Coral reefer
Past President
Is it a red film that comes off easy?
BlueCheese3's first tank: Red Sea reefer 250
- Thread starter BlueCheese3
- Start date
BlueCheese3
Guest
I wouldn’t call it a film. It certainly is red, and some it will come off if I pull it off or shake the plug, but I wouldn’t say it comes off easy. It’s difficult to photograph due to the lightning but I tried. It’s thicker then in the photo, and it covers all of the rock and about 1/2 of the sand, as well as the back.
ofzakaria
Guest
What's your po4 like?
If you do not run carbon do run.
If po4 high use a good po4 remover
Skim wet.
Carbon, skimmer and good husbandry will bring down no3
Po4 remover like rowaphos or al99 will bring down the po4.
As system mature, your biological filtration strengthens, your nutrients drop algae will go away.
If you do not run carbon do run.
If po4 high use a good po4 remover
Skim wet.
Carbon, skimmer and good husbandry will bring down no3
Po4 remover like rowaphos or al99 will bring down the po4.
As system mature, your biological filtration strengthens, your nutrients drop algae will go away.
BlueCheese3
Guest
po4 is 0 on the salifert test kit. I will set my skimmer to run wet. I have a bag of carbon that I was using to clear up the tank when starting, I'll swap it out now. Thanks for the advice.
ofzakaria
Guest
If its indeed zero that's a recipe for cyano. Are you sure its zero? What are you dosing?
Do you dose carbon? Like nopox of vodka?
So you use any po4 remover like gfo?
BlueCheese3
Guest
No gfo. I double checked several days in a row (albeit the same test kit, so that could be the issue) with the salifert test kit and I couldn't detect any. I dosed nopox during the cycling period but haven't for at least 3 weeks. Not currently dosing anything, just feeding.
ofzakaria
Guest
If po4 is zero and no3 is high you will get cyano. You need to bring your po4 a bit up. Do not skim wet. Skim regular.
Hard to give more advice unless I understand your system and your daily regimen exactly...
BlueCheese3
Guest
How do I bring up my po4? Should I dose it or are there foods that contain high po4? As for my system, 55 gallon tank with 11 gallon sump, 50 lbs dry rock, filtration is nyos quantum skimmer, refugium added on Thursday, and a media reactor I added last night. Currently have 2x 1” clownfish, 1x 1.5” yellow tang, a medium cleaner shrimp, and a scarlet hermit. The hermit and clowns were added 4 weeks ago, the tang and shrimp 1 week ago. I feed the clowns reef nutrition TDO chroma boost, 3 pellets each, and the yellow tang/shrimp a hikari sinking algae pellet which I remove after both have had a couple bites. I water change about 2 buckets a week with Red Sea black bucket salt, and I have 2 radion xr15s on 20% for 10 hours per day.
iCon
Supporting Member
Well don’t worry about bringing po4’s up. That’ll happen on its own.
I’d start with bigger water changes, and getting chaeto growing well in your fuge. Manual removal of the red stuff. If this doesn’t work after a week or two, go with a 3-day blackout while keeping yout normal lighting schedule for your fuge (assuming there’s no cyano in there. This shifts the nutrient consumer from cyano or any other algae to the algae in your fuge. If there’s cyano everywhere, then black it all out.
Water source? RODI checked for 0 TDS?
I’d start with bigger water changes, and getting chaeto growing well in your fuge. Manual removal of the red stuff. If this doesn’t work after a week or two, go with a 3-day blackout while keeping yout normal lighting schedule for your fuge (assuming there’s no cyano in there. This shifts the nutrient consumer from cyano or any other algae to the algae in your fuge. If there’s cyano everywhere, then black it all out.
Water source? RODI checked for 0 TDS?
ofzakaria
Guest
It should come up naturally as you feeding and your fish bio load grow. Avoid doing things to artificially to increase po4 like over feeding and such. It will mess things up more.
Since you started with dry rocks system need time to mature so just be patient.
Since your system is fish only so far, and if cyano is bothering you alot, you can use chemiclean, it will eradicate the cyano at least for couple of months, so I think of it as a jumpstart.
But important thing is patience honestly.
Last edited:
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
How's your refugium (chaeto?) growing? That might be up taking nutrients faster than you put them in. A skimmer alone usually won't do that
BlueCheese3
Guest
RODI source water using a 4 stage BRS 75 gpd unit. Fuge was started on Thursday, haven’t noticed any growth yet but there might be some. I actually do have corals that I forgot to mention, and the main reason I want to get rid of this quickly is because they are bothering my zoanthids. How long can corals go without light, if I need to do a blackout? I will start with manual removal and water changes.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
4 stage could work if you have a proper carbon block, plus the DI stage should get most everything that slips through, but yeah, no way I'd run a single carbon block.
BlueCheese3
Guest
So I should add another canister with a 1 micron carbon block? Is it worth the extra $50 or so to add a second DI canister, or will that not be necessary?
I have been battling a bit of Cyano in my tank. This is what I’m doing:
Water change - using a toothbrush attached to a gravel vacuum with rubber bands so I can brush it off and remove it in one go.
Shortened the lights on period by two hours.
Got a cheap, small power head that is aimed directly at the problem areas. I move it around every day.
Increase flow by turning up my regular power head.
It’s not gone yet, but I think I’m winning. I bought some chemiclean just in case it gets worse.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Water change - using a toothbrush attached to a gravel vacuum with rubber bands so I can brush it off and remove it in one go.
Shortened the lights on period by two hours.
Got a cheap, small power head that is aimed directly at the problem areas. I move it around every day.
Increase flow by turning up my regular power head.
It’s not gone yet, but I think I’m winning. I bought some chemiclean just in case it gets worse.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
ofzakaria
Guest
I get cyano often it come and go. It come when I tank my po4, up I just up it a bit itnaturaly go away.
I can do that cause I can control the po4 through my zeoreactor flow and the use of po4.
Especially when I use rowaphos I am more pron to tank my po4 due to how fast this media work that's why now I use al99 for longer term as it remove po4 very slowly..
But yeh, cyano for me come and go I n9 longer bother much about it..
BlueCheese3
Guest
So I have been skimming normally, running my fuge, and running carbon while feeding normally as well. New carbon block + canister is coming today, Nitrates are below 20, but phosphates are still 0. Cyano is still going strong, but all of my zoa colonies except for 1 have at least one open polyp.
Last night when I was turning off my return pump to feed my fish, one of the clownfish happened to swim past the return line and get sucked in when the line started to siphon. I broke the siphon and disconnected my pump from the return line and he was fine with just a torn pelvic fin. Is there some sort of screen I can put over the return line output to prevent this in the future?
Last night when I was turning off my return pump to feed my fish, one of the clownfish happened to swim past the return line and get sucked in when the line started to siphon. I broke the siphon and disconnected my pump from the return line and he was fine with just a torn pelvic fin. Is there some sort of screen I can put over the return line output to prevent this in the future?
