General Advice (big post)

[Mnemic]

Mkay.

So I have neglected my tank for a good 6-8 months. Its running OKAY, but not great. I'm now able to dedicate some time to it, and I'm wanting to get it running smoothly.

I've fed very sparsely (every 1-3 days, sometimes longer ) to help reduce the maintenance I have to do on the tank. I have not had any casualties other then a snail and blueleg here and there. I have one fish looking pretty pathetic and malnourished, so getting him fattened up is a priority too.

Overview:
75 Gallon Tank
38 Gallon Sump
Two 175 Watt Electronic MH Ballasts running Ushio 10K Bulbs
Two 65 Watt Actinic PCs
OctoExtreme 160 Skimmer.

ReefKeeper Elite Handles TopOff water/lights/and Temp control (as much as canopy fans can do)

Topoff Water comes from a 5 Gallon Plastic Tub. I have to fill this tub about twice a week.

Problems I've got after running a number of basic tests last night.
1) Calcium is low 255.
2) Phosphates are 1.5 (Should be < .1 I understand)
3) Coraline Algae grows on the bottom half of the tank, but not the rock or top half.
4) Top Half of tank gets the green filmy algae growing dispite how many times I clean it off (I think related to #2). This prevents Coraline algae from growing I think.
5) Discolored Substrate. I have about 1/2 to 1" of Sand in the Tank. the sand was white.. now its a brownish color in some areas.
6) Tube like filter feeders are ALL OVER. Spew out these spideweb thread like stuff to capture food in the water column. not very sightly.

Things I am going to do to correct problems
1) I have like 3 things I can dose, but I want to go the kalk route. Going to do a DIY Kalk Setup. Have questions about this later.
2) Replaced my RODI Waterfilters. Hoping that starts to clear up #4 and possibly #3. Filters Have not been replaced in a year.
3) No idea. Hoping RODI Filters will assist in correcting.
4) Again Hoping RODI Filters. Maybe some Turbos will eat this stuff.
5) Thinking some sort of sand sifting critter(s), or Manually stirring the sand.
6) Open to anything to get rid of these, or control them.


Stock:
Yellow Tang
Pair of Clowns
Purple Firefish (The one that looks malnourished despite attempted target feeding)
Cleaner Shrimp
Emerald Crab

Cleanup Crew:
Nassarius
Dwarf Ceriths
Nerites
Blue Legs

Corals (In order of largest to smallest):
Yellow Leather (5 Mushroom-like heads)
Brown/Green Button
Torch
Green Brain
Brown/Orange Cup-Plate Type Coral (unsure exactly)
Hydnophora
Keyna Tree
small Frogspawn

Food
Feeding has been Usually a Emerald Entree soaked in Selcon. Or Marine Flakes soaked in selcon. Going to be improving the feeding as well with some diy recipes I've found online.


Misc Stuff
PH (uncalibrated currently) is 8.15 at night, to 8.30 during the day. Sump is on a reverse lighting, which helps a little.
Temp Goes between 76.5 to 79.3 Currently.
No ammonia/nitrites
Nitrates were .10
Phosphate 1.5
Calcium 255
Alk 3.09 meq/L

Kalk Setup
I'm going to build a DIY Kalk system. The Question I have is, should I trigger it by PH, or just use it for dripping with Topoff.
http://www.reefworkshop.com/DIY_kalkreactor.htm is the design I'm going with.

 

[luckyfish]

Basically I’d break this down into short term survival then more long term success habits.

Short term: I’d focus on improving the environment by decreasing the likely toxins:

From both the parameters you post and the filter feeders it sounds like that water is just not a healthy place for most critters to be. Measure the TDS coming out of your RO/DI after changing the filters it should be 0. I would get clean water ASAP and do a big (20-25%) water change just to improve the environment with an emphasis on getting at the top layer of the sand bed. Make sure your skimmer is functioning properly (clean reservoir, and pump) because stirring all of that up is going to give it a job to do and you want that bad boy running well. I’d also run carbon. Then after a day I’d do another water change. You could also run some type of phosphate removal (phosgard).

What type of flow do you have going? The sand bed problems are a reflection of water quality and likely diminished circulation. Add power heads to get the water turned over so the gunk can get into the water column and to the filtration system.

Intermediate term:

The water changes will do something to improve calcium and alkalinity. I’d be interested to hear from other folks but I would focus more on increasing alk because it’s my understanding that has a larger impact on the general stability of the system. I’d start be dosing Alk while your building the DIY.

How old are the bulbs? I think you are correct the algae on the top half of the tank is out competing the coralline. Old bulbs can contribute to slime as well but you are on target that the phosphates are feeding the problem. I don’t know if I would immediately pull out those tube worms, I think they are acting as filtration.

 

[rumble]

Actually the toxins in the water (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates) don't look that bad to me. The low calcium suggests that your water changes are not keeping up with utilization. You don't mention what your water change schedule is like now, but that's going to be a factor when you're looking at supplementation. Fresh saltwater already has everything at the proper levels; supplementation is only really needed when you have nutrients getting consumed faster than water changes can replenish them. I'd get water changes on a regular schedule, retest your levels a couple times, and then figure out if you need to supplement. Given what you've said about livestock, I would think limewater instead of RO/DI for top-offs would be enough to keep your calcium levels up.

Looking at the alk, cal, and pH, I'm going to take a guess that maybe you've got a lot of dissolved CO2. I'm going with luckyfish on the need to look at increasing your flow. Get a phosphate remover of some kind; I recently started using Sea Gel (matrix carbon + phosguard) and so far I like it. My tanks are nanos though; you might want to get a reactor or something instead.

+1 on leaving the tube worms, they're finding something to eat that you probably would like even less. When they run out of food, most of them will die off anyway.

 

[travish]

I would go with partial water changes until you get all your params in order. Do one every two days or so, somewhere in the 20% range. this will bring all the parameters back in line. Once back in line then you will have to determine what it is going to take to keep those parameters stable.

On the kalk idea. I currently have my system setup on a dosing pump that adds my kalk 24-7. This accounts for all my evap and calcium needs, as well as keeping my alk and ph stable. You will want to be careful when starting your kalk additions not to add too much too fast. I would get the params right first. Then start with half dose of kalk and test. Repeat this process until you find out what dosage your tank requires to become stable.

I would leave the tubeworms if you can. They do a great job of cleaning up leftovers from the sand. Now as far as coraline on the rocks.... once you get your calcium and alk up and nitrates and phosphates down it should start to grow on the rocks as well. Make sure you have good flow and skimmer is running good this will help remove alot of the sludge from the water. I think you are on the right track for sure. Just keep at it and dont give up. It may take some time to get it all back in line.

 

[Mnemic]

TDS coming out of freshly replaced filters is 0. I shoulda checked what it was before I swapped them out, but After I saw phosphates, I made it a mission to get them swapped out last night. I've got 15g of water made up, but I am going to dispose of it, and make fresh batch all the way around.

I replaced the bulbs about a month ago, they were about a year old. I need to replace the actinics as well, but that'll hafta go next month.

Mkay, Formulating battleplan.

I've been doing smaller water changes (15g/week) But I think I'll do 25g changes over the course of the next few days, every 3 days, pulling water from the sandbed and close to rocks as much as possible.

I've got two 1200GPH Voyagers plus the 800ish return from sump. I think I'm going to upgrade to the 1600GPH versions however. (next month) I'll put the kor 3 and 4 back in alongside the Voyagers for the time being and that should double the flow in the entire tank for now.

I'ma test Cal/Alk on a daily basis until I get things leveled out, and then hopefully get things in order.

My waterchanges for the past 6 months have been... spuradic I've been much better about it the past 4 weeks, changing out 15 gallons every weekend, and plan on continuing that trend after I get everything squared away.

 

[ocd_mariner]

Might want to check your magnesium too. If its off kilter, you could have a hard time getting alk/ca in line.

 

[rumble]

personally I'd consider it a waste to test Cal daily, but I'm sure some here would disagree. If you did 25g water changes every three days, in three weeks you'll have replaced about 80% of the existing water. I'd test once a week maybe. Alk you can do more, but with pH that stable and a relatively low bio load, I wouldn't worry about that right now either. I'd just concentrate on the water changes and removing the phosphate, and I think everything else should just fall into place. Just my opinion...good luck!

 

[rumble]

Oh and BTW, if you really have 800GPH coming out of your return, you should look at that too. That would be 10x your display tank volume, and I think lower flow through the sump would give the water more quality time with your skimmer. Just a thought...

 

[Mnemic]

Oh and BTW, if you really have 800GPH coming out of your return, you should look at that too. That would be 10x your display tank volume, and I think lower flow through the sump would give the water more quality time with your skimmer. Just a thought...

Mmm. Makes sense. I have too much flow in the sump anyways, which has made the fuge all but useless at this point as well. Just another thing I want to address.

What is a Decent Flowrate through a Sump? I've some debates that say there is little point in running your Sump flow higher then your Skimmer can handle... but how do you figure out what your skimmer can handle?

 

[poolkeeper1]

Most Skimmers In the larger range run between 300-600 gph through the skimmer but on smaller ones the pump will regulate the proper flow through. But If your water Is turning over In your sump too fast It cuts the contact time by running by too fast. IMO your whole problem will be solved by proper maintenance habits, Which Include water changes, Bulbs, and good flow In the tank. You could just slow your return pump down a little with a ball valve and that will fix the sump/skimmer Issues. Dripping Calk for all your T/O water may be all the Ca/KH your system requires otherwise look Into dosing 2 part to keep all levels In the proper range, Mag should be fine once you get on a proper water X schedule unless you have a high demand for some reason. The Ocean cleanses Itself but we must stay on top of closed systems or face the consequences of not doing so. Once you get to the root of your problems all will start to get better again, Good Luck
Bill

 

[rumble]

What is a Decent Flowrate through a Sump? I've some debates that say there is little point in running your Sump flow higher then your Skimmer can handle... but how do you figure out what your skimmer can handle?

I don't really know how much water flows through a skimmer. I don't think there's a standard flow rate for sumps, but IME 3-5x tank volume is sufficient. In addition to the skimmer and fuge issues you mentioned, the drain for the tank runs louder and you'll typically see more microbubbles in the display if you've got a ton of flow through your return. I would say if you have the ability to add a ball valve to your return plumbing without too much hassle, its worth a shot.

 

[Mnemic]

I don't really know how much water flows through a skimmer. I don't think there's a standard flow rate for sumps, but IME 3-5x tank volume is sufficient. In addition to the skimmer and fuge issues you mentioned, the drain for the tank runs louder and you'll typically see more microbubbles in the display if you've got a ton of flow through your return. I would say if you have the ability to add a ball valve to your return plumbing without too much hassle, its worth a shot.

Valve and T is what I'm going to do. I don't have a microbubble problem at all, long as the water in the return chamber ramains constant.

Thanks for all the tips & pointers everyone. I'll keep ya posted on progress.

I know the "problems" have been self induced by lack of good care on my part, and I'ma do my best to keep it from happening again.

 

[rumble]

Yeah, I just mentioned the bubbles in case you were having that problem as well. It happens because really strong flow can push air underneath a bubble trap wall. Good luck, hope it all comes out well!

 

[Mnemic]

So after a Big Big maintence day saturday I cleaned up, and ironed out a lot of issues. I haven't run any tests yet, doing that tonite.

1) Pulled my skimmer out and gave it a good cleaning. When I pulled it out, I
2) found that I had a Filtersock behind it on one of the 2 Draintubes, and it had been there for a good 6 months. AKA I totally forgot about it. Took it off after reclaiming a bunch of snails in it.
3) Did a 22-ish Gallon water change, will be attempting to do another (prob 16-17g) tonight if all goes well.

Still need to reduce the flow on my return. I used 1" Flexable PVC spa-flex for the return, and have a compression coupler that I can easily disconnect to take the pump out and service/clean it.

The coupler is about 4-5 inches long has a rubber gasket on each side, and each side has a screw on cap. (These: http://www.flexpvc.com/cart/agora.cgi?cart_id=766122.3299*Ls4GQ3&product=PVC-Compression-Couples )

I want to put a Check-valve in, as well as a T, and I don't care if I keep the coupler or swap with a union of some sort, but I want to keep it relatively easy to take the pump out if I need to. Any advice on doing this?

 

[poolkeeper1]

That Dirty Nitrate trap forgotten filter sock could be the root of 1/2 your problems! I rinse my filter socks every day If I can but every 3rd day at most. You were catching your uneaten food and waste and just having It rot In your sump and this Is the worst thing you can do, IMO It would be better to not have them If you can't clean them regularly this way your skimmer would get most of that waste out of your system. I'm sure you will see a drop In No3 and P04 at the least and a general Improvement from this alone. Good work and I'll bet you won't do that again LOL
Bill