Tank Size?

[brianp]

Hello everyone,
I have a 30 gallon reef tank and I am have problems keeping the water quality the way it is to be. I do considerable water changes and still the ammonia will not go away. I have high filtration on my tank but it just seems to linger at .25 ppm. I wonder is it because of the size of my tank. I know that the bigger the tank the more disapated the ammonia will be. If you have any thoughts or suggestions on this matter i will appriciate the help. I also have a high amount of red and green algae in my tank. Please help me.

 

[cboyfan2020]

any fish/inverts? It is true the larger the tank the more stable the water quality but i would be more worried about the red algae right now. Can you pick it up in a sheet?

 

[dfishh]

well, if just started it out, the hi amonia would be because the tank is cycling. new tanks go thru a cylce wher bacteria develops and converts ammonias to nitrites, and then nitrites to nitrates. the amonia will go really hi, then drop while the nitrites go up, then the nitrites will drop and nitrates will start to come, but they will probly remain steady. during a cycle, u should not add any sensitive fish or inverts that r sensitive to water quality. o ye, and alge, i think, will come with the cycle, i got it too, but itll go away. it should start with brown stuff, diatoms, then green. sumtimes hair alge will grow, but the worst is red slime. but it should go away if u keep ur nitrate and phosphate level lo
DAVE

 

[ivanfj]

I had the similar problem before I added my skimmer and now I have no ammonia at all. You may want to buy a skimmer if you don't already have one. JMO

 

[brianp]

Hello everyone sorry i have not been online for a while. I have a skimmer and it is working and my tank is not new it is about a year old. You would think that it is recyleing but everthing else is not rising. Not even my ammonia it just stayes at about .25 ppm. I took out a toadstool and an macro algae that was dieing in hopes that would help but it has not. My test results are as follows: Amm.-.25, Nitrates-10, Nitrites-0, calcium-450, Ph-8.2, Phosphates- 0. I do not understand it I have not had a problem with my water quality untill now. If anyone has any suggestions they will be appriciated.
Brian,

 

[brianp]

I do not have a deep substrate in my aquarium. Do you think that might be the problem. Should I change over to live and dead sand and if so how deep should aim for?

 

[timo]

Try letting a LFS test it. Yours may be inaccurite. (?) Also, perhaps the colour change b/w 0 and .25 may seem close.

 

[wolffam]

What is the fish load? Did you add anything lately?

 

[brianp]

I only have a maroon clown and a royal gramma for fish and an open green brain and a green mushroom rock.

 

[dfishh]

evrything is fine exept ur amonia, thats wierd. usually that would mean that sumthin died i think
DAVE

 

[brianp]

yeah but I can not find what it is. I know that in my size tank that a dead snail or two will rise the ammonia. I will continue to do water changes at a regular bases so that it will hopefully bring down the ammonia. I am also thinking about changing my subtrate to live sand.