What did you replace your bio balls with??

[ga8233]

I have had 2 different times when the hair algae got out of hand in my 125 g. It was so bad that all you could see was "green." The first time I bought a clean-up crew from this web site as I hardly had anything. I used a toothbrush to clean the live rock and removed as much by hand as I could. I also made sure that I changed the "phosguard" every two weeks not to mention water changes. The clean up crew took care of it very quickly.
Approx. a year later, same thing. I guess my clean up crew was slowly dissappearing but I still had quite a few. I don't know why, but the hair algae was back. I added to the clean up crew and again brushed and removed algae by hand.
Both times I thought I could get rid of it by brushing and removing the algae but I find that I do need to make sure there are sufficient crabs,snails, etc.. Als the water changes. I know most people say to do them often and I agree.
Also, I'm not sure but you could try lowering the water temp a bit. Mine is set at between 74-76 degrees and also I had the lights on only up to 4 hours a day as the algae grows faster when the lights are on.

 

[newreefers]

thomas,
I will do the 30% water change, I have enough water on hand for this. I will re-test my RODI, but 2 weeks ago it tested fine, the filters are only a couple of months old.
The skimmer - I clean it out every 2-3 days, it has foam to the top but only about 3/4" of black/green water in the bottom. I think I implied it was full of water not foam.
If it is the sand bed leaking, what can I do to fix it? Re-seed with some more live sand? Or replace the existing sand bed?
Bio balls - you can stop drooling now, I put them back in. LOL
ga,
I can't scrub the rock out of the tank because unfortunately only about 3 rocks don't have some sort of coral attached to it. I have been using needle nose pliers and plucking it off as much as I can.
Perhaps my clean up crew has dwindled down some with me realizing it. I hadn't thought of that. I will order a package from SWF to boost it up. That certainly can't hurt!!
I can't lower the temp without a chiller, I am running 3 250w MH lights on the tank. 80 is as low as I can keep the temp using the four fans on the hood and keeping the house at 75. Living in FL doesn't help this situation.
Ok, off to the invert package section.:happy: :happy:

 

[newreefers]

OK, I just orderd the reef package for 55-100 gal tank. This should boost what I already have in there. It will be here on Friday. (I requested that since I have Friday off and will be home).

 

[ratgut]

If the bio balls dont do you any good i have read that lava rocks sold for bar-b-q grills are good to use so are those plastic mesh bags that onions are sold in. anyone ever try those?

 

[newreefers]

The water change is done. It will be a few days before I can get that much water on hand again.
And by the way, you are all safe, Murphy has moved in with me permantly---on top of all this, I now have an outbreak of flat worms. Great, just what I needed. AAARRRRRGGGGGHHH!!

 

[thomas712]

I've asked Bang to come by and take a look at this thread.
In the mean time:
What is your sand bed composition, aragonite? Southdown? silica? How deep.
WHat type of skimmer do you have?
Are you seeing any pods?
Did we cover the lighting? spectrum, age, and such?
Carbon?
What exactly are you feeding every other day? frozen, flake..what? and how long have you had this feeding regiem?
NEVER MIND
Originally posted by newreefers
Food is nori, some fresh meat, and a small amount of flakes a couple times a week.

My though is that your fish may be hungry but your infauna may not be getting enough and could be starving out, but I'm not sure that I am on the right track here. You say that you have plenty of worms right?
T

 

[newreefers]

Sand bed - pure aragonbite sand 3" followed by 2" live sand. About 5" deep.
Skimmer - Remora
Seeing a few pods under the rocks, lots of spagetti worms, and some bristle worms. I'm not seeing very many pods at all, you can see them crawling all over in my other tank, plus when I change the filter in the other tank, I have to scrape them off the poly back into the tank.
Carbon - 2 big old bags in there as we speak plus a bag of phosphate remover.
Lights - 3 250w MH 14,000K, new bulbes on June 7, 2003.
I attached my feeding schedule for this month. It's kinda hard to read.

 

[newreefers]

It's hard to read, it's an excel spreadsheet scanned to a jpg.
It basically says seaweed (nori) daily, on the days it says Coral and DT I also feed a bit of flakes. I put just a tiny pinch in and let that get eaten, and keep doing this about 3 times, everyone gets to eat, not tons just hitting the bottom.

 

[bang guy]

Hi Thomas,
Thank you for the invitation. Unfortunately the subject has changed a couple times so I'll have to read the post over tomorrow before I can give an opinion. But I will.

 

[hirock]

Originally posted by Ratgut
If the bio balls dont do you any good i have read that lava rocks sold for bar-b-q grills are good to use so are those plastic mesh bags that onions are sold in. anyone ever try those?
You can use almost anything for a bio-media base inside the sump. Fishing line, PVC, vinyl tubing, styrofoam, lace netting or vail, poker chips, Legos, 6-pack carrying plastic straps, ceramic/plastic beads, golfballs... the uses are endless. I use base rock :yes:
IMHO, I would never use any type of volcanic/tufa rock in my system. Both could contain a high concentration of iron ore/heavy mineral content to be safely used in a marine system. Both can slowly release and/or leech high, undesirable levels of minerals making it difficult to export from the system.

 

[saltwaterbob]

You should leave the bio-balls in the tank if they are there. If you start a new tank with 1-2 lbs of live rock per gallon of water you can leave them out.You will get a mini cycle if you add to much sand. Live sand will spike your tank. Sounds like your doing to much. Let the tank settle. To much carbon. Replacing to much water may take a while to recover. Let the algea pack do the work. Do you use an U/V light?

 

[bang guy]

I have a few opinions but they are based on intuition and experience, not science.
First the Nitrate. I have a not-so-widely-held theory that for DSBs to remove Nitrate effectively the Nitrite to Nitrate conversion needs to be done using the sand. This keep the Nitrate concentration high near the sand so it is more likely to be pulled deep into the sand where denitrifying bacteria can to their job. Many believe this is hogwash and they might be right but so far the theory has not been proven nor disproven. I have gathered a lot of anecdotal information supporting it though, including this thread!
Also required for a healthy sand bed is a huge population of sand bed infauna. I believe you have the appropriate infauna to process nitrate or your sandbed would not have been able to keep your Nitrate level low before adding the bio-balls. There is a chance though that your infauna have become depleted and this caused your Nitrate spike and not the bio-balls.
Now for the polyfilter. Is it possible you don't have the appropriate worms & other critters to catch & eat the detritus from your water column? This would cause it to collect on a filter pad instead of being eaten by the sand critters.
Let me know your thoughts.
Guy

 

[newreefers]

That sounds about right, what could be killing off my pods. At one time the tank was teaming with them, now just a few. Any ideas what is killing them off? I don't think any of the fish I have are really pod eaters. My other tank is still crawling with them. How do I get them back and keep them??

 

[newreefers]

^

 

[thomas712]

Newreefers - how's the situation, any reductions?

 

[squidd]

Originally posted by newreefers
That sounds about right, what could be killing off my pods. At one time the tank was teaming with them, now just a few. Any ideas what is killing them off? I don't think any of the fish I have are really pod eaters. My other tank is still crawling with them. How do I get them back and keep them??
At this point I would transfer sand fom the tanks with large populations of pods to rseed the depleated tank...