I had a major battle with cyano. But with all ur guys help I'm beating it faster than I ever thought. My tank looks great and it's almost all gone. Thank you all for taking the time to help. Soooo now that my tank looks great. I bought a couple beginner corals ie Xenia and star polyps. I also made an impulse buy 4 days ago an orange frogspawn. I loved it soo much and I wanna do everything I can to keep it alive. I positioned it in medium flow and about 2/3 from the top of tank. I have a 90gal with 4 t5s. I have a 10gal refugium with chaeto a etss protein skimmer I run carbon in a filter sock and a phosban reactor running nitric oxide. I also have a mag with a detritus remover running 24/7. I do weekly water changes 15 gal ro/di water only and use the turkey Baster method to blow off live rock during the water changes. I'm still new to the reef keeping and was wondering if anybody has any tips or suggestions that might make my tank happier? Oh yeah I also dose b-ionic every day.
Am I ready for corals???
- Thread starter Cyril
- Start date
boosted chemist
New member
Stop dosing everyday, I doubt that one frog spawn is going to consume that much alk ca. Your water changes should stabilize that for now. Also pick up some salifers test kits
teamdulski
The Saltiest!
You have more than enough equipment, just focus on getting test kits to watch your alk and calcium.
UV sterilizers provide no benefit to a reef tank,imo.
Never heard of anyone dosing nitric oxide(NO). It's an unstable gas and forms some toxic stuff like acid rain and nitrogen dioxide.
Starting out it's important to focus on basics for a while: salinity, temperature , nutrients, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium.
Developing a thriving reef tank takes time, years; not weeks.
Never heard of anyone dosing nitric oxide(NO). It's an unstable gas and forms some toxic stuff like acid rain and nitrogen dioxide.
Starting out it's important to focus on basics for a while: salinity, temperature , nutrients, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium.
Developing a thriving reef tank takes time, years; not weeks.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
+1 to everything Tom said.
Lighting and flow are easy because they are directly tied to equipment.
The tough thing for most beginners is STABLE and proper water chemistry. If you don't have them yet, get some test kits for the basics, start monitoring, and start learning how your tank behaves - get parameters in line, and learn how to keep them there.
Lighting and flow are easy because they are directly tied to equipment.
The tough thing for most beginners is STABLE and proper water chemistry. If you don't have them yet, get some test kits for the basics, start monitoring, and start learning how your tank behaves - get parameters in line, and learn how to keep them there.
My Bad i meant to type ferric oxide or GFO. I'll be hitting up the lfs stores today. I've been getting my water tested every week and the only thing I was told is not perfect is nitrates. The two workers at caribbean told me it was a lil lower then what there tanks are at. Salifert tests? Alk cal phosphates and nitrate? Anything else? I read a lot of posts on here and been looking at some of the crazy setups that some of the members have and it almost looks like something straight out of a science laboratory. I just don't want something to happen and regret not having a method already in place to alleviate the problem.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Nitrates lower than their tanks would be a good thing.
IMHO you need to break dependence on your LFS as far as understanding your water chem. Make sure you can measure and understand the parameters Tom laid out (temperature, salinity, pH, nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium). Search the forum for reviews of specific brands as everyone has their favorite. Before you try to adjust anything, make sure you are correctly measuring it, you know what the target value is, you know how to adjust it, and you know if that adjustment is going to throw anything else off. Watch these parameters over a few weeks. See what happens to them when you do a water change. Try to get a feel for the behavior of your tank and if you can correctly modify it when it starts to get out of whack. THEN think about adding more corals.
IMHO you need to break dependence on your LFS as far as understanding your water chem. Make sure you can measure and understand the parameters Tom laid out (temperature, salinity, pH, nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium). Search the forum for reviews of specific brands as everyone has their favorite. Before you try to adjust anything, make sure you are correctly measuring it, you know what the target value is, you know how to adjust it, and you know if that adjustment is going to throw anything else off. Watch these parameters over a few weeks. See what happens to them when you do a water change. Try to get a feel for the behavior of your tank and if you can correctly modify it when it starts to get out of whack. THEN think about adding more corals.
Granulated ferric oxide is a good remover for inorganic phosphate. It can exhaust quickly if there is a significant quantity of PO4 .
It can also clog up with bacteria and/or precipitation rendering it useless in a week or two.It's expensive; so, I use it when I know there is PO4 present via testing or have some reason to think it's there( hair algae on rocks, etc).
How long has this tank been running? It can take a month or two for dentirification bacteria to kick in.
For tests;I personally like: API for ammonia, nitrite; Salifert for alkalinity( carbonate hardness),calcium , magnesium , PO4 /phosphate and nitrate ( NO3). I use a pinpoint monitor for ph. A colorimeter by hanah is easier to read than the Salifert PO4 test.
IMO. the majority of effort in reefkeeping is about understanding the water chemistry and keeping it constantly near the natural seawater levels the specimens kept are accostomed to.
It can also clog up with bacteria and/or precipitation rendering it useless in a week or two.It's expensive; so, I use it when I know there is PO4 present via testing or have some reason to think it's there( hair algae on rocks, etc).
How long has this tank been running? It can take a month or two for dentirification bacteria to kick in.
For tests;I personally like: API for ammonia, nitrite; Salifert for alkalinity( carbonate hardness),calcium , magnesium , PO4 /phosphate and nitrate ( NO3). I use a pinpoint monitor for ph. A colorimeter by hanah is easier to read than the Salifert PO4 test.
IMO. the majority of effort in reefkeeping is about understanding the water chemistry and keeping it constantly near the natural seawater levels the specimens kept are accostomed to.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
+1 to that.
For extra credit, begin to develop your Jedi senses. Instead of just relying on test kits to tell you about the health of your tank, learn to read the biological signs, as well. Things like how often you have to clean your glass, for instance - if you're happy running the mag-float over it once a week, and then suddenly you find that you have to clean it every 3 or 4 days, there might be a nutrient problem developing.
The only thing I notice is brown algae on the glass at my dead spots on the back part of the tank that's probably every three days. I just purchased salifert nitrate test and the red sea combo pack ca alk mag test. I'm gonna purchase the phosphate test prob Friday (next payday). I want to use a different food for the feeding as I've been reading that flake food contains a higher amount of phosphate. I'm trying to get rid of all the noob mistakes. I have frozen Mysis shrimp but waiting to see what u all use first.
