Hi
Newbie here I am having nothing but issues with my main tank and if I hadnt sunk so many funds into this venture I would be throwing in the towel I realise in hindsight I have made a few mistakes and more than a few unnecessary purchases but here's the story:
Set up my system on Boxing day, and cycled using the red sea reef foundation program, supposed to be 10 days until cuc and 21days until coral i think - but the tank didnt behave the way it was supposed to according to instructions, ammonia went up, took 3 times as long to come down, then nitrites went sky high, nitrate was then produced but nitrite never went down, and still hasnt months later.
Its an aquaone 180l + modified sump (to fit in clarisea, over sized skimmer bubble magnus curve 7, and make larger refugium with miracle mud). Tank is live sand, eco reef rock (not live), i use rodi water 0tds i make myself and red sea coral pro salt.
There are several marine pure blocks in the sump in different areas, some maxspect blocks and spheres in different areas too. Gyre pump one end, mp40 the other. Ecotech s2 return pump, plumbed into UV system. Running 2 hydra 26hds, although didnt run these whilst following red sea cycling program.
So after a month with nitrates of 50ppm and nitrites off the charts other side of 2ppm (checked everything using multiple test kits, red sea, nyos, hanna etc), I dosed seachem stability for a while, no difference. Added some cheato to my refugium to start stocking pods, powered by a relatively cheap blue/red grow light. Side note, turns out there was aphasia in the cheato but think I managed to knock that out in time...time will tell!
Dosed Fritz turbo, no change. But as lights were now on I did get diatoms, which then went and replaced with a disgusting turf algae that covers everything the light reaches, sand rock, difficult to get off, so turned off the lights as got worried by it.
Did a few massive water changes, added seachem matrix media, added in my red sea carbon, seachem phosbond - and still dosing nopox as from the beginning but nitrate levels are sky high and algae out of control. Added chemipure blue at some point too. I wasnt feeding the tank for most of this, and then I started thinking the cycle had 'stalled' but doesnt make a difference to any readings, currently not feeding.
Dosed atm colony as had some left over...no change to nitrite levels. Again got diatoms (this is odd isnt it?) once lights turned back on, then replaced again by the turf algae - its not hair algae, its not briopsys (sp) its short like grass, thick and covers everything the tank looks black its so depressing.
Water changed basically all the water in DT last night (not sump) and nitrates down from 50ppm to 10ppm ish, tested phosphates were 0.00 on hanna pre water change (I expect the algae has something to do with that reading though?) Need to check nitrite reading post water change but not sure what i will do if there is still a reading.
Currently have my lounge over taken by qt tanks for fish I had stupidly reserved, thinking my tank would be habitable by now! 3 in total, cycled 2 with dr tims and ammonia, which didnt work fast enough (10days and still ammonia readings), so switched to seachem stabilty on both of these successfully. Just done another with atm colony and no complaints there either.
Now I appreciate nitrite is technically safe for fish in marine tanks, but wouldnt be for my inverts or corals...so why wont it clear off?! (Lowest it has gotten to is 0.75ppm) And what can I do about the turf algae, binning the rock is not an option theres about £400 worth of it as its fancy eco reef stuff, painstakingly aquascaped. Is vibrant worth a go?
On top of this, 2 clowns have had a tiff and may need to be split, think there are internal parasites in that tank too, so about to dose with GC, and the boxfish that arrived sunday came with ich in the invert qt (stupid idea) and likely cross contaminated the wrasse qt tank by using the same salinity checker between tanks as I say, about ready to throw in the towel! Sorry for the rambling and hope it makes sense.
Newbie here I am having nothing but issues with my main tank and if I hadnt sunk so many funds into this venture I would be throwing in the towel I realise in hindsight I have made a few mistakes and more than a few unnecessary purchases but here's the story:
Set up my system on Boxing day, and cycled using the red sea reef foundation program, supposed to be 10 days until cuc and 21days until coral i think - but the tank didnt behave the way it was supposed to according to instructions, ammonia went up, took 3 times as long to come down, then nitrites went sky high, nitrate was then produced but nitrite never went down, and still hasnt months later.
Its an aquaone 180l + modified sump (to fit in clarisea, over sized skimmer bubble magnus curve 7, and make larger refugium with miracle mud). Tank is live sand, eco reef rock (not live), i use rodi water 0tds i make myself and red sea coral pro salt.
There are several marine pure blocks in the sump in different areas, some maxspect blocks and spheres in different areas too. Gyre pump one end, mp40 the other. Ecotech s2 return pump, plumbed into UV system. Running 2 hydra 26hds, although didnt run these whilst following red sea cycling program.
So after a month with nitrates of 50ppm and nitrites off the charts other side of 2ppm (checked everything using multiple test kits, red sea, nyos, hanna etc), I dosed seachem stability for a while, no difference. Added some cheato to my refugium to start stocking pods, powered by a relatively cheap blue/red grow light. Side note, turns out there was aphasia in the cheato but think I managed to knock that out in time...time will tell!
Dosed Fritz turbo, no change. But as lights were now on I did get diatoms, which then went and replaced with a disgusting turf algae that covers everything the light reaches, sand rock, difficult to get off, so turned off the lights as got worried by it.
Did a few massive water changes, added seachem matrix media, added in my red sea carbon, seachem phosbond - and still dosing nopox as from the beginning but nitrate levels are sky high and algae out of control. Added chemipure blue at some point too. I wasnt feeding the tank for most of this, and then I started thinking the cycle had 'stalled' but doesnt make a difference to any readings, currently not feeding.
Dosed atm colony as had some left over...no change to nitrite levels. Again got diatoms (this is odd isnt it?) once lights turned back on, then replaced again by the turf algae - its not hair algae, its not briopsys (sp) its short like grass, thick and covers everything the tank looks black its so depressing.
Water changed basically all the water in DT last night (not sump) and nitrates down from 50ppm to 10ppm ish, tested phosphates were 0.00 on hanna pre water change (I expect the algae has something to do with that reading though?) Need to check nitrite reading post water change but not sure what i will do if there is still a reading.
Currently have my lounge over taken by qt tanks for fish I had stupidly reserved, thinking my tank would be habitable by now! 3 in total, cycled 2 with dr tims and ammonia, which didnt work fast enough (10days and still ammonia readings), so switched to seachem stabilty on both of these successfully. Just done another with atm colony and no complaints there either.
Now I appreciate nitrite is technically safe for fish in marine tanks, but wouldnt be for my inverts or corals...so why wont it clear off?! (Lowest it has gotten to is 0.75ppm) And what can I do about the turf algae, binning the rock is not an option theres about £400 worth of it as its fancy eco reef stuff, painstakingly aquascaped. Is vibrant worth a go?
On top of this, 2 clowns have had a tiff and may need to be split, think there are internal parasites in that tank too, so about to dose with GC, and the boxfish that arrived sunday came with ich in the invert qt (stupid idea) and likely cross contaminated the wrasse qt tank by using the same salinity checker between tanks as I say, about ready to throw in the towel! Sorry for the rambling and hope it makes sense.