Reef Guidance Needed!

[Nitrites]

Get a Toothbrush and Scrub the rocks and corals, Do water changes twice weekly, rinse repeat until it gets under control, also vac your sandbed.

I have a 40B also, currently 1.6 years old, believe me, I went through all of it...but hard work and perseverance paid off in the long run. Now, I only do water changes every few weeks, at 10%, and most of the problem algae has died and don't come back.

Will do!

 

[Nitrites]

Ammonia is toxic, but unless the tank is not cycled or there’s a major die-off in the tank, you shouldn’t have any sort of buildup of ammonia, as the bacteria in the tank should be converting it to Nitrate (as a note here, some tests are known for reading/appearing to read 0.25-0.5 ammonia when there’s actually no ammonia in the tank):

Nitrites on the other hand are essentially non-toxic in marine aquaria: Randy Holmes-Farley has written quite a bit about Nitrites in reef tanks, but here are some relevant quotes:


For these reasons, most people don’t bother testing Ammonia or Nitrites on e the tank is cycled (i.e. once the tank has completed the Nitrogen Cycle), though some people will test Ammonia in emergencies/if livestock died in the tank.

Interesting. I think there was ammonia in my tank because I moved it as said, and that included some of the sand. (I couldn't move the tank without removing this) When everything was back in I must have stirred it all up in the sand bed and recycled the tank one way or another.

 

[mommbass]

Hey Reef2Reef!

Im currently battling with algae and some other things, and I thought I would explain everything here and hopefully receive some much-needed help or thoughts on my tank. I have chosen to over-explain everything to hopefully not miss anything that could be causing me issues, I apologize for the rant...

My current reef system is a 40g breeder, it's roughly 6 years old now and the inhabitants are older. (2 Mated clowns, a goby, and a pistol shrimp) The tank was originally in my room at my parent's house, but when I went away for university it needed to be moved when my parents sold the home. We moved it to my dad's office, and that was roughly a year ago during Christmas. It was a difficult move, but all things considered, I would say it went really well. I also made sure to keep the rock placements the same to eliminate any flow issues. It cleared up after a couple of days and the corals all opened up. Throughout the year, I would travel back and forth doing water changes since I was only an hour away, usually about once a month, but sometimes longer and the tank looked great. I came back about a month later, and I did one of those very basic API standard water tests, and it came back something like:

PH: 8.2
Nitrates: 0
Nitrites: 0
SG: 1.025

My ammonia was a bit high, but I figured this was because of the tank move, and I added a bottle of Tim's bacteria which, opened the corals back up. At this time, my ignorance was telling me that my established tank would be just fine at the current rate and that the parameters were good enough to where I didn't have to worry. During these months when I was gone, I told my dad to feed pellets/brine shrimp, (pellets being his best choice since he's busy) once a week. I know some people say to feed way more than this, like several times a day, but I'm going to be honest, I don't know how that makes any sense, they are the healthiest-looking clowns, and I assume they eat a lot of copepods and other stuff in the tank anyways. After this point, I pretty much let the tank sit until summer when I returned from uni. I don't know if this is what caused my issues, but when I finally finished school my tank was looking horrible, the corals looked angry, and everything was very closed up, (and it's much worse now). I was pretty busy the first bit of summer, but I thought that I would order an ICP analysis kit as soon as possible since I could not figure out what was wrong with my tank. I got the kit, and shipped it in to find these parameters: (I have excluded everything that wasn't acceptable levels, and only included the yellow flagged elements, along with one red element. I also attached an image of my results if anyone wants to see).

Bromine: 45.554ppm
Chromium: 0 ppb
Iron: 3.517 ppb
Iodine: 4.492 ppb
Lithium: 116.522 ppb
Nickel: 0.93 ppb
Zinc: 3.046 ppb

The only red number was Manganese, at 20.096 ppb.

I have never heard of manganese but upon looking at everything in my tank as to what could be causing such high levels, I discovered the fish food (New life spectra) had manganese as its last ingredient. I have no idea if that's what's even causing the high levels, but with how steadily my dad was feeding the tank, I assume that's what caused it. This leads me to my first set of questions being,

How do I remove such a high level of manganese?
- My tank has a built-in filter as it was originally designed for crayfish to not be able to climb out, which consists of biological media and filter floss.) Would carbon help remove this?

How many water changes are needed to fix the tank?
- I have done a bunch of water changes this summer and nothing seems to make the corals happy... I have heard that people get away with using just salt as the additives to their reef, and no dosing, so is this just a hobby lie or do I need to do water changes? Keeping in mind, that my tank used to look great when it was in my room.

Should I be seriously worried about the other parameters?
- For some of the parameters the ICP test flagged, it suggested purchasing certain additives to reduce or increase as needed. Is this something I should do? I don't want to ruin anything else, and buying a different additive for each is going to be expensive.

Along with the coral being closed up and unhappy, my clownfish have been laying eggs, with a new clutch every week or so. I really wanted to raise the babies but with everything else going on it just wasn't feasible. Do the eggs hatching and dying harm the tank in any way, or is it too small of a difference?

As mentioned in the beginning, I have a lot of long stringy algae. It comes off the power heads and grows on the glass. It also protrudes off my frogspawn and sometimes my xenia. Is this harmful to the corals? Picture attached. How do I remove it? More flow or nutrient imbalance?

At one point I'm pretty sure my tank had dinos, and I was too scared to dose dinox. The guy at my LFS instructed me to feed more at the time which pretty much solved the issue, but I don't know if that's related to the dark algae of today.

Lastly, I'm willing to do almost anything to get the tank back in check, I love these clowns as I've pretty much grown up with them and giving them away is something I don't think I can bring myself to do. Would love any assistance with this tank, and if anyone has read this far thanks for listening. Pictures are attached.

Clown fish along with other fish will eat any hatching fry. My big female hovers over the nest waiting for hatching g day so she can devour. (Sorry, I know I just ruined Finding Nemo) they will eat the babies. How much light does your tank get? How often is it being fed. Most foods have nitrates, which can cause the hair algae, as can too much light. If you are feeding frozen, rinse it first. Some nitrates are not bad, I was told it’s a delicate balance. Best of luck

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hey Reef2Reef!

Im currently battling with algae and some other things, and I thought I would explain everything here and hopefully receive some much-needed help or thoughts on my tank. I have chosen to over-explain everything to hopefully not miss anything that could be causing me issues, I apologize for the rant...

My current reef system is a 40g breeder, it's roughly 6 years old now and the inhabitants are older. (2 Mated clowns, a goby, and a pistol shrimp) The tank was originally in my room at my parent's house, but when I went away for university it needed to be moved when my parents sold the home. We moved it to my dad's office, and that was roughly a year ago during Christmas. It was a difficult move, but all things considered, I would say it went really well. I also made sure to keep the rock placements the same to eliminate any flow issues. It cleared up after a couple of days and the corals all opened up. Throughout the year, I would travel back and forth doing water changes since I was only an hour away, usually about once a month, but sometimes longer and the tank looked great. I came back about a month later, and I did one of those very basic API standard water tests, and it came back something like:

PH: 8.2
Nitrates: 0
Nitrites: 0
SG: 1.025

My ammonia was a bit high, but I figured this was because of the tank move, and I added a bottle of Tim's bacteria which, opened the corals back up. At this time, my ignorance was telling me that my established tank would be just fine at the current rate and that the parameters were good enough to where I didn't have to worry. During these months when I was gone, I told my dad to feed pellets/brine shrimp, (pellets being his best choice since he's busy) once a week. I know some people say to feed way more than this, like several times a day, but I'm going to be honest, I don't know how that makes any sense, they are the healthiest-looking clowns, and I assume they eat a lot of copepods and other stuff in the tank anyways. After this point, I pretty much let the tank sit until summer when I returned from uni. I don't know if this is what caused my issues, but when I finally finished school my tank was looking horrible, the corals looked angry, and everything was very closed up, (and it's much worse now). I was pretty busy the first bit of summer, but I thought that I would order an ICP analysis kit as soon as possible since I could not figure out what was wrong with my tank. I got the kit, and shipped it in to find these parameters: (I have excluded everything that wasn't acceptable levels, and only included the yellow flagged elements, along with one red element. I also attached an image of my results if anyone wants to see).

Bromine: 45.554ppm
Chromium: 0 ppb
Iron: 3.517 ppb
Iodine: 4.492 ppb
Lithium: 116.522 ppb
Nickel: 0.93 ppb
Zinc: 3.046 ppb

The only red number was Manganese, at 20.096 ppb.

I have never heard of manganese but upon looking at everything in my tank as to what could be causing such high levels, I discovered the fish food (New life spectra) had manganese as its last ingredient. I have no idea if that's what's even causing the high levels, but with how steadily my dad was feeding the tank, I assume that's what caused it. This leads me to my first set of questions being,

How do I remove such a high level of manganese?
- My tank has a built-in filter as it was originally designed for crayfish to not be able to climb out, which consists of biological media and filter floss.) Would carbon help remove this?

How many water changes are needed to fix the tank?
- I have done a bunch of water changes this summer and nothing seems to make the corals happy... I have heard that people get away with using just salt as the additives to their reef, and no dosing, so is this just a hobby lie or do I need to do water changes? Keeping in mind, that my tank used to look great when it was in my room.

Should I be seriously worried about the other parameters?
- For some of the parameters the ICP test flagged, it suggested purchasing certain additives to reduce or increase as needed. Is this something I should do? I don't want to ruin anything else, and buying a different additive for each is going to be expensive.

Along with the coral being closed up and unhappy, my clownfish have been laying eggs, with a new clutch every week or so. I really wanted to raise the babies but with everything else going on it just wasn't feasible. Do the eggs hatching and dying harm the tank in any way, or is it too small of a difference?

As mentioned in the beginning, I have a lot of long stringy algae. It comes off the power heads and grows on the glass. It also protrudes off my frogspawn and sometimes my xenia. Is this harmful to the corals? Picture attached. How do I remove it? More flow or nutrient imbalance?

At one point I'm pretty sure my tank had dinos, and I was too scared to dose dinox. The guy at my LFS instructed me to feed more at the time which pretty much solved the issue, but I don't know if that's related to the dark algae of today.

Lastly, I'm willing to do almost anything to get the tank back in check, I love these clowns as I've pretty much grown up with them and giving them away is something I don't think I can bring myself to do. Would love any assistance with this tank, and if anyone has read this far thanks for listening. Pictures are attached.

Im suspecting early stage dino. You may be lacking nutrients in the system from transfer.
What is current salinity-phos level - nitrate level-salinity?
I dont see a lot of equipment in pic to suggest you are getting good water flow/turnover rate. An example is the film at your water surface which suggest surface flow itself is idle. Is there an overflow on tank?

 

[littlefoxx]

Clown fish along with other fish will eat any hatching fry. My big female hovers over the nest waiting for hatching g day so she can devour. (Sorry, I know I just ruined Finding Nemo) they will eat the babies. How much light does your tank get? How often is it being fed. Most foods have nitrates, which can cause the hair algae, as can too much light. If you are feeding frozen, rinse it first. Some nitrates are not bad, I was told it’s a delicate balance. Best of luck

Jeez clowns are nuts I hope my female does do that when they go to spawn!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

My tests always read higher ammonia every two weeks or so, so I do water changes when it does that, I use fluval test kits…

How much higher? Again, generally speaking a tank should be able to handle just about any ammonia that may naturally appear in it, so unless there’s something dying, the tank is seriously overstocked/overfed/underfiltered, or something is interfering with the test kit’s readings (which quite a few additives do), ammonia really shouldn’t be an issue.

That said, false high readings are common enough that Brandon429 has has a few different threads and a number of posts about false readings (generally speaking, if the ammonia is actually high, there will be problems - hence why people test in emergencies; however, if the ammonia is reading high but is actually low, then everything will appear fine in the tank - with actually high ammonia, you’d see the livestock acting up, since they would be literally suffering serious bodily harm and relatively rapid dying).

Interesting. I think there was ammonia in my tank because I moved it as said, and that included some of the sand. (I couldn't move the tank without removing this) When everything was back in I must have stirred it all up in the sand bed and recycled the tank one way or another.

I’ve heard that reusing sand without rinsing it can cause issues, but it’s been awhile since I’ve looked into it.

 

[littlefoxx]

How much higher? Again, generally speaking a tank should be able to handle just about any ammonia that may naturally appear in it, so unless there’s something dying, the tank is seriously overstocked/overfed/underfiltered, or something is interfering with the test kit’s readings (which quite a few additives do), ammonia really shouldn’t be an issue.

That said, false high readings are common enough that Brandon429 has has a few different threads and a number of posts about false readings (generally speaking, if the ammonia is actually high, there will be problems - hence why people test in emergencies; however, if the ammonia is reading high but is actually low, then everything will appear fine in the tank - with actually high ammonia, you’d see the livestock acting up, since they would be literally suffering serious bodily harm and relatively rapid dying).

I’ve heard that reusing sand without rinsing it can cause issues, but it’s been awhile since I’ve looked into it.

Huh I see it read like off the charts randomly and do a big water change because Im like oh my god thats so high. But now that you mention it Ive never seen any of my fish or corals act up, except for my torch corals but I had a really bad temp spike in the tank that I had to deal with (the AC guy CLAIMED it was fixed but NOOOO) and they died after that and my engineer goby was super stressed. I cooled it down with a water change with cooler water and stuff. Now Im wondering if there is another issue making it read high. I have a sea chem ammonia alert badge but it always read zero and I thought it was just a point of sale and stopped using it. Maybe that was more accurate.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Now Im wondering if there is another issue making it read high.

Yeah, if it’s reading off the charts but the livestock are acting fine, I’d assume there’s something in the water interfering with the test results.

 

[littlefoxx]

Yeah, if it’s reading off the charts but the livestock are acting fine, I’d assume there’s something in the water interfering with the test results.

Hum. Anything that I can test for that would be the cause?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Hum. Anything that I can test for that would be the cause?

I’m not sure (reef chemistry isn’t my forte), but I’d guess Randy or some of the regulars to the Chemistry forum might have some ideas.

 

[mangolove]

just my 2 cents : AF Life source, COPEPODS(very inportant) dont feed pellets and consider liquid mysis for example, increase phosfate and nitrate maybe by adding live phytoplankton. Shorten light cycle, weekly water change 20%, zeolite for ammonia and you could add some dark cured rubble rock. Final thing is a fish for algea, snails for sandbed. If you get any cyano u could consider NOPOX.

 

[littlefoxx]

I’m not sure (reef chemistry isn’t my forte), but I’d guess Randy or some of the regulars to the Chemistry forum might have some ideas.

Yeah mine neither lol thats why I was asking!

 

[Nitrites]

Im suspecting early stage dino. You may be lacking nutrients in the system from transfer.
What is current salinity-phos level - nitrate level-salinity?
I dont see a lot of equipment in pic to suggest you are getting good water flow/turnover rate. An example is the film at your water surface which suggest surface flow itself is idle. Is there an overflow on tank?

Just did a water change today. Moved the flow around a bit and cleaned the powerhead. Also ordered some citric acid for a really good powerhead clean. I wish I had a fancier powerhead but currently just using some cheap Chinese one, it’s lasted years fortunately. Salinity is at 1.025, I can’t test phosphates, but Nitrate 0

 

[mangolove]

Just did a water change today. Moved the flow around a bit and cleaned the powerhead. Also ordered some citric acid for a really good powerhead clean. I wish I had a fancier powerhead but currently just using some cheap Chinese one, it’s lasted years fortunately. Salinity is at 1.025, I can’t test phosphates, but Nitrate 0

If it is dino, then COPEPODS