New tank, 4 weeks later.

[Ozy2216]

Hi everyone, this is just an update on my tank 4 weeks in. I still have nasty diatoms, started getting alot of green algae. And it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon lol. My nitrates and nitrates are 0, and i use rodi water so i’m a little confused as to why they’re still here. I have two packa of phosgaurd in my canister to help out and still nothing. As of now i have one Firefish, Two clowns, one cleaner shrimp, 4 turbo snails, and a baby blue tang (Yes i know when the tang gets bigger it won’t be able to be in my tank, my friend is monitoring it and when it gets too big for my tank he will transfer it to his 250 gallon). Question is though, since this is my second saltwater ever...Do i just have to wait for the diatoms to go? Or is there something abnormal happening?

 

[Rmckoy]

They will go away when silicates are consumed
Im
Curious why there is zero nitrates

 

[Dkmoo]

Don't worry about it. Its all normal. You r not able to test for po4 and no3 bc its all already absorbed by either your rocks, or by the growing algae. Since you have dry rocks, they will continue to absorb nutrients like charging a battery that will leach back out in 8 months and you'll have a second round of bad algae "seemingly out of no where" but thats where they'd come from

IMO, your goal right now shouldn't be to try to add phosguards or filters to try to make it too clean, the "dirtier water" is a good thing bc it will promote the growth of biodiversity and progress your tanks maturation process. Yes, right now most of the "growth" will be nuisance algae bc it'll be the most visible part, but trust that other good things will be growing too (pods, filter feeders, worms, etccc) but those will take time. Your first 8 months to 1 year will just be too keep up with good husbandry, and scrub off and manually remove as much as you can, and eventually your tank will mature and be teeming with biodiversity and will keep the tank stable.

Often times people ask why after 1 year they still have stability and algae issues, and the reason is that they tried to rely too much on filters, chemicals, and miracle bottles to reduce/eliminate algae and causes their tank to be too clean and slowed down the maturation process.

 

[Ozy2216]

Yeah i have no clue, my buddy let me use the hanna testing kit he had and it came back 0.00 ppm. It was probably busted, i checked it again with the 5 in one strips and it came back like this as well.

 

[Ozy2216]

Don't worry about it. Its all normal. You r not able to test for po4 and no3 bc its all already absorbed by either your rocks, or by the growing algae. Since you have dry rocks, they will continue to absorb nutrients like charging a battery that will leach back out in 8 months and you'll have a second round of bad algae "seemingly out of no where" but thats where they'd come from

IMO, your goal right now shouldn't be to try to add phosguards or filters to try to make it too clean, the "dirtier water" is a good thing bc it will promote the growth of biodiversity and progress your tanks maturation process. Yes, right now most of the "growth" will be nuisance algae bc it'll be the most visible part, but trust that other good things will be growing too (pods, filter feeders, worms, etccc) but those will take time. Your first 8 months to 1 year will just be too keep up with good husbandry, and scrub off and manually remove as much as you can, and eventually your tank will mature and be teeming with biodiversity and will keep the tank stable.

Often times people ask why after 1 year they still have stability and algae issues, and the reason is that they tried to rely too much on filters, chemicals, and miracle bottles to reduce/eliminate algae and causes their tank to be too clean and slowed down the maturation process.

Appreciate it, yeah I don’t like adding chemicals and aglaefix and all this stuff. So far all i’ve did was buy some phosguard and put it in my filter, and scrub off any algae on the glass

 

[Rmckoy]

Keep
A eye on phosphate levels .
I’d remove at least one of them from your sanister .

 

[Rmckoy]

Keep
A eye on phosphate levels .
I’d remove at least one of them from your sanister .

Auto correct ...
canister

 

[Dkmoo]

Appreciate it, yeah I don’t like adding chemicals and aglaefix and all this stuff. So far all i’ve did was buy some phosguard and put it in my filter, and scrub off any algae on the glass

I'd go as far as removing the phosguard and canister all together. Since yiur tank is so young and lack biodiversity, there is really nothing to compete against the algae and all those new rock and sand are prime real estate for them to proliferate. Phosguards are this point probably isn't going to completelh out compete the po4 absorption against the algae and cyano growth. Better to just let it all grow to speed up the maturation process.

Granted, it will probsbly give you a lot worse of an algae problem in the short term and you make not have the time to really maintain it depending on your real life situation (work, kids, money, etcc). So it will be a balancing act of how much you want to rely on filtration to keep tank clean vs how fast you want it to mature.

Personally I'm against cannister and mechanical filtration for many reasons ( you can search some of my other posts on this topic) but thats just me. There are successful tanks that are run on cannister as long as you keep it clean. But that will get increasingly more difficult as your bioload increases. If space/fund/time allow, a sump/refugium is generally more popular and easier to have a higher success rate in this hobby

But all this is something you can think about down the line when you have higher bioload. Given your tanks current age and bioload, its not gonna make much difference now between the different filtration setups vs none at all

 

[Ozy2216]

I'd go as far as removing the phosguard and canister all together. Since yiur tank is so young and lack biodiversity, there is really nothing to compete against the algae and all those new rock and sand are prime real estate for them to proliferate. Phosguards are this point probably isn't going to completelh out compete the po4 absorption against the algae and cyano growth. Better to just let it all grow to speed up the maturation process.

Granted, it will probsbly give you a lot worse of an algae problem in the short term and you make not have the time to really maintain it depending on your real life situation (work, kids, money, etcc). So it will be a balancing act of how much you want to rely on filtration to keep tank clean vs how fast you want it to mature.

Personally I'm against cannister and mechanical filtration for many reasons ( you can search some of my other posts on this topic) but thats just me. There are successful tanks that are run on cannister as long as you keep it clean. But that will get increasingly more difficult as your bioload increases. If space/fund/time allow, a sump/refugium is generally more popular and easier to have a higher success rate in this hobby

But all this is something you can think about down the line when you have higher bioload. Given your tanks current age and bioload, its not gonna make much difference now between the different filtration setups vs none at all

The issue is, i would love a refug, but i have NO clue how to make one lol.

 

[Dkmoo]

The issue is, i would love a refug, but i have NO clue how to make one lol.

Not sure how handy you are or how comfortable yiu are with tools but its fairly easy to set up. There a lot of guides both on this forum - check out the new reefer subforum - or YouTube videos

If yiu are not comfortable doing one from scratch, there are also a lot of pre-made ones yiu can buy for the size you need. For those all you need to know is how to work with plumbing - ie, cutting and gluing pvc pipes.

They all sound scary and hard in the beginning but once you actually do the research and look into it, I believe you will find it not that bad.

 

[Ozy2216]

Not sure how handy you are or how comfortable yiu are with tools but its fairly easy to set up. There a lot of guides both on this forum - check out the new reefer subforum - or YouTube videos

If yiu are not comfortable doing one from scratch, there are also a lot of pre-made ones yiu can buy for the size you need. For those all you need to know is how to work with plumbing - ie, cutting and gluing pvc pipes.

They all sound scary and hard in the beginning but once you actually do the research and look into it, I believe you will find it not that bad.

Appreciate it, i’ll start looking up some videos