Need help from some of you experts

[Gichigami.reefer]

So tank has been going through it mostly because of my short comings/ lack of knowledge tank was doing great I was loving it then I hurt my back at work after bringing in some frags that were damaged and had small bits of hair algae tank exploded with gha due to lack only maintenance with me having back surgery all that tank crashed lost all coral besides mushrooms.
Before crash
After crash

Was still battling gha up until March ish it just kept coming back and I’m talking December it started

I kept just pulling it out cleaning couldn’t get any readable nitrates just 0 I finally caved and tried floconazole and it definitely cut it back but it was still present for atleast a month or 2 and what finally did it in was I added a ball of chaeto in the back chamber now the gha is gone but I’m getting off the wall nitrate test results and 0 phos I know it’s a crap test phos wise but it’s what I got for now haha cut me some slack

I’m at a loss on where to go from here cyano is driving me nuts now and I dealt with cyano for a few months when i transferred the tank to upgrade from a 10. It’s like a never ending battle pics from last night before a blow off and glass cleaning.

And pics after . About to do a 15 % change and suck out the “scum”

Tank was originally a standard 10g set up beginning oct 2023

Noticed seal was slowly leaking out of bottom of tank upgraded to the 40 march 24 2020 and let rock cycle in trashcan for 2 months before adding

And now we’re gone through all of that in between haha kinda a jumbled mess but what would you do if you were me ?????

 

[Crustaceon]

Make sure your source water isn’t loaded with nitrates to begin with and do two 50% water changes, three days apart. Make sure to siphon your sand while doing this. That’s probably where your nitrates are.

 

[Crustaceon]

Make sure your source water isn’t loaded with nitrates to begin with and do two 50% water changes, three days apart. Make sure to siphon your sand while doing this. That’s probably where your nitrates are.

Correction: You don’t have sand in your current setup. Just do the water changes and ONLY feed the tank a small pinch of food once per day.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Concur with big water changes to bring down no3.

Once those are done and no3 is where you want it, test po4 again. If still zero then dose neophos or something similar to get it up to .10 or so.

The cyano is more than likely an imbalance problem, but could also be low flow…so you could try increasing flow in the tank.

 

[Gichigami.reefer]

Correction: You don’t have sand in your current setup. Just do the water changes and ONLY feed the tank a small pinch of food once per day.

I only feed 1/2 a cube of frozen every other day and I’ve been doing water changes it just made my phos bottom out and nitrates still high

 

[Gichigami.reefer]

Concur with big water changes to bring down no3.

Once those are done and no3 is where you want it, test po4 again. If still zero then dose neophos or something similar to get it up to .10 or so.

The cyano is more than likely an imbalance problem, but could also be low flow…so you could try increasing flow in the tank.

I’m not sure on flow I have 538 gph mighty jet return is set to 90% Jaebo Slw20 2641gph set to 90% random pulse and another 600 gph powerhead behind rockwork

 

[Gichigami.reefer]

Make sure your source water isn’t loaded with nitrates to begin with and do two 50% water changes, three days apart. Make sure to siphon your sand while doing this. That’s probably where your nitrates are.

And water source was my thought but checked tds 0 and tested for nitrate 0

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

8 only feed 1/2 a cube of frozen every other day and I’ve been doing water changes it just made my phos bottom out and nitrates still high

Don’t starve your fish. Feed them a half cube a day. You are not introducing much po4 into the tank if feeding a small amount of frozen every other day.

Do a couple of 50% water changes as stated.

Once those are done check your no3 level. If 25 ppm or lower you are probably ok. Then check po4. Sometimes high no3 will suppress po4. You may get a po4 reading after the large water changes to bring down no3.

In my experience chaeto or refugiums, algae scrubbers, etc are better at bringing down no3 more than po4.

 

[Crustaceon]

Correction: You don’t have sand in your current setup. Just do the water changes and ONLY feed the tank a small pinch of food once per day.

8 only feed 1/2 a cube of frozen every other day and I’ve been doing water changes it just made my phos bottom out and nitrates still high

Water changes will reduce nitrates regardless of phosphate levels so
long as the water you’re replacing it with is devoid of nitrates. Your tank probably has some degree of phosphates in it anyways and even undetectable levels can be perfectly fine IF they’re in line with nitrate levels. In your case, that means focusing on getting nitrates down, probably under 5ppm. Your best bet is going to be a few large water changes and sucking out any cyano/debris that could be locking any nitrates in. The goal is to take away the conditions for cyano to grow. You could run A LOT more flow through the tank as mentioned, but that doesn’t address the underlying water parameter issue. Keep in mind, we keep water and not so much fish or coral.

 

[Gichigami.reefer]

No3 was always a little low in the tank but consistently get high nitrates from dry then wet then dry then wet then dry 5 different times I guess before it went in my tank so I think that’s a lot of dead I’ve been dealing with

 

[Gichigami.reefer]

Well I am gonna do my water change here in a bit then in a few days do another and hopefully get this thing looking good again tired of it being a eyesore

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Well I am gonna do my water change here in a bit then in a few days do another and hopefully get this thing looking good again tired of it being a eyesore

Sounds good. In a 40 gallon tank you should be able to get things corrected fairly quickly. It gets harder with larger tanks.

Report back once the water changes are done with your new numbers and we can go from there.

 

[Crustaceon]

Make sure your source water isn’t loaded with nitrates to begin with and do two 50% water changes, three days apart. Make sure to siphon your sand while doing this. That’s probably where your nitrates are.

And water source was my thought but checked tds 0 and tested for nitrate 0

It’s good to go through a process of elimination like that. The good news is it sounds like you have a pretty straight forward fix here. And I think we all have gone through similar with our tanks. You got this.

 

[Gichigami.reefer]

Sounds good. In a 40 gallon tank you should be able to get things corrected fairly quickly. It gets harder with larger tanks.

Report back once the water changes are done with your new numbers and we can go from there.

So test immediately after?

 

[Crustaceon]

Sounds good. In a 40 gallon tank you should be able to get things corrected fairly quickly. It gets harder with larger tanks.

Report back once the water changes are done with your new numbers and we can go from there.

So test immediately after?

You can if you want to but I wouldn’t make more than one adjustment every other day.

 

[vetteguy53081]

So tank has been going through it mostly because of my short comings/ lack of knowledge tank was doing great I was loving it then I hurt my back at work after bringing in some frags that were damaged and had small bits of hair algae tank exploded with gha due to lack only maintenance with me having back surgery all that tank crashed lost all coral besides mushrooms.
Before crash
After crash

Was still battling gha up until March ish it just kept coming back and I’m talking December it started

I kept just pulling it out cleaning couldn’t get any readable nitrates just 0 I finally caved and tried floconazole and it definitely cut it back but it was still present for atleast a month or 2 and what finally did it in was I added a ball of chaeto in the back chamber now the gha is gone but I’m getting off the wall nitrate test results and 0 phos I know it’s a crap test phos wise but it’s what I got for now haha cut me some slack

I’m at a loss on where to go from here cyano is driving me nuts now and I dealt with cyano for a few months when i transferred the tank to upgrade from a 10. It’s like a never ending battle pics from last night before a blow off and glass cleaning.

And pics after . About to do a 15 % change and suck out the “scum”

Tank was originally a standard 10g set up beginning oct 2023

Noticed seal was slowly leaking out of bottom of tank upgraded to the 40 march 24 2020 and let rock cycle in trashcan for 2 months before adding

And now we’re gone through all of that in between haha kinda a jumbled mess but what would you do if you were me ?????

I recommend daily water changes of 5 gallons while doing a good vacuuming for 2 weeks and add Liquid bacteria such as microBacter xlm and add peroxide to tank at night at 1ml per 10 gallons for those two weeks which will serve as an oxidizer.
Then follow with chemiPure blue as you start re-stock

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

So test immediately after?

You will see an instant drop in no3 when the water changes are done…but you could test the following day.

Just keep in mind a 50% water change should in theory drop your no3 50%.

So…20 gallons should bring it down to 25 ppm.

Another 20 gallons should bring it down 12.5 ppm which would be a good number.

 

[Gichigami.reefer]

You will see an instant drop in no3 when the water changes are done…but you could test the following day.

Just keep in mind a 50% water change should in theory drop your no3 50%.

So…20 gallons should bring it down to 25 ppm.

Another 20 gallons should bring it down 12.5 ppm which would be a good number.

Waiting on test to come back got a few more min but while I’m waiting would it be an option or bad idea run light for chaeto more? Running from 11pm to 7 am ish 8 hours

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Waiting on test to come back got a few more min but while I’m waiting would it be an option or bad idea run light for chaeto more? Running from 11pm to 7 am ish 8 hours

I would do 12 hrs…ideally opposite of your display tank light.

 

[Gichigami.reefer]

I’ll ramp it up and tbh I don’t think that it made a difference it was closer but it wasn’t 50% it was closer to 27 % but don’t have a way to make that much at a time 2 5gallon buckets