New tank, tons of problems

[ying yang]

Hi and welcome to r2r,hope all is well.cant really add anything that not already been said .
Raise salinity to 1.025-1.026 if coraks in tank.
Best to use rodi as dont want any bad things in tap water like copper getting added in small quantities and slowly raising in your tank to dangerous levels eventually.
If keeping corals get test kits for alk,nitrates,phosphates,calcium,magnesium,salifert,nyos cheap often recommended tests,hannah checkers more expensive but often highly recommended ,research which brand best for each test as some better than others.
As Said 0-5 ppm is a very large range and 0 what we wanting.
Get appropiate cuc for sand,glass,rocks, not to little but not to much so they run out food and eat each other .
Good luck with your new tank and hope you and your family get great enjoyment from it ^_^

 

[Onixom]

Welcome to R2R.
I'm new to reef tanks (so the veterans of reefing may disagree with what ive been told)
But the gravel will sort itself out after its cycled aslong as you have a good clean like hermit crabs snail etc they will help (I never vacuumed mine and its clearing but mines a new tank november 6th 2021 but i'm lazy lol)
I know the rocks are green but as you can see the gravel has cleared.


I've seen the comments about the hammer being salinity and such (which it most possibly is) but when i bought my hammer the LFS told me put it in a low flow (some flow but if its leaning over its too much flow) as it can rub against the rocks or something and pop itself (something about it fills with saltwater but if it cuts itself it dies)

^- like i said i'm new to reefing but this is information i was told (may be useless in this instance and please tell me if im wrong)

Also for the tang police, the sailfin is in this tank temporarily untill i get my big tank setup

 

[rmorris_14]

Isn’t reefing fun?

I read through all the comments. Lots of great advice here. I would definitely stop adding anything but CUC (clean up crew) until you stabilize the tank. If you do add fish, you should start reading up on how To quarantine fish before adding them to your display. If it doesn’t sound like something you want to do, there are some suppliers that can do the process for you.
I also think your tank could benefit from more live rock. If you can get your hands on REAL live rock from a LFS or through the web, it would be better than caribsea “life” rock or dry. That’s all I’ve got for now. GL and welcome. This forum will help guide you.

 

[Pazernaker]

Thank you for the comments! Sorry I went silent for a bit, will post an update after this, but wanted to ask you directly, what's the tank build post you talked about?

Welcome! Glad you joined. My advice ... SLOW DOWN...

Your cleanups, while needed are likely throwing your tank into continued 'brand new tank' mode. Stop adding fish until you have everything controlled or at least stable. Stop adding corals until you have everything controlled or at least stable. So much has been happening so fast. You are doing outstanding keeping everything alive as you combat her neglect. Give yourself and your tank time to settle. With what you have already accomplish, I can tell you will be super successful in this hobby but don't burn yourself out early on.

Nitrates, phosphates and light (esp white and/or sunlight) are fuel for algae. They are suggesting turning off lights to help you get to the other side of the algae growth battle.

FYI: I don't believe your nitrate numbers at above 1 PPM given everything else you describe further above, though I could be wrong - it wouldn't hurt to go to a LFS (or two) and get second opinion on your water parameters (or third opinion). If nothing is close to you, you could send away and have an ICP test done but due to postal mail it takes longer to get back results (... gets back to SLOW DOWN thinking... lol)

You ask about water, someone mentioned RO/DI, and I know you said well water with conditioners, etc. I'm in RO/DI camp, so I'll vote for RO/DI when you can enhance what you have.

Have you considered starting your build thread? I found its a great place to document my tank's evolution for myself. I started tank first then joined, so I'm still finding myself going back collecting pictures & updating historically as well as current state. Once you create your first post in your thread and link it to your account, they will give you build badge (look left, under my ID).

This might help you find people local to you:

Local Reef Club Discussion

Looking for some locals to share frags and info with? This is the place! Find a local club that meets in your area! If you want to add your club just contact us.

www.reef2reef.com

This is a good reference book type online article I still review:

The Supreme Guide To Setting Up A Saltwater Reef Aquarium

This article was sponsored by @MarineDepot at www.marinedepot.com. Introduction The marine environment is one of the most complex systems on the planet. The aquarium you are about to set up is only a tiny sliver of the vast ocean, but it is no...

www.reef2reef.com

Thanks for the response! Posting an update right after this one, but wanted to ask you directly, where is the tank build section?

 

[Pazernaker]

Apologies on taking such a long time between posts, but I was taking in all the information and processing it, this has been such a wonderful learning process, even though I'm struggling. The struggle will just make the reward better in the long run when it clears up

I've got access to a full chemical analysis lab where I work, but I don't want to start abusing that until I have a better understanding of the cycles involved, chemistries off a reef tank, etc.

My local fish store seems to think that I'm seeing cyanobacteria, and after looking into it, I think they're correct. I've started a cycle with Chemiclean (6 scoops for a 60 gallon tank). I was told I can keep my lights off, but turn off my cartridge filter because it had carbon bags in it. I left my skimmer running, but only as a way to get oxygen into the water. I can't run it normally, as it just overfills almost immediately with the Chemiclean in the system. Today marks 24 hours post addition, and I'm not seeing a ton of changes, but will do the water change tomorrow evening and turn the filter back on.

A lot of people mentioned cleanup crew and you were spot on. I didn't realize it at first, but most of my snails died in transportation. The one's I saw moving around the tank were the same 3-4 over and over. I bought 15 Astraea Snails and they seem to be doing well. I've put a stop on buying anything new (fish/coral/etc) until this problem gets resolved. That being said, everything from my Condi to my snowflake seem to be thriving and growing in the tank. The blue tang has since died, as expected, so he was thrown out. Doesn't seem to be a parasite or a disease, so I'm writing that off until I figure out how to balance the water better, then I'll focus on better care of new additions to the tank.

I'm also considering getting a 25W Quartz UV sterilizer to help as well as an RODI unit to everyone else's recommendation. Until I settle on the appropriate RODI unit for my water, I'm going to buy pre made water from my LFS and steal a few gallons of RODI water from work for top offs.

 

[Anemone_Fanatic]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[N1tew0lf1212]

Welcome to r2r and hope for a succesful journey

 

[tharbin]

Apologies on taking such a long time between posts, but I was taking in all the information and processing it, this has been such a wonderful learning process, even though I'm struggling. The struggle will just make the reward better in the long run when it clears up

I've got access to a full chemical analysis lab where I work, but I don't want to start abusing that until I have a better understanding of the cycles involved, chemistries off a reef tank, etc.

My local fish store seems to think that I'm seeing cyanobacteria, and after looking into it, I think they're correct. I've started a cycle with Chemiclean (6 scoops for a 60 gallon tank). I was told I can keep my lights off, but turn off my cartridge filter because it had carbon bags in it. I left my skimmer running, but only as a way to get oxygen into the water. I can't run it normally, as it just overfills almost immediately with the Chemiclean in the system. Today marks 24 hours post addition, and I'm not seeing a ton of changes, but will do the water change tomorrow evening and turn the filter back on.

A lot of people mentioned cleanup crew and you were spot on. I didn't realize it at first, but most of my snails died in transportation. The one's I saw moving around the tank were the same 3-4 over and over. I bought 15 Astraea Snails and they seem to be doing well. I've put a stop on buying anything new (fish/coral/etc) until this problem gets resolved. That being said, everything from my Condi to my snowflake seem to be thriving and growing in the tank. The blue tang has since died, as expected, so he was thrown out. Doesn't seem to be a parasite or a disease, so I'm writing that off until I figure out how to balance the water better, then I'll focus on better care of new additions to the tank.

I'm also considering getting a 25W Quartz UV sterilizer to help as well as an RODI unit to everyone else's recommendation. Until I settle on the appropriate RODI unit for my water, I'm going to buy pre made water from my LFS and steal a few gallons of RODI water from work for top offs.

Slow down... I know you think you are going slow but slow in a reef tank is weeks or even months, not days. Can you do another full tank shot. What I saw in your first photos certainly did not seem to warrant ChemiClean, at least not yet. ChemiClean or Hydrogen Peroxide should be considered last-ditch, I'm about ready to give up solutions. ANY chemical additive can be disruptive to the system and there are no 'cleaners' that don't clean more than the intended target. Your tank is still way to young to do well with anything that kills bacteria or algae. Pluck algae, scrub algae, live with algae but don't kill it in the tank. Cyanobacteria is a bacteria, anything that kills it will also at least stress your other bacteria and they are not well enough established to take much stress. You may well need ChemiClean but what I saw in your pictures looked more like it needed a month or two of TLC, not chemicals. In a reef tank, going after one organism with extreme prejudice very often leads to something much worse taking its place. Keep the cyano (if that is what it is) off of your corals by using a powerhead or turkey baster to blow it off but unless it starts smothering things just try to wait it out. Vacuum it out of the sand during water changes and change or clean your mechanical filtration every day or two. Good Luck. I would also encourage you to add Microbacter 7 or PNS Probio or Dr. Tim's Refresh or Eco-Balance or some other live bacteria to the tank to help get your bacterial populations up to snuff.

 

[otzhorse]

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Ok, just a few things I can say to help
1. Maybye take out all you sand and give it a really good rinse.
2. If your not already its probably a good idea to start using RO water, or better RO DI water.
3. Try start out with easyer corals, like mushrooms, zoas or leathers.

 

[Pazernaker]

Slow down... I know you think you are going slow but slow in a reef tank is weeks or even months, not days. Can you do another full tank shot. What I saw in your first photos certainly did not seem to warrant ChemiClean, at least not yet. ChemiClean or Hydrogen Peroxide should be considered last-ditch, I'm about ready to give up solutions. ANY chemical additive can be disruptive to the system and there are no 'cleaners' that don't clean more than the intended target. Your tank is still way to young to do well with anything that kills bacteria or algae. Pluck algae, scrub algae, live with algae but don't kill it in the tank. Cyanobacteria is a bacteria, anything that kills it will also at least stress your other bacteria and they are not well enough established to take much stress. You may well need ChemiClean but what I saw in your pictures looked more like it needed a month or two of TLC, not chemicals. In a reef tank, going after one organism with extreme prejudice very often leads to something much worse taking its place. Keep the cyano (if that is what it is) off of your corals by using a powerhead or turkey baster to blow it off but unless it starts smothering things just try to wait it out. Vacuum it out of the sand during water changes and change or clean your mechanical filtration every day or two. Good Luck. I would also encourage you to add Microbacter 7 or PNS Probio or Dr. Tim's Refresh or Eco-Balance or some other live bacteria to the tank to help get your bacterial populations up to snuff.

Appreciate all the insight, definitely difficult to take it slow when I see negative things happening and have an ugly looking tank. The Chemiclean was a recommendation from an LFS, who also advised to not touch the sand, just chemiclean the tank and add in a shot of pristine from seachem. After reading everything, I've put a stop on buying new things for the tank until this gets resolved and everything gets way more established, but I am considering a 25 watt UV sterilizer someone on another page recommended.

Attached is the full tank shot as well as a close up of the large live rock on the right. Cartridge filter has been off for 2 days for the Chemiclean (I was told to do this to not affect the activated carbon filter's) and the protein skimmer has been running. That overflowed almost immediately once I added the Chemiclean, so I had to reduce the air induction all the way day, but it still gets the bubbles you see in the water. I figured that would be best since I didn't have the filter running and it's putting O2 in the water. The Chemiclean definitely killed off large chunks of purple/red stuff growing on the live rock and the tank floor, though since I don't have any pictures of it, I have no idea if it was good bacteria or Cyanobacteria.

I also woke up to a dead Royal Grama this morning who seemed fine yesterday, but has a weird mark on his tail. Posting pictures of that over on the fish disease page to make sure I don't have something else nasty I need to watch out for.

Plan is to do a 20% water change, vacuum the top of the sand out and turn the filter back on. Also going to use a power head and clean the rocks down.

Current tank numbers:
Ph 8.1
NO2: 0 (rock bottom)
NO3: 5-10 ppm
Ammonia: .6
Phosphate: 5-6
Calcium: about 400

 

[Rmckoy]

First things first . Welcome to r2r
A great place to help solve any issues especially associated with taking over a neglected system .

1) reusing the old sand is most likely the cause for many of the issues

2) you mentioned a blue tang in your original post but the pictures there is a sailfin tang ?

How many fish were added ?

#1 increasing salinity slowly to 35ppt ( 1.026sg)


Lights off will stop algae growth but will not solve the issue .
mad soon as the lights are turned back onto their cycle the issue will return if nothing is done to correct it .

 

[Rmckoy]

Appreciate all the insight, definitely difficult to take it slow when I see negative things happening and have an ugly looking tank. The Chemiclean was a recommendation from an LFS, who also advised to not touch the sand, just chemiclean the tank and add in a shot of pristine from seachem. After reading everything, I've put a stop on buying new things for the tank until this gets resolved and everything gets way more established, but I am considering a 25 watt UV sterilizer someone on another page recommended.

Attached is the full tank shot as well as a close up of the large live rock on the right. Cartridge filter has been off for 2 days for the Chemiclean (I was told to do this to not affect the activated carbon filter's) and the protein skimmer has been running. That overflowed almost immediately once I added the Chemiclean, so I had to reduce the air induction all the way day, but it still gets the bubbles you see in the water. I figured that would be best since I didn't have the filter running and it's putting O2 in the water. The Chemiclean definitely killed off large chunks of purple/red stuff growing on the live rock and the tank floor, though since I don't have any pictures of it, I have no idea if it was good bacteria or Cyanobacteria.

I also woke up to a dead Royal Grama this morning who seemed fine yesterday, but has a weird mark on his tail. Posting pictures of that over on the fish disease page to make sure I don't have something else nasty I need to watch out for.

Plan is to do a 20% water change, vacuum the top of the sand out and turn the filter back on. Also going to use a power head and clean the rocks down.

Current tank numbers:
Ph 8.1
NO2: 0 (rock bottom)
NO3: 5-10 ppm
Ammonia: .6
Phosphate: 5-6
Calcium: about 400

This is a common tank transfer and surprised @brandon429 hasn’t smelled the detritus yet .

 

[Pazernaker]

First things first . Welcome to r2r
A great place to help solve any issues especially associated with taking over a neglected system .

1) reusing the old sand is most likely the cause for many of the issues

2) you mentioned a blue tang in your original post but the pictures there is a sailfin tang ?

How many fish were added ?

#1 increasing salinity slowly to 35ppt ( 1.026sg)


Lights off will stop algae growth but will not solve the issue .
mad soon as the lights are turned back onto their cycle the issue will return if nothing is done to correct it .

Blue Tang has since died, there was a post on the fish disease page about it, and I lost the Grama this morning suddenly (There's a separate post I just put up for that). Sailfish tang came with the tank and was heavily established at about 2 years old. Added 3 fish and the eel since purchasing and the bubble coral/Condy Anemone. I know, way to much way to soon, I got really excited about the tank and over committed. Trying to slow down now and get these issues completely treated before moving onto the more fun parts of reefing, and definitely not adding coral until I get this fixed and stable.

I keep hearing to change out/wash the sand, but my local fish store told me I didn't need to, so I'm getting conflicting information here. If I were to do it, can you point me to a good guide for that?

 

[Rmckoy]

Blue Tang has since died, there was a post on the fish disease page about it, and I lost the Grama this morning suddenly (There's a separate post I just put up for that). Sailfish tang came with the tank and was heavily established at about 2 years old. Added 3 fish and the eel since purchasing and the bubble coral/Condy Anemone. I know, way to much way to soon, I got really excited about the tank and over committed. Trying to slow down now and get these issues completely treated before moving onto the more fun parts of reefing, and definitely not adding coral until I get this fixed and stable.

I keep hearing to change out/wash the sand, but my local fish store told me I didn't need to, so I'm getting conflicting information here. If I were to do it, can you point me to a good guide for that?

I would strongly suggest posting in another section .
Or reaching out to @brandon429
Imagine …. That old sand and fish poop , food , etc all settling somewhere . ( on the sand )

as you clean and vacuum the sand what colour is the water coming out ?

disturbing the sand only releases everything which I can say 100% can and will kill 100% of life
Read through my build thread and see a beautiful 90 gal reef …
That same tank was transferred to a 230 using only a handful of sand to “establish “ and what was once suggested by lfs to use to help
Everything in that tank was dead within hours after transfer .

“wash the old sand prior to using !”

 

[Pazernaker]

I would strongly suggest posting in another section .
Or reaching out to @brandon429
Imagine …. That old sand and fish poop , food , etc all settling somewhere . ( on the sand )

as you clean and vacuum the sand what colour is the water coming out ?

disturbing the sand only releases everything which I can say 100% can and will kill 100% of life
Read through my build thread and see a beautiful 90 gal reef …
That same tank was transferred to a 230 using only a handful of sand to “establish “ and what was once suggested by lfs to use to help
Everything in that tank was dead within hours after transfer .

“wash the old sand prior to using !”

Keep in mind, I'm really new to this. Just a disclaimer before I answer.

The deeper I get into this tank, the less I think the previous owner did anything at all to this tank for a long time. I would doubt she did a water change any more than once every few months, if not twice a year. The floss in the cartridge filter was a solid grey block when I changed it out and every time I vacuum the sand, the water is a clear brown color in all the buckets. It's a lighter tint than the protein skimmer collector, but same color. In hindsight, I should have taken an ammonia level for kicks and giggles to ensure that's ammonia in the bucket. Whenever I vacuumed, I always dug into the sand bed thinking that a neglected tank should have a deep cleaning, which I was told by my LFS to never do (and by a few people in this post) because it ruins the bacteria in the sand bed. I also don't have a very thick sand bed, maybe an inch? I've been wanting to add more from reading other articles saying 2" is ideal, but really want to stabilize the tank and try to take this recovery more slowly than I had in the beginning, so I set that aside for now to tackle at a later date.

The more I'm reading from posts, the more I'm leaning towards just doing a full sand wash this afternoon when I do a post chemiclean water exchange and adding more, new live sand at the same time, but again, since I'm new, I don't know if this is to much to quickly and I should work with what I have.

 

[Rmckoy]

Keep in mind, I'm really new to this. Just a disclaimer before I answer.

The deeper I get into this tank, the less I think the previous owner did anything at all to this tank for a long time. I would doubt she did a water change any more than once every few months, if not twice a year. The floss in the cartridge filter was a solid grey block when I changed it out and every time I vacuum the sand, the water is a clear brown color in all the buckets. It's a lighter tint than the protein skimmer collector, but same color. In hindsight, I should have taken an ammonia level for kicks and giggles to ensure that's ammonia in the bucket. Whenever I vacuumed, I always dug into the sand bed thinking that a neglected tank should have a deep cleaning, which I was told by my LFS to never do (and by a few people in this post) because it ruins the bacteria in the sand bed. I also don't have a very thick sand bed, maybe an inch? I've been wanting to add more from reading other articles saying 2" is ideal, but really want to stabilize the tank and try to take this recovery more slowly than I had in the beginning, so I set that aside for now to tackle at a later date.

The more I'm reading from posts, the more I'm leaning towards just doing a full sand wash this afternoon when I do a post chemiclean water exchange and adding more, new live sand at the same time, but again, since I'm new, I don't know if this is to much to quickly and I should work with what I have.

The problem is opinions of sandbed efficient changes as often as I change my underpants .
Years ago ( 90’s ) dsb were the hype . But if you didn’t want to wait to maintain a dsb shallow ( <2”) was nice but didn’t have the perks of transferring nitrates to nitrogen gas which essentially made water changes useless other than replenishing elements .

1” sandbed has no benefits other than cosmetics and somewhere to harbour nasty stuff such as detritus .
mad long as it’s not disturbed it will sit and decompose while your cuc picks away at it .
as soon as you shove your vacuum into it if not sucked out will be released into the water column .
a minor cleaning is nothing compared to a complete tank transfer which I’m seeing this tank rescue as .

even though I maintain my system I can guarantee once moved the sand will be disgusting and smell

the moral of the story . This hobby has changes perspectives in every aspect from what’s available to testing , feeding , filtration , lighting ,
And even the amount of Understanding of how everything works together

 

[Pazernaker]

The problem is opinions of sandbed efficient changes as often as I change my underpants .
Years ago ( 90’s ) dsb were the hype . But if you didn’t want to wait to maintain a dsb shallow ( <2”) was nice but didn’t have the perks of transferring nitrates to nitrogen gas which essentially made water changes useless other than replenishing elements .

1” sandbed has no benefits other than cosmetics and somewhere to harbour nasty stuff such as detritus .
mad long as it’s not disturbed it will sit and decompose while your cuc picks away at it .
as soon as you shove your vacuum into it if not sucked out will be released into the water column .
a minor cleaning is nothing compared to a complete tank transfer which I’m seeing this tank rescue as .

even though I maintain my system I can guarantee once moved the sand will be disgusting and smell

the moral of the story . This hobby has changes perspectives in every aspect from what’s available to testing , feeding , filtration , lighting ,
And even the amount of Understanding of how everything works together

Good to know. Would I be doing to much if I added more crushed coral/live sand when I did a deep sand cleaning this afternoon? Would a UV sterilizer help all of this, or is that adding to much to quickly?

 

[Rmckoy]

Good to know. Would I be doing to much if I added more crushed coral/live sand when I did a deep sand cleaning this afternoon? Would a UV sterilizer help all of this, or is that adding to much to quickly?

I’d let it settle and not do anything else right away .
let what you have done settle ……

 

[tharbin]

Keep in mind, I'm really new to this. Just a disclaimer before I answer.

The deeper I get into this tank, the less I think the previous owner did anything at all to this tank for a long time. I would doubt she did a water change any more than once every few months, if not twice a year. The floss in the cartridge filter was a solid grey block when I changed it out and every time I vacuum the sand, the water is a clear brown color in all the buckets. It's a lighter tint than the protein skimmer collector, but same color. In hindsight, I should have taken an ammonia level for kicks and giggles to ensure that's ammonia in the bucket. Whenever I vacuumed, I always dug into the sand bed thinking that a neglected tank should have a deep cleaning, which I was told by my LFS to never do (and by a few people in this post) because it ruins the bacteria in the sand bed. I also don't have a very thick sand bed, maybe an inch? I've been wanting to add more from reading other articles saying 2" is ideal, but really want to stabilize the tank and try to take this recovery more slowly than I had in the beginning, so I set that aside for now to tackle at a later date.

The more I'm reading from posts, the more I'm leaning towards just doing a full sand wash this afternoon when I do a post chemiclean water exchange and adding more, new live sand at the same time, but again, since I'm new, I don't know if this is to much to quickly and I should work with what I have.

@Pazernaker I understand your frustration. This is a fairly easy but complex hobby (how's that for incongruity). You do need to be discerning about the advice you follow. We all have opinions and tend toward solutions that have worked for us or that worked for others but every reef tank is unique. I will say that I disagree with your LFS on two counts: Using ChemiClean on an immature tank is very risky. It can easily lead to deaths from oxygen depletion and to dinos replacing the cyano. The other is the sandbed. A 1" sandbed has no real anerobic areas other that possibly directly under the points where the rocks touch the sand. Also it is doubtful it can harbor huge amounts of detritus. A deep sand bed (usually considered 4" or more deep) is a different matter and you need to be careful when you disturb it. If you want to clean your sand, go for it. You will lose some beneficial bacteria but you still have the bacteria on the rocks. Your tank has a fairly light bio-load right now so I seriously doubt that disrupting the sandbed will have much effect on the system.

A reef tank is all about balance. It is a living system. It is not some fish and corals in water. Every mm of the tank will get populated by something. Your goal is to have as many of those mm populated by things you like as possible. Algae will compete for space as will dinos, cyano, corals, other 'beneficial' bacteria, sponges, worms, tunicates, bivalves, etc. A young tank has lots of space just looking for residents. It also has lots of nutrients. One example of balance is the use of phytoplankton to help combat cyano. It seems counterintuitive to add photosynthetic plants to compete with photosynthetic bacteria but it can work.

You have mentioned a UV Sterilizer several times. I rarely advocate technology solutions as it is far too easy to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on technology of dubious help. A UV can be very useful but understand what it will do, what it might do and what it won't do. A UV will help with certain types of dinos if the flow rate is tuned for those organisms. For other types of dinos it will help very little if at all. A UV will help with certain parasitic fish diseases if tuned for those diseases. A UV will give you clearer water. A UV may help with cyano but may not. A UV will rarely help with algae.

Sorry to go on so long but one more thing to consider. In general anything that happens quickly in a reef tank leads to instability. You don't want the cyano to die over night. That would just open up the nutrients and space to other organisms. You want it to die slowly or be removed so that you don't open up too much space too quickly to other early-adopters (like dinos, diatoms, hair algae).