Problems with my reef, oh so many problems..

Amazing how much crap builds up...good start to getting where you need to have your tank

As for overstocked, I have not heard to many people mention that it is not so much, how many fish you have, but how many inches per gallon that plays a larger role. I have seen many tanks that have many inches of fish , as well as quantity in them. The keepers can keep so many fish because they do what it takes to keep oxygen levels up, nutrients down, detritus removed etc etc. Although science plays a significant role in reef keeping, so does experience and paying attention. Every tank is different, no two tanks are alike and is why you can get "conflicting" information. Does not mean one is right or wrong. Just means that is that persons experience with an issue etc.

Misinformation runs rampant and the best way to know what is outright misinformation is to educate yourself as you are doing. It is usually best not to take any one persons word as gospel. Take the info given by folks, then go google it, research it and form an educated opinion of what you feel is best. Will you make a wrong decision? Sure you will, just like everyone of us has and will.

By educating yourself you will minimize issues so that your tank will run much smoother, which makes you enjoy it more, instead of putting out fires all the time. Knowledge allows you to maybe see issues arising any knowing what to do before they get out of hand.

I personally do not find this hobby difficult, as the amount of information I have gathered from books, videos, other reefers, LFS,, forums etc etc has made it much easier to enjoy the challenge of playing " mother nature", in order to keep living things taken from their homes, alive. All these things will give you experience to know you have made a right or wrong decision. Wrong decisions in this hobby tend to kill off critters, which is the opposite of what reef keeping is about IMO.

I do not remember, but is your clean up crew large and varied enough? There are specific things that will attack certain things.

Do you have a RO/DI setup. If not, you should. It a cheap way to keep phosphates and nitrates down, plus many more things. If you do have one, does it have a TDS meter? Are you changing filter media when needed. Are you using the proper media? BRS just did a study that showed most carbon blocks except for theirs are almost useless in removing chloramine from the water. Are you using prime instead?

Vacuum your sand bed? Be careful not to release toxic gases, if there are some. Good aeration is important while doing this IMO

Turn your lights on and off sooner? I leave my halides off till around 3 ish. I then turn them on till 7 ish. My T5s run from dawn to dusk. A little less coral growth, but way less algae issues and I do not get home till 4ish, so I can see the tank with the halides on for a few hours. I see no reason to run them when I am not home...if you have LEDs, is the intensity right? Are they the cheap offshore ones that the light spectrum helps algae grow? Around 6500k allows for algae growth.
Is your tank near sunlight all day? Sunlight can just help compound the algae growth. Close the curtains when not home and see if it helps anything..
Is it time to replace any of the bulbs? Old or cheap bulbs can also give off the wrong light spectrum, causing poor coral growth and great algae growth.

10% water change monthly may be too low when you have too many nutrients. Try doing it weekly for a bit and see what happens.

I am sure I have repeated myself or others, but nothing wrong with that IMO..



Anyways, the good point is that you are trying to learn and deal with the issue. Good on you, many would give up and I would get great deals on slightly used equipment...:lmao:
 
Last edited:
Reefwithareefer said:
how many inches per gallon
Click to expand...

this may apply to freshwater but it does not apply to saltwater. what is more important in saltwater is combining fish that not only get along peacefully but that occupy different "niches" in the ecological make up of your tank. you also have to consider the water displacement from rock work any any equipment that may be in your tank.

i have a 75g tank with a 35g sump. i have approximately 30" of fish, total. that's with 11 fish. if i use the 1" per gallon formula, that would mean i could conceivably add another 45" of fish. not only would my tank be waaaay overstocked, i would be doing water changes every day in order to keep water quality good and even then, it would be only *good*, not what i would consider sufficient.

if you go to the "new to hobby" forum and start reading snorvich's sticky about fish compatibility (and don't stop till you've read it all), you will learn a LOT about stocking options and why your tank is overstocked at this point.

there is nothing more frustrating in this hobby than starting out with a nice, clean, pretty tank and then going overboard with stocking and ending up with a dirty, nasty, ugly mess. as for the stuff you got out when you cleaned, that is only a fraction of what is really there.

if i were dealing with this, the first thing i would do is pick 6 fish you can't live without and re-home the rest. until you get your stock down to a manageable level, you will constantly be dealing with the same issues.
 
Nina51 said:
this may apply to freshwater but it does not apply to saltwater. what is more important in saltwater is combining fish that not only get along peacefully but that occupy different "niches" in the ecological make up of your tank. you also have to consider the water displacement from rock work any any equipment that may be in your tank.

I merely stated that it plays a more important role than quantity of fish in a tank. It is a different story if you have 12 fish that grow to a maximum of 1", than it is to have 6 fish that grow to a maximum of 6" each. I do not disagree that it is important what type if fish, coral, critters you choose, but the topic of the thread was about nutrients and algae, and not about compatibility, even though it is important. So IMO, inches does play a role, maybe not in the sense of inches per gallon, but most articles about stocking a tank refer to max inches as a general guideline to follow
http://www.howmanyfish.com/

Another important consideration to think about, is how old the tank is, what type of filtration and can it handle a small or large bio load etc etc. This is a complex area of reefkeeping and IMO, there are many things to consider, not just size,amount compatibility of livestock, hence why I said that educating oneself plays a very important role.

i have a 75g tank with a 35g sump. i have approximately 30" of fish, total. that's with 11 fish. if i use the 1" per gallon formula, that would mean i could conceivably add another 45" of fish. not only would my tank be waaaay overstocked, i would be doing water changes every day in order to keep water quality good and even then, it would be only *good*, not what i would consider sufficient.

I do not believe you ad your sump volume into the equation when determining how many fish to stock your tank with; do you? It is my understanding that a sump can be included to evaluate the bio load of the fish, but not the size of fish for area of tank. Once again, I state this in a simple general way, as there are other things to consider as well.

if you go to the "new to hobby" forum and start reading snorvich's sticky about fish compatibility (and don't stop till you've read it all), you will learn a LOT about stocking options and why your tank is overstocked at this point.

there is nothing more frustrating in this hobby than starting out with a nice, clean, pretty tank and then going overboard with stocking and ending up with a dirty, nasty, ugly mess. as for the stuff you got out when you cleaned, that is only a fraction of what is really there.

if i were dealing with this, the first thing i would do is pick 6 fish you can't live without and re-home the rest. until you get your stock down to a manageable level, you will constantly be dealing with the same issues.
Click to expand...
 
No not at all

No not at all

nemodan said:
I am curious about the fish number in this thread.

I am trying to growth SPS mainly and have 10 fish (3 medium size -Yellow Tang, male anthia and wrasse- all the others are smaller). The tank has a real water volume of 75 G (after sand/rock).

Is that too many fish ?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I think he's saying 3 in total, No not at all, I know some will say Not a Yellow Tang but They serve a Great purpose. I had so many Algea issues when I first started 10 plus years ago with my 55, I put a Small Yellow Tang in there and Wow he cleaned that puppy up in no time. A 75 is a great size, Lots of room to swim and short for even average light
 
Numbers read low because algae is eating up nutrients.
Is your skimmer sized properly for your tank? With that many fish in your tank I would up your water changes to weekly or every second week at the longest. I have 26 fish in my 240 and am having a slight p04 issue and I'm switching to more frequent water changes because with a lot of fish you must feed a lot, but you get also get a lot of waste. Wasted food and fish poop and pee. Make sure your skimmer is big enough and properly tuned.

Corey
 
Reefwithareefer said:
Amazing how much crap builds up...good start to getting where you need to have your tank

As for overstocked, I have not heard to many people mention that it is not so much, how many fish you have, but how many inches per gallon that plays a larger role. I have seen many tanks that have many inches of fish , as well as quantity in them. The keepers can keep so many fish because they do what it takes to keep oxygen levels up, nutrients down, detritus removed etc etc. Although science plays a significant role in reef keeping, so does experience and paying attention. Every tank is different, no two tanks are alike and is why you can get "conflicting" information. Does not mean one is right or wrong. Just means that is that persons experience with an issue etc.

Misinformation runs rampant and the best way to know what is outright misinformation is to educate yourself as you are doing. It is usually best not to take any one persons word as gospel. Take the info given by folks, then go google it, research it and form an educated opinion of what you feel is best. Will you make a wrong decision? Sure you will, just like everyone of us has and will.

By educating yourself you will minimize issues so that your tank will run much smoother, which makes you enjoy it more, instead of putting out fires all the time. Knowledge allows you to maybe see issues arising any knowing what to do before they get out of hand.

I personally do not find this hobby difficult, as the amount of information I have gathered from books, videos, other reefers, LFS,, forums etc etc has made it much easier to enjoy the challenge of playing " mother nature", in order to keep living things taken from their homes, alive. All these things will give you experience to know you have made a right or wrong decision. Wrong decisions in this hobby tend to kill off critters, which is the opposite of what reef keeping is about IMO.

I do not remember, but is your clean up crew large and varied enough? There are specific things that will attack certain things.

Do you have a RO/DI setup. If not, you should. It a cheap way to keep phosphates and nitrates down, plus many more things. If you do have one, does it have a TDS meter? Are you changing filter media when needed. Are you using the proper media? BRS just did a study that showed most carbon blocks except for theirs are almost useless in removing chloramine from the water. Are you using prime instead?

Vacuum your sand bed? Be careful not to release toxic gases, if there are some. Good aeration is important while doing this IMO

Turn your lights on and off sooner? I leave my halides off till around 3 ish. I then turn them on till 7 ish. My T5s run from dawn to dusk. A little less coral growth, but way less algae issues and I do not get home till 4ish, so I can see the tank with the halides on for a few hours. I see no reason to run them when I am not home...if you have LEDs, is the intensity right? Are they the cheap offshore ones that the light spectrum helps algae grow? Around 6500k allows for algae growth.
Is your tank near sunlight all day? Sunlight can just help compound the algae growth. Close the curtains when not home and see if it helps anything..
Is it time to replace any of the bulbs? Old or cheap bulbs can also give off the wrong light spectrum, causing poor coral growth and great algae growth.

10% water change monthly may be too low when you have too many nutrients. Try doing it weekly for a bit and see what happens.

I am sure I have repeated myself or others, but nothing wrong with that IMO..



Anyways, the good point is that you are trying to learn and deal with the issue. Good on you, many would give up and I would get great deals on slightly used equipment...:lmao:
Click to expand...

First, thanks for taking the time to write everything! Highly appreciated!
I read quite a lot (forums, books, youtube vids), and google is a great friend of mine haha..
As for my cuc, I have 1 orange hermit crab, 3 big turbo snails, 25 mini turbo snails (a new addition), 3 conches, 1 nasarius, 5 brittle stars). If you can think of a good addition, please let me know and I'll got to my LFS and buy.
RO/DI - yes, of course. TDS after the DI is 3. Changed the micron and carbon blocks on time. Maybe it's time to change my DI media.
I don't vacuum my sand bed because I'm afraid of the toxic gases. However, The conches and the nasarius dig in the sand at night..
Light - this is a new 8xT5 fixture, bulbs by Giesemann (4 Actinic 3 Azure 1 Coral)

Thanks for the encouragement!



Nina51 said:
this may apply to freshwater but it does not apply to saltwater. what is more important in saltwater is combining fish that not only get along peacefully but that occupy different "niches" in the ecological make up of your tank. you also have to consider the water displacement from rock work any any equipment that may be in your tank.

i have a 75g tank with a 35g sump. i have approximately 30" of fish, total. that's with 11 fish. if i use the 1" per gallon formula, that would mean i could conceivably add another 45" of fish. not only would my tank be waaaay overstocked, i would be doing water changes every day in order to keep water quality good and even then, it would be only *good*, not what i would consider sufficient.

if you go to the "new to hobby" forum and start reading snorvich's sticky about fish compatibility (and don't stop till you've read it all), you will learn a LOT about stocking options and why your tank is overstocked at this point.

there is nothing more frustrating in this hobby than starting out with a nice, clean, pretty tank and then going overboard with stocking and ending up with a dirty, nasty, ugly mess. as for the stuff you got out when you cleaned, that is only a fraction of what is really there.

if i were dealing with this, the first thing i would do is pick 6 fish you can't live without and re-home the rest. until you get your stock down to a manageable level, you will constantly be dealing with the same issues.
Click to expand...

I'll read it, thanks :)
I'm waiting for a friend of mine to finish cycling his aquarium so I can give him some fish.

webslinger said:
Vodka dose, and keep as many fish as you like.
Click to expand...

Using TLF BioPlastic :)

biecacka said:
Numbers read low because algae is eating up nutrients.
Is your skimmer sized properly for your tank? With that many fish in your tank I would up your water changes to weekly or every second week at the longest. I have 26 fish in my 240 and am having a slight p04 issue and I'm switching to more frequent water changes because with a lot of fish you must feed a lot, but you get also get a lot of waste. Wasted food and fish poop and pee. Make sure your skimmer is big enough and properly tuned.

Corey
Click to expand...

I got BM Curve 7. Thanks :)


OK guys, a quick update:
1. I took your advice and bought LPS (instead of SPS) and they look amazing. I really love my tank now!
2. After cleaning my rocks (with air line) and sump, I added 25 mini turbo snails. I also change my filter sock every 2-3 days as you recommended me to. Yesterday I cleaned my rocks again with airline and most of the algae just got out of the rocks by itself! Some other algae I ripped off and sucked with the airline. The aquarium look much cleaner, but still not shiny clean.

Thanks everyone! I'll update again when there's something new to tell :)
 
Happy to hear it is getting clearer. I am sure over time it will get clearer. as they say, nothing good happens quickly with a Saltwater tank.
 
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