new guy here

[mike batptiste]

im new here i live in green bay and started a reef tank a bought a year ago ive been haveing some trouble so i thought id do some posting here and see if i can get it worked out also like to meet new people in the area with reef tanks

 

[sunfish11]

Welcome Mike! What is your trouble! We have some great knowledgable reefers in our group. Ask away!

 

[mako56]

Hey Mike, lether fly we will try our best to help..

 

[Aquabucket]

That was fast!

Glad to see you made it over here! I am sure you will find most people on RC to be helpful and friendly.

Feel free to ask any of us your questions.

 

[mike batptiste]

hey thanks for the warm welcome i been haveing some trouble keeping some corals alive i just lost a plate coral and ive also lost a trumpet coral and a sun flower i have a 75 gal tank ive been useing 3 filstar xb3 canister filters to do the filtration and ive been using a coral life compaq lite as well as the strip lite that came with the tank but im useing blue bulbs in that i have been told by a buddy of mine that i need more liting i do have some corals that are doing well mainly soft corals any ideal of whats going on here any imput would be great

 

[gooch]

Lighting is an issue but not the reason your sun coral died. They need feeding.

How is the flow in the tank. Do you have additional powerheads in the tank?

How long is your photoperiod? How old is your light fixture? When was the last time you changed bulbs? Plate corals and sun corals can be hard to keep. Trumpets are generally hardy and do well. Was your plate the long tentacle? Do you use a substrate? How much rock is in your tank? What is your water change schedule? Are you dosing? What are you dosing? How often are you dosing? Are you sick of my questions yet? How close are the softies to the corals that died? Can you afford to upgrade your lighting?

I would look into a 150 watt de halide system for a 75 gallon(but thats just me). T5's or VHO's would be a nice upgrade as well. You can keep a lot of things under pc's but keep and thrive are two different things. At bare minimum I would change the bulb(but again to me it is throwing money away, pc's suck). Maybe add another fixture. How many bulbs are in the coralife fixture?

Lots of things to consider. Start with these.

 

[gooch]

Was your sun flower a goniapora? They have a poor track record if it is.

 

[mike batptiste]

ok my pc has 4 bulbs 2 day bulbs 65 watt10000k and 2 65 watt 03 actinic also 4 moon glow leds and is made by coral life now i do not dose my tank at all and i do a 10 gal water change once a month i have 1 case of rock and some toofer rock that is turning purple and red also the 3 filters i use have a power head returns that are set at different depths and at different angles i do have some corals that are doing well but all are soft corals star pollups i would like to move my tank from a 75 gal to a 125 or bigger and use the 75 as a sump i think this would help my tank alot i also found a buddy of mine who has a metal halide system for a 125 that im tryin to buy from him just dont have the cash yet let me know what you think and please ask more questions

 

[Aquabucket]

Right now Mike the most important thing on your list is to aquire an RO/DI unit. Filter direct on E-bay is were I get mine for the store. The unit is made by Walter MFG and it's a five stage system that puts out 120 gallons per day. It cost us about $130 shipped with extra DI resin.

 

[mike batptiste]

yea that is 1st on my list of to gets i talked with you last nite and after that talk i thought id get a R O first

 

[Aquabucket]

Next step then would be to open up your canister filters and use them mainlly for flow. Ditch all the media in them and maybe use one for bags of activated carbon. I would only do this to one canister at a time over a period of a few weeks to avoid a bacterial die-off. Your live rock will take over as your main denitrifier.

Next step would be to get yourself some more chaetomorpha macro algea and get that going strong.

 

[jmkarcz]

Mike,
Check the thread "Anyone interested in a group/power buy?" and look at the RO systems Fahz has. that power buy is ending soon and theirs some nice discounts there.

I used to have the same problems. It was very, very frustrating, not to forget to mention expensive. what I did was dial back to frags, (or fragments of corals, found through the club and the trade.) and focus on equiptment for a while.

It has really helped me to visit the setup of hobbiests in this club, talk, see what everyone is doing. In my little over a year being involved, my friends and family have noticed my massive strides forward. There is still more I can learn from others yet. Come to som meetings. buy a frag or 12. (slowly at first) turn some stuff around.

I would always move way to quickly. You will do better, as most will agree, by moving very slowly with your tank, until you get going. Even after you switch to RO, your rocks may contain phosphates that take years (or never) to work their way out. This change and even if only using ro, could take 2-4 months to take affect. I have heard, from some one in the group, nothing good happens fast in a reef tank. So, with that, I have multiple hobbies, so I am not always fiddling with everything. If it was up to me, I'd set it and forget it for a few days... but I can't. I have to check it daily.

Your always invited to my place to look around. I can give you a few lessons in what not to do.

Jason

 

[BryanJ]

Take out the media in that filter and fill it with live rock rubble no need to remove it slowly. If you are running carbon leave that in. Also switch to chemipure brand carbon. I saw no mention of a skimmer either; that should be in the top two things purchased. I would rate it number 1 but others disagree as they feel RO is number 1. You will need a hang on the back skimmer. I would reccomend the Turbofloater multi. If you come to the meeting on the 22nd you can see mine in action. I am currently using it in my sump and it works even better then when I had it hanging on the back of my 55.

 

[mike batptiste]

oh sorry guys i do have a skimmer i have a sea clone 150 i believe it doesnt work the greatest but i check it twice a day and am constantly ajusting the air flow when i stay on top of this it really pulls alot of garbage out of the water and the stuff it takes out is nasty its almost opaq black stinky water or sludge if you will so i will be lookin for a better skimmer in the future i just want my tank to do good for a month or two so i geuss i will not put any thing else in my tank untill i move when i move thats when i want to move every thing into a bigger tank and then slowly start over in a bigger set up the right way of coarse

 

[mako56]

One lesson to learn is opinions are like ******** everyone has one :lol:. And mine is I don't think there is a only one way to do anything in this hobby. If you ask ten people what is best you will probably get at least six answers. The bummer is like Jason says good things don't happen fast so if you do to many things you never know which one fixed your problem. I like to keep mine pretty simple, I do have a RO-DI unit and I think it is important but I know people that use tap water. My only filter is a skimmer in my sump some would say that's not enough but for now my tank has been running about a year now and everything is working ok. I like to raise the small polyp stony corals so I need some stronger lighting I have 3 - 250 watt DE bulbs and 2 - 110 watt VHO's and that works for me things are growing. I have a calcium reactor and it is running but I don't think it does its job I need to play with it and try to dial it in better. So I dose magnesium and kalk. I check the magnesium, alkalinity and calcium on my tank once a month or so and adjust them. To me I think what's really important is have a good balanced cleanup crew, if you have fish in your tank maybe a little better clean up crew. Another just some of my opinions.

 

[mike batptiste]

ok when i say do it the rite way i mean i want a sump instead of cannister filters also id like metal hals instead of my crap liting and id like to switch my water to ro water thats just the start id like to completely overhaul my system so my system is one where my reef-corals-fish will thrive ive been doing a little planning with a buddy of mine who has had a nice reef for quiet a while he does the stoney corals also now this plan will take some time im thinking like a year or so befor i add anything to my tank execpt like you said cleaning crew i want to use my 125 for a sump and id like to buy a 210 we want to set the tanks up side by side i will use half of my 125 to grow macro algee and the other half we will try to set up as a hosptial area them the 210 my olny worry is buying rock at this point ill set this up in the basement of the new house i may have the 6 ft liting just waiting on the final word this will be a big project but i think it will rock after a couple years do you think the sump will be entirely to big id like to have a huge sump if possibale and im not to worried about how the side by side set up will look i mean most people try to hide there sumps but i think they are cool and if i should have to work on the system it shouldnt be any trouble let me know what you think i dont mind any opnion im here to learn as much as possibale thank you

 

[mako56]

Sounds like a plan. There are allot of good ideas on this forum http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=252. I just sifted through here and there and took the ideas I liked and built my setup. I have a thread in there of my build and there are lots of others. The main thing is that you are happy with it otherwise it will work on you like a festering infected wound.

 

[RCS]

Before I would even suggest anything, have you tested the basic parameters in the tank? You can have the best lighting and flow possible and if the water quality/parameters are out of line it won't make any difference at all.

Salinity:
pH:
Alkalinity:
Temp:
Ammonia:
NitrIte:
NitrAte:

This would be the place to start, rather than lighting or your filter system.

Also, it would be helpful to have a little more punctuation in your posts, as it's kind of difficult to follow along when it's all one sentence.

 

[mike batptiste]

i have my water tested all the time usally 1 a month ir so and my basic test are for every thing you have listed and they always say my water is great but i talked with aqua bucket and he said if i use tap water ill have different build ups of stuff witch i dont think happened yet but may have but the basics you have listed are fine i check my water temp daily and it is always at 78 degrees also i check my salinity and it is stable right where it should be i have may water samples taken to a few different pet shopps and tested for the rest so my tank always seems alrite i also had my tank up for a year now i dont know if i mentioned that

 

[RCS]

Do you have the actual numbers themselves? Oftentime a LFS' "okay" range is different than what sensitvie creatures like corals can handle. Maybe take a sample in to AB and have him test it?

The reason why I say it's likely to be one of those reasons is that corals are really not that difficult to keep, especially not the ones you've listed. So, the fact that they die fairly quickly would indicate it's not something like increased phosphates or the like, which would cause other problems as well. If there's something else going on, all the RO water in the world won't help.

While I'd never argue that tap water is better, in most cases it's not as bad as some people will have you believe. I've run all my tanks with tap water in different locations, and while it has been a bit more work, the issues have been expected and predictable.