I tried saltwater 30 years ago. It didn't work out. Heard someone local was selling their full setup and decided to try it again. Paid LFS to move the 75 gallon tank the first week of June. The only inhabitants were a lot of live rock (not sure of the weight), three leather coral and a hermit crab. They put in new sand and changed out half the water at the end of the move. It had a regular fluorescent aquarium bulb.
Been following advice of LFS. Waited two weeks to add clowns, a cleaner shrimp and CUC. Didn't really see any kind of cycle. Added an additional powerhead for two total, one of the in wave mode. The tank came with a canister filter with UV light built in. Saw some aiptasia. Added two peppermind shrimp which wiped it out. Things had been going well and I had gotten a false sense of confidence. Bought Ocean Revive lights. Running lights blue for 10 hours at 40 and whites for 8 hours at 30. Added a small frogspawn coral, two tiny zoa frags, tiny pipe organ coral, two banngai cardinals, and a six line wrasse. Been feeding spirulina frozen since I started. LFS said to feed phyto once or twice a week for the coral. Started that about two weeks ago. Suddenly have an algae bloom of green hair algae and what I thought could be diatoms. Nitrates were around 80 so started doing more frequent water changes fearing nitrates were getting high and tried to cut back on the feeding and stopped the phyto. Now, it's starting to look like this might be dinos and green hair algae. Pictures are after I siphoned and don't really show how bad and stringy the algae was on the sand. It was flowing in the current.
Following are what LFS gave me for water test the last two weeks.
9/13: Salinity 1.022, KH 8, Nitrate 40-50, calcium 400, phosphate .25 I did a 10 gal water change during the week.
9/20: Salinity 1.025, KH 7, nitrate 10-15, calcium 400, phosphate .25
Salinity change is a story. I have no idea how the nitrates could have changed that fast from a 10 gallon change. From reading on the forum I've learned a lot about double checking everything LFS says. At this point though, I'm not sure direction I need to take.
Thanks for any help!
Been following advice of LFS. Waited two weeks to add clowns, a cleaner shrimp and CUC. Didn't really see any kind of cycle. Added an additional powerhead for two total, one of the in wave mode. The tank came with a canister filter with UV light built in. Saw some aiptasia. Added two peppermind shrimp which wiped it out. Things had been going well and I had gotten a false sense of confidence. Bought Ocean Revive lights. Running lights blue for 10 hours at 40 and whites for 8 hours at 30. Added a small frogspawn coral, two tiny zoa frags, tiny pipe organ coral, two banngai cardinals, and a six line wrasse. Been feeding spirulina frozen since I started. LFS said to feed phyto once or twice a week for the coral. Started that about two weeks ago. Suddenly have an algae bloom of green hair algae and what I thought could be diatoms. Nitrates were around 80 so started doing more frequent water changes fearing nitrates were getting high and tried to cut back on the feeding and stopped the phyto. Now, it's starting to look like this might be dinos and green hair algae. Pictures are after I siphoned and don't really show how bad and stringy the algae was on the sand. It was flowing in the current.
Following are what LFS gave me for water test the last two weeks.
9/13: Salinity 1.022, KH 8, Nitrate 40-50, calcium 400, phosphate .25 I did a 10 gal water change during the week.
9/20: Salinity 1.025, KH 7, nitrate 10-15, calcium 400, phosphate .25
Salinity change is a story. I have no idea how the nitrates could have changed that fast from a 10 gallon change. From reading on the forum I've learned a lot about double checking everything LFS says. At this point though, I'm not sure direction I need to take.
Thanks for any help!