Newb to the reef world...any help is appreciated

Sharebear · Dec 16, 2020

New to the reef world and would love some help so I don’t previous owner left me with a 350 gallon tank.. maybe 60 gallon sump?

I also messed everything up by trying to connect the Apex system to my email... and now the tank is having a ton of pink slime/cyano on the rocks.

Learned to do a water change.. and sorta clean up the cyano on sand while taking out the water... but impossible to remove them on the rocks... considering using chemiclean..

might have accidentally changed the positioning of the 2 wavemakers (gyre xf250)

Any advices on these items below?
1. Positioning of wavemakers..I know one has to go towards the surface... for air..... and that’s about it.. since I have two.. that’s about 10600 GPH... I think that’s good enough for 350 tank? Not sure...

2. Chemiclean? How to remove the lovely slimes on the rocks... and bubble algae? The tank is very high up and I need a ladder... so removing rocks to clean is very difficult

3. I think the previous owner did triton method... and have macro green algae in the sump tank....with a kessil growth light. What the heck is the healthy ones and am I supposed to clean up the slimy or non slimy one?

4. how high of intensity, duration, color of lights do you use? Wondering if my color is too white or too intense that might have messed up the tank.. it all came.... hell once I reset the apex setting and lost all of her previous set up..
currently have 8 kessil light on top..

thank you very much for reading this newbs post... my fish appreciate it

gentlefish · Dec 16, 2020

From nothing to 300g? You have courage. I’m impressed. I see predominant fish with life rock and some softies.
That makes light less important.
Oxygen exchange will happen through surface agitation and skimmer. No you do not need to direct flow upwards, parallel to the surface will do.
Evaporation top p should be rodi water.
Salinity is important at 35.
If you want to grow coral you would need stable alcalinity, calcium, magnesium, pH over 7.7.
The red stuff comes if there is less flow. You may want to direct a wave maker to it, also with higher nutrients. Nutrient export are your sump algae. You like the chaeto that is the threat like curly stuff.....oh there is so much to learn. Try to abstain from putting new things in the tank until you have learned not to put diseases in...
Ps WELLCOME

Bluenote · Dec 16, 2020

If you have green slime algae, you most likely have a nutrient problem, meaning you have too much extra nutrients in the water causing the algae to grow. First make sure you are feeding the fish only as much as they eat within a few mins (1-3 mins). Next you might consider reducing your light cycle for several weeks while you fight this.

If you have macro algae in the sump (a refugium?) you want to remove the slime algae. The way I would approach this based on your pics is three ways: manually remove as much as you can/want, purchase a sizeable clean up crew of snails hermit crabs and possibly fish (tangs), be patient with the macro algae/skimmer/and water changes to remove the nitrates from the water.

gentlefish · Dec 16, 2020

Love what Bluenote said, but I am to concerned to introduce disease into the tank. If you were to have disease in the display, the only plan of action would be to catch all fish and treat in hospital tank.

There are different ways to get rid of stuff you don’t want and to replenish what you need. In small tanks saltwater exchange works but is unmanageable in large tanks. Triton allows for tank water to be sent out regularly for analysis and provides the reagents to be replenished. For removal of stuff with Triton, you grow algae that suck up phosphate and then toss a portion out, together with the stored phosphate. The skimmer is a good way to remove protein and other particles .

Butcher333 · Dec 17, 2020

Sharebear said:
New to the reef world and would love some help so I don’t / “previous owner left me with a 350 gallon tank.. “ maybe 60 gallon sump?

Previous owner “left you with”?.. lol

Can you send a close up pick of the rocks? To take out the blue for a good photo, you can shine white light into the tank when the lights are off.

I am not suggesting chemiclean.

I would not remove all of the algae from the sump. This will likely make any nutrients worse. Turn the light in the fuge as high as you can if its not already. You will want to grow as much algae as fast as you can, so that you can remove some each week or two. I think you should work slowly at this point making minor adjustments until you’ve really researched and devised a plan.

If you reset the Apex, then I would follow the Apex tutorials and post some screen shots of your readings.