Biocube 32 issues - dying anemone, hammer health, severe algae and bacteria issue. Losing battle.

[nuddbud]

Hello All, New to the hobby and feel like I'm losing this battle. Originally was concerned about my Hammer but after researching it seems it may be fine just the mouth opening being more apparent not that it is larger. My BTA is not doing so great, started off with my goby excessively making caves and the rock next to it moved, so it started wandering (lesson learned rocks first, sand second). Then my cleaner shrimp molted and left its exoskeleton sitting on him over night and it has looked like death ever since. Of course not to mention the severe algae outbreak. The cleaner shrimp also used to steal food from the BTA so possibly I need to spot feed it.

Seeing as my nitrate and phos were near 0 I tried to dose with roughly 2ml neoNitro, neoPhos (whatever the dose was for recommended interval on the bottle) , as well as removing the skimmer and media trying to see some level. I dosed one day and tested the next and dosed again for four days and no increase except algae. I purchased 12 snails but my cleaner shrimp likes to pull them off the wall or rocks and eat them so few remain. My KH is a bit low so I have been working on bringing that up but haven't got it right yet. My friend told me to try Reef flux for the algae so I left everything off for about 10 days until the algae / Cyano just got out of control and I gave up. I have chemiclean but have yet to try it since reading chemicals are just a temp fix. Since then I put back the filter media and skimmer and did two water changes last week with a 1" vacuum trying to get all of the algae. My LFS told me my flow sucked so I added another powerhead. One week later the Algae is back with a vengeance and I plan to vacuum it all again... Corals have been growing so it would seem my readings are skewed by everything eating it up but it is frustrating. Could someone please offer a suggestion, or is this just a new tank process?

Tank: 32G Biocube with stock media basket, Koralia Nano 240GPH (Just added a second Koralia 425GPH a week ago.)
Filtration: Biocube skimmer, Chemipure blue, matrix bio media, purigen
Age: 3 months
Fish, cuc: 2x Clown, Cleaner shrimp, Diamond goby, turbo, 2x trochus, 1x nassarius
Coral: Discosoma, elegance, ricordea, hammer, anthelia
Location: in the morning sometimes the tank is hit with indirect light from a window 10' away

Feed duration: about 3/4 of a frozen cube a day. Hikari, recently started alternating with Rod's food
Parameters:
KH: 6.5
Phosphate: 0
Salinity: 1.028
Nitrite: 0.2ppm
Nitrate: 2ppm
pH: 8.2
Temp: 78.4
Ammonia: 0
Calcium: 500ppm
Magnesium: 1500ppm

 

[brandon429]

I have fixed that several times. sending you a chat with the examples. we can update progress here in this thread.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Here is what I see that could use improvement (please don't be offended, I'm just trying to help):

-3 moths is really nothing in this hobby and you are going too fast.

-Very minimal flow, you are barely touching 20x turnover, and that is with the new powerhead addition, before that it was just inadequate. I would replace the 2 powerheads with at least 500 gph each to get to 30x turnover, but you could go more..... Don't underestimate the benefit of good flow.

-Parameters are all over the place, I doubt they are steady (which is somewhat normal in a 3 month old tank)

-You are tying to rely on chemicals too much IMO, most of them are just snake oil. Learn how to handle your reef the natural way.

Your tank is not bad actually, you have to realize at 3 months, you are smack in the middle of the ugly stage, we all go through it, it takes about a year for a tank to start to stabilize.

 

[SauceyReef]

Patience and more patience. You need to learn more and take your time. You have a nutrient bottom out that’s probably the source of all your problems

 

[nuddbud]

I have fixed that several times. sending you a chat with the examples. we can update progress here in this thread.

This sounds so hopeful. Thank you so much. I will read them later today.

 

[saltnewbie101]

Can't agree more. I started putting coral in my 125G at a month, lost a few Duncan's, alvepora, gonipora, two rock flower anemones which I actually think I murdered them in a alage bloom and an elegance. 7 months later everything is doing well and we've just now gotten past sever alage if not cleaned weekly.

So patience is key, be ready to loose coral at this stage(it is what it is) but if you go with softies and hearty LPS you should have minimal loss.

Ditch all the chemicals except for calcium and magnesium. Use them sparingly and get some reef crystals for water changes. Do weekly water changes until it hits the 6 month mark and scale back slowly. You'll start to see a difference. Reef crystals ans weekly water changes kept my parameters in check with no help from me. Literally. And I have probably 30 corals and 10 fish in there along with a starfish and clean up crew.

Again, I'm a complete novice but this is my advise in regards to my experience.

 

[nuddbud]

Here is what I see that could use improvement (please don't be offended, I'm just trying to help):

-3 moths is really nothing in this hobby and you are going too fast.

-Very minimal flow, you are barely touching 20x turnover, and that is with the new powerhead addition, before that it was just inadequate. I would replace the 2 powerheads with at least 500 gph each to get to 30x turnover, but you could go more..... Don't underestimate the benefit of good flow.

-Parameters are all over the place, I doubt they are steady (which is somewhat normal in a 3 month old tank)

-You are tying to rely on chemicals too much IMO, most of them are just snake oil. Learn how to handle your reef the natural way.

Your tank is not bad actually, you have to realize at 3 months, you are smack in the middle of the ugly stage, we all go through it, it takes about a year for a tank to start to stabilize.

No offence taken. The best lessons learned are through failure hah. I did question ditching that small pump as well after some reading. I'll look into replacing that at the very least in the short term until I can afford better. Parameters: KH started dropping, slipped up on salinity and have since purchased refractometer. Brandon posted some things to try as well so I'll get to reading. Appreciate the help.