4 mo. old tank have questions

[Premiere Vapor]

New to the forum and saltwater aquariums and have some questions as to wether or not the questions i have listed below are normal for a new tank. The tank has been up for just under 4 months.

Tank specs
75g show tank
60-70lb of live rock
crushed coral and sand for the bed
1 1600gph and one 1300gph power heads
coralife 125g skimmer
370gph canister filter with 9w UV
Marinland 4' reef LED ( actinic on at 9am, daylight on at 10am, daylight off 8pm actinic off 10pm )

Nitrates 0ppm
nitrites 0ppm
ammonia 0ppm
phosphates .25ppm
Salinity 1.025
water temp 78°

Livestock
1 flame angel
1 chromis
3 damsels
3 emerald crabs
20 hermits ( red, blue, and green )
1 Nassarius snail ( every time i put a snail in it dies or the crabs eat them )
Haitian reef enenome
green star polyp
brain coral
I haven't added anything to the tank in about a month.

I will be TRYING to remove the damsels this week and add a yellow tang, hippo tang, and a pair of clowns all a week apart after I have checked to make sure they are healthy in the QT.

Here are the questions
1) i have some green hair allege that stared about a month ago.
2) the haitian enenome is turning kind of brown, spots, like he's dirty.
3) I have small white spots all over and they are very hard to get off.
4) some pineapple sponges
5 I have what i think is a couple stomatella snails just showed up out of no where.

Thank you for taking the time to help me out. This forum has been a big help.

 

[B.BASH]

Parameters look good 75 is not a big tank as far as tangs go so use caution also phosphate is probably the cause of hair algae the best advise I can give you is take your time do your homework plan ahead for nutrient export gfo/ carbon/skimming be patient take a proactive approach not reactive

 

[DDon]

Welcome.

Green hair algae is due to nutrients. Are you using RO/DI water for making new saltwater and for top off? If not that is probably your issue. Be sure to keep up on water changes, blow detritus off your rocks with a turkey baster and siphon out as much as you can during water changes. If it persists I would consider using GFO (granulated ferric oxide) to reduce your phosphate. Also make sure you don't over feed.

I suspect the problem with the anemone is due to lighting. Anemones require strong lighting and sorry to say the marine land reef led is lacking with the 1 watt LEDs they use. Also, anemones do best in a more mature system.

Are the spots white or more pink? Can't tell what they are from the pic but may be coralline algae.

I can see quite a few yellow and some white sponges. Sponges are beneficial so don't need to worry about them.

Stomatella snails were most likely hitchhikers on the live rock and are good. You can google images if them to verify that is what you have. The big give away is the half shell.

I would not add a yellow tang and definitely not a hippo tang to the tank. Your tank size is too small. Might take a look at the bristle tooth tangs such as chevron or kole tang and only 1 for your size tank. You already have 1 algae grazer in the flame angel.

Glad to see you are QTing. Strict QT is best way to keep disease out of tank. You do say you are adding a week apart though, so curious what your QT procedure is (might take a look at the QT sticky) also might want to slow the additions down some to give the bacteria population time to adapt to new additions.

Good luck
Dale

 

[Premiere Vapor]

Thanks for the quick replies.

I am use ro/di for both top off and saltwater. For feeding I feed once a day slowly dropping in pellets. just enough for them to eat so a lot docent get missed the a small amount of Mysis Shrimp ( the frozen cubed kind, I thaw it out at put a small amount in ) Should i thaw and rinse the shrimp first?

The small dots are white all slightly different sizes.

 

[DDon]

Doesn't sound like over feeding is the issue, I was just checking. As far as rinsing the Mysis, I usually do but wife has taken over feeding the fish and doesn't rinse, haven't seen any increase of algae. Not sure it really makes much of a difference, especially since you are feeding a small amount.
How often are you doing water changes and what amount?
What media do you have in your canister filter and how often do you clean/change it?
How is the skimmate production on the skimmer?
Source of rock?

Any chance of a close up picture of the white dots?

 

[Premiere Vapor]

Water changes about 2-3 gallons a week topping off 1.5-2 gallons a day

no in the canister 3 filters to progressively catch smaller particles. cleaned weekly.

Skimmate i think is good, dark coffee color, 1/4 to a 1/2 a cup a week ( it has a big collection cup. )

Live rock came from a established tank.

Thanks for asking for the close up, i zoomed in and it looks like spirorbid feather dusters.

Just took a closer look while taking the pic looks like I have some Aiptasia growing behind the brain coral.

 

[Premiere Vapor]

Sorry forgot to add the photo.

 

[DDon]

I would increase the water change amount until you get the algae under control (10 - 20% water change). Blow off the rocks on a regular basis to remove detritus.

I asked about the rocks because if they were in a tank with high phosphate before they could leach it out feeding algae.

Canister filters can trap a lot of material leading to high nutrients. If you are getting a lot of buildup in a week may need to increase cleaning. I have never run a canister filter on saltwater tank so can't offer much advice there.

And your ID looks to be correct.

Almost forgot; As I'm sure you already know, you will want to kill the aptasia.

 

[Premiere Vapor]

Thanks for all your help DDon. Glad to know a lot of this is normal. This is my first saltwater tank and I was kinda freaking out all this stuff growing in the tank.

Going to get rid of the aptasia today. Thanks again guys.

 

[KAMIKAZE0214]

Thanks for all your help DDon. Glad to know a lot of this is normal. This is my first saltwater tank and I was kinda freaking out all this stuff growing in the tank.

Going to get rid of the aptasia today. Thanks again guys.

You will see more crazy stuff that pops up! It's one thing I love about saltwater.

 

[DrBoxedWine]

Well your nitrates are 0, but i'd still ditch the canister filter. For freshwater systems they work great (i used to run an fx5 on my old cichlid tank). Canister's are a big enough pain to clean that no one who has a job and family would ever do it often enough on a SW tank. If you want the mechanical, i'd go with an HOB that is easier to clean. just my $0.02.

 

[Premiere Vapor]

Just wanted to let you guys know. I have trapped all the damsels without tearing the tank apart.
I used a 1 liter water bottle trap with mysis shrimp inside. Caught the first one in 7 hours. skipped feeding that night and caught my flame angel twice, put him back and caught the other 2 within a few hours. 31 hours total. It really works Patience prevailed!

 

[wooden_reefer]

New to the forum and saltwater aquariums and have some questions as to wether or not the questions i have listed below are normal for a new tank. The tank has been up for just under 4 months.

Tank specs
75g show tank
60-70lb of live rock
crushed coral and sand for the bed
1 1600gph and one 1300gph power heads
coralife 125g skimmer
370gph canister filter with 9w UV
Marinland 4' reef LED ( actinic on at 9am, daylight on at 10am, daylight off 8pm actinic off 10pm )

Nitrates 0ppm
nitrites 0ppm
ammonia 0ppm
phosphates .25ppm
Salinity 1.025
water temp 78°

Livestock
1 flame angel
1 chromis
3 damsels
3 emerald crabs
20 hermits ( red, blue, and green )
1 Nassarius snail ( every time i put a snail in it dies or the crabs eat them )
Haitian reef enenome
green star polyp
brain coral
I haven't added anything to the tank in about a month.

I will be TRYING to remove the damsels this week and add a yellow tang, hippo tang, and a pair of clowns all a week apart after I have checked to make sure they are healthy in the QT.

Here are the questions
1) i have some green hair allege that stared about a month ago.
2) the haitian enenome is turning kind of brown, spots, like he's dirty.
3) I have small white spots all over and they are very hard to get off.
4) some pineapple sponges
5 I have what i think is a couple stomatella snails just showed up out of no where.

Thank you for taking the time to help me out. This forum has been a big help.

370 gph is way too fast for a 9 w uv

Integrated stuffs are often not designed properly

About 100 gph is about max effective against waterborne bacteria for a 9 w uv

Is there a bypass for the uv?

 

[uncleL]

Hey There! This is just me...I would get a RO/DI Unit,MarineLand 350 filter $40.00 easy maintenance since my tanks 90G & 75G are sumpless. Loose the canister! I would also add good live rock and change the water flow. Get your bacteria built up before adding coral and more fish.

 

[Premiere Vapor]

Yea I think the uv is useless, and with the protein skimmer I'm going to remove the canister this weekend. I am looking for a good RO/Di unit ( right know buying the DI and saltwater from the LFS ) I've been looking at the BRS 5 Stage PLUS RO/DI System - 75GPD $199

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-5-stage-plus-ro-di-system-75gpd.html

And this one $110 ( has a DI bypass for making drinking water but no inline TDS )

http://www.ebay.com/itm/15126278200...l?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=151262782006&_rdc=1

Any suggestions on the RO/Di unit?

Adding more live rock this week.
I had the dual 1600 gph ( the one on the left in the above photo ) on the back wall pointed toward the front. I then moved the dual to the left side pointing at the skimmer intake and added the single 1300gph ( the one on the left in the above photo ) bounced it off the front glass to create a circular flow ( nitrates when from around 23-30 to 0 ) open to suggestions with the water flow if any one has some ideas.

Picked up a hanna phosphate checker reads .24 still trying to get the phosphates down to get rid of the hair allege. It is stuck on pretty good. I tried to pull some of it off with my fingers and remove it from the tank but its stuck pretty good. tried a toothbrush I'll let you know how that worked out next year.

 

[Premiere Vapor]

Still trying to figure out the hair algae thing. I tested the ro/di water i get from the LFS ( where the pets go ) I bought it there figuring a big company like that would spend thousands on the ro/di system. 30ppm. I'm kinda ****ed the drinking water I get from the machine in front of the store on the corner only has 8 and costs less. So I ordered the Spectrapure ro/di unit and will be making my own ro/di and saltwater so I know what I'm getting.
Here's my question. I think the high TDS could have been causing the problem. Should I dose with NoPoX to knock it down or use the clean water from the new ro/di unit and see if it goes away?

 

[DrBoxedWine]

That's shitty. I don't have the answer here but i'm curious what people say

 

[wooden_reefer]

Yea I think the uv is useless, and with the protein skimmer I'm going to remove the canister this weekend. I am looking for a good RO/Di unit ( right know buying the DI and saltwater from the LFS ) I've been looking at the BRS 5 Stage PLUS RO/DI System - 75GPD $199

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-5-stage-plus-ro-di-system-75gpd.html

And this one $110 ( has a DI bypass for making drinking water but no inline TDS )

http://www.ebay.com/itm/15126278200...l?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=151262782006&_rdc=1

Any suggestions on the RO/Di unit?

Adding more live rock this week.
I had the dual 1600 gph ( the one on the left in the above photo ) on the back wall pointed toward the front. I then moved the dual to the left side pointing at the skimmer intake and added the single 1300gph ( the one on the left in the above photo ) bounced it off the front glass to create a circular flow ( nitrates when from around 23-30 to 0 ) open to suggestions with the water flow if any one has some ideas.

Picked up a hanna phosphate checker reads .24 still trying to get the phosphates down to get rid of the hair allege. It is stuck on pretty good. I tried to pull some of it off with my fingers and remove it from the tank but its stuck pretty good. tried a toothbrush I'll let you know how that worked out next year.

Is it feasible for a DIY bypass for the uv?

 

[Premiere Vapor]

The UV has a separate on/off but I have removed the canister filter, took your advice, don't think I need it with the skimmer.

 

[Premiere Vapor]

So what do you guys think? Should I dose with NoPoX to knock it down or use the clean water from the new ro/di unit and see if it goes away?