canister filter that returns to the main DT. I dont think i have a circulation problem. The water is moving quite well in the tank.
I've tried using some of the red slime control powder by blue vet and i followed those directions to a T. after going through the entire bottle and not seeing any major difference im running out of ideas.
ive even been resorting to pulling all the smaller pieces of LR in the tank out and cleaning by hand in a bucket of water treated with the Red Slime control powder. That seems to have slowed the spread down a bit but I was only able to remove a very few rocks from the tank.
One thought was my lights. I bought the setup brand new in January. Is it likely that i need new PC blubs already?
what else can i do?
90 gal tank (200lbs of LR 130lbs of sand)
20 gal Refugium with Cheato, Mangroves, and LR
2x250 MH with 4x65w PC actinics (Light cycle reduced to actinics - 8 hours MH - 6 hours a day) Also tank not in a location that gets very much Natural Sunlight
As of last test:
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 0-10ppm (depending on time of last water change)
Phosphate = 0
Silica = 0
pH = 8.2
KH = 9
Calcium = 420
Temp = 80°f
S.G. = 1.024-25
Livestock:
3 zebra gobies
1 madirin goby
1 rock blenny
1 false percula
1 yellow tang
1 yellow wrasse
2 purple fire fish
dozen or so small hermits,
4 large turbo snails
dozen or so small nassarius nails
2 mitrhax crabs.
1 sand sifting star fish
The tank took a turn in a hurry on me. I've been dealing with little bits of hair algae growing in certain places and i thought it was finally under control. all the rocks were clean and no more hair was growing then suddenly within 1-2 weeks everything went south. The hair algae is everywhere and i have red slime on the rocks, sand, glass, on my gorgonian. Its been a major chore to deal with every day. I dont know what else to try changing.
I've done a check and everyone is accounted for in the tank, so i dont have a dead fish rotting and screwing things up.
I reduced my lighting cycle by a couple hours to help slow the algae. I've been changing at least 40 gallons of water a week to get the nitrates down from the 10ppm to 0 ppm but it never seems to test any differently.
I only feed my fish 1 small cube of frozen food every other day.
Ive used a spare PH with a clear line on the end to blow in all the cracks and crevices of the LR in the display to get all the detritus stirred up so it will get sucked in to the skimmer/refugium.
Also, the overflows from my DT to filters down below actually run through the skimmer first then in to the refugium so every drop of water that is in circulation see's the skimmer.
ive also got a large wad of cheato in the main DT.
I have 2-Koralia 3 power heads circulating water as well as another smaller 200gph power head and a Fluval 405 canister filter that returns to the main DT. I dont think i have a circulation problem. The water is moving quite well in the tank.
I've tried using some of the red slime control powder by blue vet and i followed those directions to a T. after going through the entire bottle and not seeing any major difference im running out of ideas.
ive even been resorting to pulling all the smaller pieces of LR in the tank out and cleaning by hand in a bucket of water treated with the Red Slime control powder. That seems to have slowed the spread down a bit but I was only able to remove a very few rocks from the tank.
One thought was my lights. I bought the setup brand new in January. Is it likely that i need new PC blubs already?
what else can i do?
