New here, can use some advice/recommendations

[S3PANG]

Hi everyone,

So before I get in to what I need help with, I just want to briefly introduce myself. I've been doing reef keeping for about 2-3 years and have been doing mostly nano size reefs. I've had relatively good luck, but I've encountered a situation that I need to call in the help of others for.

So here's the situation. My friend tried to get in to this, but he seems to have completely neglected his tank and now he's asking me to help him get his tank back in the right direction. I've taken a few photos of what his tank looks like, and while it's not terrible, it needs work. I've never worked with a tank this big, nor had problems like he's having so I'm not certain what steps to take to help out. He has a 65 gallon tank with a sump setup with an aquac remora hang on back pro sized skimmer. His tank looks primarily to be suffering from red hair algae and aiptasia. In terms of livestock the tank has 2 black clowns, a royal gramma and a pistol shrimp. He said he had a goby with it but the goby died. He says he rarely does water changes squigglemouth. I recommended to him so far to obviously start water changes, but also to get some peppermint shrimp once he checked his water levels to help deal with the aiptasia. What else would you recommend? Thanks for all the help.

 

[fagundespavinp3]

Need tank Specs, Light ,gal, sump size, test kit results, what salt... anything. how long has it been up and running?

 

[Reefing Madness]

I don't see enough flow in the tank, probably the reason the Cyano is all over the place.
Need to get a SW Test Kit, to include, Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, Calcium, Magnesium, Alkalinity and Phsophates. Test the water first, then do the necessary maintenacne on it. No sense in just chasing your tail.

 

[fagundespavinp3]

^^^ what he said

 

[S3PANG]

Need tank Specs, Light ,gal, sump size, test kit results, what salt... anything. how long has it been up and running?

Here's the specs, sorry I should've probably made them a little bit more easier to read in the first post.

Tank size: 65 gallon
Light: Wavepoint T5 36" light 4x39watts
sump size: Eshopps RS-200
skimmer: AquaC Remora Pro skimmer

I'll ask him to do water tests and see what they read

 

[S3PANG]

I don't see anough flow in the tank, probably the reason the Cyano is all over the place.
Need to get a SW Test Kit, to include, Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, Calcium, Magnesium, Alkalinity and Phsophates. Test the water first, then do the necessary maintenacne on it. No sense in just chasing your tail.

In terms of flow, I know he's got another powerhead that I saw there (a hydor 750). The flow definitely seemed weak to me as well, but where would you put it?

 

[Rattooth]

Is he using RO water? New or old RO media?
Aptasia Berghia nudibranch or file fish are best predators. ( nudibranch is best!)
Change most of water out.
If no photosynthetic invertebrates , turn off lights.
Clean up crew.
Calcium / Alkilinity are probably off.

 

[Reefing Madness]

I'd get another hydor 750 as well, put one on eithe rside of the tank, pointing at each other, one may be a bit higher than the other.
Next, your going to need to get a Sea Hare, or a Phosban Reactor for GFO use, or Dose SeaKlear, a liquid phosphate remover, because your phosphates are through the roof.
If he's using a sump, does he have anything growing in it? Such as Macro Algae? Chaeto or other?

 

[S3PANG]

Ok so here's what I can tell you after your initial input.

He's using RO water for top offs, but the media needs to be changed so he's ordering new media. Not sure what his TDS readings are but I'm sure they're high. We're going to test the water within the next few days and go from there as well.

Idk how clearly you can see in the picture but there's 1 750 in the tank already on the left side back wall, should I re-position it onto the left side and then install the other one on the right? The return obviously flows towards the right side but it's higher so I'd guess I want to position them both lower.

And there's nothing growing in the the sump. The way he's got the sump set up though is a pain. The sump just barely fits under the stand, it's probably really designed for a 48" tank because there's no room around it at all to work with which sucks

 

[Rattooth]

That sounds like your starting in right direction . Tell him it takes time to get things correct.
Moving some rock to sump, or throwing some really nasty rock away sometimes is a good option.

 

[fagundespavinp3]

Water Changes are needed bc there Is enough Algae there that If he does test Phos and It shows low It being taken up faster than the test kit can see. More flow Is needed. For good measure get a sand sifting star It will move the sand enough that it will sweep a lot of that off the bed.

really need to know test kit numbers.

How long has it been running.... it could just be new tank syndrome and part of the cycle bc the rocks are leaching...

as far as Aptasia = Berghia nudibranch get like 5 then in about 1-2 weeks they will need to be removed and sent to a friend or back to the LFS bc they will starve if they don't have enough food ie Aptasia

 

[hart24601]

What I would do personally is get a lot more flow, rework the rock so there was none against the back wall or edges (for circulation), and I would slowly siphon out all the sand and go BB, but if dead set on sand I would still remove the old sand slowly during waterchanges without stirring it up and when the old stuff is all gone I would then put just a little bit of new sand to cover the bottom - the smallest amount he could live with. Start running gfo and all that jazz, and work on removing one rock at a time and spot treating with peroxide. If not peroxide then at least remove the rock and scrub with a new nylon brush very well before rinsing with tank water and returning the rock.

After all that I would add some peps for the aptasia.

IMO if he had no or minimal sandbed along with a new aquascape (nothing piled up on glass/back) and lots more flow once he takes care of the issues such as phosphate and algae it would be easier to maintain.

 

[S3PANG]

Do you guys think the pistol shrimp is a problem? I've never worked with one but I've heard mixed reviews. He got it to help keep his sand clean, and it's really cool to see it work with a goby, but can't they be very aggressive? I know he bought blood shrimp when the tank was cycled, but they both disappeared essentially after 2 months. My only guess was the pistol got to them, whether they were dying or not that I'm not certain of.

The tank's been set up for about a year and a half just FYI.

 

[4FordFamily]

Water changes, more flow, and more live rock....

Also I hate to say it but most people that let their tank look like that and don't invest enough to do it "right", often leave the hobby and go back to their old ways.

I hope I am wrong.

 

[S3PANG]

Ok, so I have another update. Yesterday I did some water testing and the results were surprisingly good. Not all parameters were tested that were recommended but here's what we got:

Nitrate: 0
Ammonia: 0
PH: 7.8
Salinity: 1.023
Phosphate: .04

So the salinity and PH are a pinch low, but surprisingly the phosphate # wasn't out of control. The only things that weren't tested were alkalinity or calcium. I brought a water sample to my LFS to get a comparison reading since they do free water testing and take their time and the results were the same. The guy there recommended swapping out the white bulbs in the T5 light since they're likely overdue to be swapped. He was saying something about how the whites can promote growth after a while when they start to lose their intensity or something (my bad, should've paid more attention) but I ended up buying 2 white bulbs to replace them. Also, I ordered all new RO/DI filter media which should arrive today. Plan is to swap all of that out, add the other powerhead and see what happens. Any feedback would be highly appreciated!

 

[fagundespavinp3]

Well as for the phos being low that's good but with that much algae you more than likely are getting a false reading. Not saying your test is wrong, but the algae is up taking a lot of the excess phos that the test isn't reading. I would run about a cup of GFO for about 72 hrs and test everyday in that time span you should start to see a reduction in growth but your test might not go down. All you have done is stopped the growth now your CUC can get back to doing is job. At a week do another water change. By then your glass would have been clean for a few days and you should be on your way back to a clear happy reef.

 

[glb]

Well as for the phos being low that's good but with that much algae you more than likely are getting a false reading. Not saying your test is wrong, but the algae is up taking a lot of the excess phos that the test isn't reading. I would run about a cup of GFO for about 72 hrs and test everyday in that time span you should start to see a reduction in growth but your test might not go down. All you have done is stopped the growth now your CUC can get back to doing is job. At a week do another water change. By then your glass would have been clean for a few days and you should be on your way back to a clear happy reef.

Agreed. If there's algae in the tank, there's phosphates for it to eat, so the test number will be a little lower than what's really in there. I used Chemiclean on my tank when this happened and it helped. Sometimes you can lift the cyano off the sand like a mat if you do it gently. I also turned off my lights for a while, but I didn't have anything in my tank at the time except fish. If you scrub it off the rocks, make sure you keep your filtration media clean, because the waterborne algae will collect in your filter after a big clean. Once the algae goes away, you may even see a jump in the phosphates because nothing is consuming it anymore. But that will be a truer amount. I agree with adding a phosban reactor and running GFO. That will help control the phosphates long term. Good luck!

 

[fagundespavinp3]

^^^+1 for the phos will jump if everything else stays the same but algae is gone. Chemiclean will work but need to add an air stone and pump to aerate the water more. But this WILL NOT fix the underlying issue of to much nutrients in the water. What kind of sand was placed in the tank?

 

[S3PANG]

Sorry for the lack of replies, busy weekend here. I stopped by to check out the tank yesterday, and he's had the light off for 2-3 days now. The amount of cyano has greatly decreased that can be seen on the sand, but obviously this isn't the true solution. As for what kind of sand, that I don't know. I just know it was some sort of live sand. He said he's going to relocate the power head on the left side to the side wall and install the other one on the right side somewhat aimed at each other to increase flow. Will keep everyone update as it comes along

 

[fagundespavinp3]

Great!!! Ok he used live sand... If it was play sand from hardware store my next guess would have been to much silica in the water that the algae was feeding on. If there is big chunks that you can just pull off peel it.