flooded population in reef tank

[Remusc]

My Tank is flooded with thousand of life form and i on the edge of giving up and let nature take it course. First i keep clearing aiptasia with different method, over population of bristleworm, amphipods, tisbe pods, colonial hyroid. Mine is only a 16 gallon tank with a small hang on refugium with ulva and it seem to me they are too much life form which i afraid one day it will crash when one population die off. The latest issue would be the fish fry.i not sure which fish is it as i saw alot of them swimming when the light are out and they seem to grow bigger and bigger each day. And all this cause me constant battle with nitrate and phosphate. Although phos seem to be like 0.01 but nitrate is on the high side of 10 to 20ppm. which i using all all kind of method to bring down the nitrate. Do you think i should redo my tank and remove all unwanted pest or let nature take it course as i afraid it will crash one day based on the number of life form.

Thanks

 

[billdogg]

Sounds like a pretty normal healthy system to me. If you want it to be a sterile box of water you are in the wrong hobby.

 

[nezw0001]

It seems like many tanks will have something unwanted at any given time. From my experience is seems like it is best to not go overboard and try to eradicate them. Like Billdogg says thats how an ecosystem works. There will always be ebbs and flows in a healthy reef tanks, just like in nature. Don't let it stress you out, just roll with it.

 

[SantaMonica]

Welcome to a real reef. If you just let it set, and not even clean the glass, it will self-regulate itself.

 

[laverda]

Why in the world do you not want all the life forms in your tank? Most people would love to have that much life in their tank. They are not contributing to your nitrates any way. They are recycling the nitrates already in your tank from the food your putting in and other sources. They are all doing their job to help brake down waste and excess food in the tank. Also there is nothing wrong with nitrates of 10-20 in my experience.
Bristle worms are beneficial to your tank as well. You can get rid of most of them with an arrow crab. It can be fun to watch them eat them as well.
As far as the aptasia goes 2 true peppermint shrimp should easily take care of the problem.once your aptasia are gone your nitrates will probably increase as aptasia use it as a food source.

 

[billdogg]

What size is your tank? Getting rid of Aiptasia sp. anemones can be a very simple thing to do. My go-to solution is to use a syringe and boiling water. Just place the tip of the syringe at the base of the anemone and blast away. IME, 10ml or so will cook it to death.

 

[lpsouth1978]

I agree with everything that has been said so far. I personally would LOVE to have all that life in my tank. I have seen ZERO aptaisia, ZERO worms, ZERO amphipods, even ZERO copepods. I know I have copepods, but my wrasse and neon dottyback, pretty well wipe them out. Controlling the populations of aptaisia and worms is pretty easy, but somewhat unnecessary. Bristle worm traps are pretty effective if you have a TON of worms, and the best thing I have found to combat aptaisia are peppermint shrimp (as noted above) and a high powered laser . Keeping your nitrates in check and not over feeding will also slow the reproduction of the worms and aptaisia.

 

[Remusc]

I know let nature run it course but what I might afraid if either one of them mass die off I afraid it might raise my ammonia. At the moment I OK with them jus afriad it will mass die off as food sources will become lesser as the population increase. And I do have fish fry i my tank which I suspect is clownfish larvae. I read in forum they will be gone as other fishes eat them but I doubt so cos they alway hiding in hole and nv venture out in the water. I think estimate would be 30 to 40 of them hiding in different location. Every night I monitor them and they seem to get bigger.

 

[crawlerman]

These all sound like good things to me. Nothing you mentioned will crash a tank. If you created a natural environment able to sustain and grow clown fish fry in a 16g tank, you have something to be proud of, not something to worry about.

 

[Uncle99]

Apastia is just plain bad. Remove them.
Critter populations need a balance. If you have an infestation, then that's not good, at one point the elastic will break.

Example in your 16 if you had 15-20 flatworms, that's beneficial, but 200 is not.....more is an infestation....

 

[NikonN8]

You could try cutting back feeding.

I was going to snarkily suggest dosing Clorox but wouldn't want to be responsible if you missed the attempt at humor.

 

[Remusc]

Sorry for the mis Id I think as the fry get bigger it look more like a shrimp now. My guess would be peppermint shrimp as that the only shrimp I got to take care of my hyroid and aiptasia. But the peppermint I got didn't went for either of them so back to square one. Got to use aiptasia x to get them one by one.