Need input...

gastineaub

gastineaub

New Member
We have two aquariums (salt) and need some help. I'll give you the parmeters for each and the issues were having:
90g:
salinity: 1.025 to 1.026
ammonia: .25ppm
nitrate: 100ppm high range, 25ppm low range/ 80 ppm on strip
nitrite: oppm
ph: 8.0
alkilinity: 2.8
calcium: 500ppm
phosphate: .5ppm
carbonate hardness KH: 240ppm
This is a FOWLR tank that we were trying to use as a reef setup but could not get coral to grow or stars. Fish, shrimp, and crabs did well. The lighting system was a upgrade at the LFS. It has 3Current T5 HO 54w 10KK bulbs (white) and 3Current T5 HO 54w 460nm Actinic bulbs (blue). I really don't know much about lights but was told this would be great for coral. We run a uv light, protein skimmer, with a wet dry sump. We have two powerheads and the regular output. We do 10% water changes every week. The current fish are a 5" dog face puffer, juvinile red coris wrasse, 2.5 - 3" yellow tang, 2.5 - 3" blue hippo tang, and a 3" flounder. Both tangs have been in this tank since it's setup 9 months ago.
So our question is why did we have problems with coral and now we have a brown algae growing on the rocks. We are most likely just keeping this a fish only but need advice.
29g biocube
salinity: 1.025 to 1.026
ammonia: .25ppm
nitrate: 100ppm high range, 25ppm low range/ 80 ppm on strip
nitrite: 0ppm - .1ppm
ph: 8.0
alkilinity: 2.8
calcium: 480ppm
phosphate: .5ppm
carbonate hardness KH: 180-240 ppm off strip
This tank we recently just set back up as a reef tank. The only corals are mushrooms and they look crappy. We have a purple firefish, green madarin (came from 90g had about 8months), barber pole shrimp goby, flame hawkfish (moving to 90g). We have several blue and jade legged hermit crabs, a one clawed red emerald crab, fire shrimp, funny snail, and sand sifter snail. We run a protein skimmer in here as well with the reg. output and powerhead. 25 pounds of live rock in here with live sand.
So our question is why cant we get coral to survive well and would love to start growing coraline algae. We do use Cbalance in both tanks but how often should we? Also we do use marine snow.
I'm sure I forgot something but we really could use advice!
Thanks in advance!
 
ibanez

ibanez

Member
Do you have pictures? Do you have any coralline algae? What types of coral have you bought and had die in your aquarium. What salt mix do you use? How long have you had the mushrooms? Have you had any growth out of them at all? Do you use tap water, or R/O D/I, or distilled water? I am sure I will think of more questions.
 
gastineaub

gastineaub

New Member
We use tap, but just recently tried distilled. The corals were all the "easy" stuff... yellow polyps, green star, zoos, shrooms, etc. Waving hands did okay. I think we need to do ro/di water.
 
gastineaub

gastineaub

New Member
oh and the stars were brittle, serpent, feather, blue linkia, sand sifting. some lasted longer then others like the serpent and brittle
 
ibanez

ibanez

Member
How long did your corals usually last before they died and did they just never open up, or start rotting or melt? RO/DI would definately be a good thing to do, how about your salt mix, what kind is it?
How did you acclimate your corals, did you get them online or at an lfs(how long were they in transit) did you start them at the bottom of the tank ( acclimate them to the light)? I got a nice RO/DI from Saltwaterfish.com for right at 300 I think it was, and it works great.
 
ibanez

ibanez

Member
Some information I found regarding your blue linckia.
The single biggest problem with Linckia sea stars, even more so than other echinoderms, is that they require proper acclimation and tend to ship poorly. Their delicate nature makes it all the more important to start with a healthy specimen if you decide to introduce one of these animals to your reef tank. Therefore, it is exceptionally important to acclimate this animal carefully (of course, all animals should be acclimated carefully, but it seems to be just that much more important to the survival of these stars). If you can find a healthy star, you should make every effort to bring it home quickly (long periods of time in a bag seem particularly hard for them to handle as well), and then acclimate it to your tank water slowly to minimize the stress on the animal as it is transplanted into your aquarium. This is also a case where it turns out to be important to check the water conditions of the supplier from which you are getting the animal. If your local shop maintains a salinity that is much lower than your own tank (natural seawater is ~ 35 ppt, or roughly 1.025 SG at 80ºF), then acclimation will be more difficult and survival of the star becomes more of a gamble. If your aquarium is more than a couple of parts per thousand (ppt) different from that of your supplier, then you are more likely to have problems introducing one of these stars to your tank. In this case, you need to try some more extreme measures to introduce the star to your aquarium.
The one you got may have been doomed from the start.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top