New tank, tons of problems

[shadopadla]

Welcome to the hobby! It’s a lot like drinking from the fire hose but very rewarding

Keep in mind nothing good happens from changing parameters quickly for salt water tanks.

I recently changed to a new tank and with new sand/ old live rock it triggered a mini cycle/ can take 2-4 weeks to stabilize again. As others said reusing the old sand there’s a lot of detritus in there that gets put into the water column.

Ugly stage w algae/ cyano outbreaks is reduced with less lighting while the stabilization happens.

The corals/ fish you have are used to the conditions, while new ones won’t be/ can be shocked. You can also ask about the local shop water parameters vs yours for less shock and acclimation.

 

[PeterC99]

@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).

@tharbin - you are a very wise person!!!

 

[Fish Think Pink]

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?

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

Seems like you got tank build worked out while I was away adulting instead of here.

CONGRATULATIONS on your Build Thread Badge - see it now - you are on your way!

No one came out and said it this way, and you've likely already moved well past this phase but something for others ... when we move houses, we don't take our septic systems with us... Relocating that sand without rinsing is like moving household and moving septic tank... just my opinion...

I love to vacuum my sand with every water change. My diamond goby has a potbelly so no concerns about not getting enough to eat in 'dirty' sand since I prefer clean sand - technically I have crushed argonite but idea is same

 

[Pazernaker]

Seems like you got tank build worked out while I was away adulting instead of here.

CONGRATULATIONS on your Build Thread Badge - see it now - you are on your way!

No one came out and said it this way, and you've likely already moved well past this phase but something for others ... when we move houses, we don't take our septic systems with us... Relocating that sand without rinsing is like moving household and moving septic tank... just my opinion...

I love to vacuum my sand with every water change. My diamond goby has a potbelly so no concerns about not getting enough to eat in 'dirty' sand since I prefer clean sand - technically I have crushed argonite but idea is same

Thanks for all the help! I certainly understand the adulting side of things, my wife already yells at me because I stare at my tank to much without doing my honey-do list!

Since I last posted, I took all my sand out and completely washed it and added more sand. I found that I only had about 1/2" sand everywhere and now have 2" sand bed everywhere. I also added a Sleeper Banded Goby to sift the sand and a Starry Blenny due to green hair algae rampant growth.

I realize I said I was going to leave the tank alone, but after the comments made here about the direction my original LFS put me on, I changed LFS's and went to another one recommended by a local person and spent a solid 45 minutes to an hour talking about my tank and long term stability options with the owner. He helped me set up a plan for the next six months to get me to where I want to be including what parameters I should be monitoring, a schedule for how to change things slowly to help the tank get acclimated, and general things to look out for over the next few months. At his advice, I got a new thermometer and discovered that my heater with a built in thermometer were broken, and my tanks actually been running at 83.5 degrees, not the set 79. I've also been running my lights to high with the "auto" setting on my Fluval 38" light bars (I have two), which combined, has made my algae growth WAY worse than it normally would have been (To the point I could have changed these two things and probably solved my Cyano problem without chemiclean).

I'm very happy where I am now. I feel like I know enough to be dangerous and think I know what I'm doing, but really am messing things up worse In other words, I don't know what I don't know, but I think I do. Thanks for all the help and support to everyone so far!