Brand new to the online community but I've had my 29 gal. biocube up and running for 9 months now. I have one bag of live sand on the bottom, 4 good chunks of live rock, a flame angel, sand sifting goby, six line wrasse, benggai cardinal, green sailfin molly, and two ocellaris clowns that are hosted on a bta.
The reef is made up of one hammer, a very large kenya tree that is reproducing like crazy, a purple mushroom frag with about 6 tops, a pom pom zenia and a green star polyp which is being overtaken by green hair algae.
The cleanup crew consists of one long spine urchin, 6 turbo snails, 2 sundial snails, 2 snails that cruise under the sand (not sure the name), one emerald crab and one decorator crab.
I also have a sea apple and a scallop that flashes orange. Additionally, there are little critters including tube worms, star fish, etc. that arrived with the lr.
I have the factory carbon filter in the back filtering the water before it goes into the bioball chamber. I then have phosphate and nitrate absorbers in the sump. I rotate a simple biocube skimmer and an inline uv thing that the lfs guy sold me in the first chamber but I'm not sure how to properly do this.
I had been running the factory lights, both the bright led and the blue one for 10 hours a day but I developed a serious green hair algae problem. I've since cut it back to five hours with both on and 3 hours with just the blue. This seems to halt the algae growth but I wasn't sure if the anemone, coral and good algae needed more light.
I bought the Molly to help with the algae but I think I'm going to return it to my lfs. The angel and the wrasse keep attacking it.
And finally, the decorator crab...Waldo...has me concerned. I've been reading how they can mow down a reef tank pretty quickly but so far he has only snipped a few kenya branches which are growing on his barbs. And the colonies he's snipped have grown back stronger within a few days. I tried target feeding him per the interweb with diced krill and brine shrimp but he doesn't seem interested...day or night. I'm afraid to leave excess food in the tank so I scoop it with a net if it goes uneaten after five minutes or so. I really don't want him to starve. The only things I've lost in the tank since i bought it are two banded coral shrimp, two striped cleaner shrimp and an emerald crab so I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong to kill the inverts.
My water perameters are good, salinity 1.023, phosphates and nitrates nil, but I have just started testing my calcium levels and they are really high. I found out that the Kroger spring water I was using to top off has added calcium while the Kroger drinking water is carbon filtered/RO with no added calcium. Would high calcium levels lead to shrimp death?
If you're still reading I'm impressed, and appreciative. I did notice that when the latest banded coral shrimp kicked it yesterday, the wrasse and the angel tore its body apart. Did they have a role in its demise or only in the disposal of the carcass?
So I guess it all boils down to this...should I think about putting anything in a different tank because I overloaded this tank? How should I run the lights? Is the decorator crab safe long term? How should I run the skimmer and uv? What is killing my shrimp? Can I add another at some point? How do I know if anemone is healthy? How do I get rid of the algae (the toothbrush just seems to spread it)? How do I get my sand sifting goby to quit hiding and how do I make sure he's not starving under the rock/sand? Will it actually hurt to touch the anemone?
I know I threw a lot at you guys but if any of my questions could be answered I would be most appreciative.
Chad
