should i give up?

[woogy]

So I have been using ro/di for about 4 months now for top-offs and water changes. The last 2 months I changed the water 30% every month as I read this may be better than every week or every 2 weeks. I use to do 5 gallon water changes every week. Everytime I do water changes I blow off the rocks and lightly baste the sand.

Filtration: I run carbon in an aquaclear filter and a protein skimmer, which is a catalina (I know its probably junk but works a lot better than my coralife). It pulls some out gunk though.

Feeding: Formula 2 pellets one day and about 1/4 cube (different stuff) every other day.

Lighting: The lights are T5's nova exteme lights which I have been using for about 4 months or longer. I run them about 6 hrs a day. If I run them longer more algae and not coraline usually green slime which is hard to clean off and some red and brown. I have tried in the past turning them off for a few days and gradually increase but still no difference. I ordered some purple-up because I still yet to see any traces of coraline so I am giving it a shot.

Flow: 2 koralia's. #1 and #2. 1000gph.

Livestock: royal gramma, yellow watchman with pistol shrimp, big black urchin, cleaner shrimp, maybe 1 nass. snail (I bought 8 but I think someone gobbled them up) and 1 red hermit.

Anyways I wanted to give the ro/di unit a chance and see if this would help my algae problems, which so far hasn't. I also noticed I dont see my b/w hermit anymore and turbo snail. I checked my nitrates and now they are between 20-40ppm! They use to be around 10ppm. I upgraded my lighting and water quality to try to keep some corals but I am afraid with algae and the nitrate level they would choke out.

Anything I am missing??? Sorry so lenghtly but I don't know what to do anymore and don't want to spend any more $$$ for a tank that is not improving.

 

[khrios]

Don't give up. you just have to figure out why your nitrates are so high and make adjustments to bring them down.

how much LR do you have? what are your parameters? if you don't have much coralline it could be due to low Ca/Alk levels. How many corals do you have? is there somewhere else you can store keep them for a while?

I would suggest taking them out and turning the lights off completely until you figure this out. It will help stop algae growth. You may even want to cover the tank with towels or something to block all light for up to a week. That should get rid of most the algae. You would need to do big water changes, tho. Since it's such a small tank, why not change out ~75% of the water at least once, then maybe 50% changes. Big water changes are the best way to lower the concentrations of things in solution quickly. Be sure to match parameters (temp & salinity) before doing big changes.

Something you are doing is creating nitrates (obviously), so take a close look at your routine. Maybe try switching foods? Mysis is very nutritious and can be fed less frequently.

You could try a phosban reactor to help with the algae, but you have to find out where your nitrates are coming from!

what kind of ro/di unit? have you tested the output to make sure it is good?

 

[otrlynn]

The only things that come to my mind are the quality of the RODI, and your water changes. Have you ever measured the TDS of the RODI? If it is your own new unit, you should be fine. If you are purchasing water somewhere, you really don't know how good the quality is unless you measure it with a TDS meter. The reading should be zero. If you are changing your water only once per month, does that mean you are blowing your rocks off only once a month? I wonder if you need to go back to doing that more frequently. Most of the posts I read on here say to do it at least weekly to get the detritus into circulation. I don't know about the 30% per month number...if it was me, and I was having nitrate problems, I'd probably try 20-25% per week for a couple of weeks and see if that made a difference in the measurable nitrate. Just my opinion, you may get a different response from people who have been at this longer than I have.

 

[woogy]

yes tds is 0...ro/di is from filter guys....phosphates are 0...I have had the lights off for a week and no difference

 

[MinnFish]

Phosphates will continue to say 0. It is being consumed by the algae. Try some micro-algae in the fuge. Invest in a phos-reactor. How often do you change out the carbon?

 

[sps1-2-b]

What type of algae problems are you having? Hair algae, bryopsis (fern looking type), etc? Usually phosphates are the culprits when nuisance algae become problematic.

 

[sassafrass]

In my opinion you are over feeding ,think about the size of half a cube of food compared to the size of the fish could you imagine if you were fed a 30 lb roast and couldn't refrigerate it and it stayed in your home, yech!

 

[woogy]

I don't have a fuge...I change the carbon monthly...I rather not do a fuge or sump under the tank because I rent and the landlord didn't like the idea of having a fish tank and I don't want a flood to possibly happen. Im not sure exactly what type of algae it is but it is slimy and some is brown...some is red and some is green.

 

[Packersfan21]

Hmm, sounds like diatoms and cynobacteria. I would try adding another powerhead or redirecting the ones you already have. Ususally if there is a low flow area, algae can form there and spread throughout the tank.

 

[sps1-2-b]

If you could, try to post a pic so we know what we're dealing with. We all would not like to see you leave this hobby. Slimy red sounds like cyanobacteria like Packersfan said.

 

[cjilge]

Never give up also try to rinse the food if you can with rodi water it will help a little

 

[nikon187]

your urchin may be the reason for the poor coraline ( Cuz they eat it) carbon may need to be changed more often as well

 

[Avgou]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13195270#post13195270 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Packersfan21
Hmm, sounds like diatoms and cynobacteria. I would try adding another powerhead or redirecting the ones you already have. Ususally if there is a low flow area, algae can form there and spread throughout the tank.

I agree, I had a red slime algae on my sand and couldn't figure out why, once I lowered the two Koralia 3 powerheads and angled them upward at a 45 degree angle, it all went away, I also am sure that now that it's around 6 months old the tank is maturing.

Don't give up, you've come so far.

~Avgou