The Reef Tank banner
2K views 21 replies 9 participants last post by  hooked 
#1 ·
Hello all,

If I purchase the mix and match for 99 bucks from ipsf will I need to turn my sand bed by hand? I am getting a green algae covering every day. I turn it a little on top and bam back to green in only a short time as in a day. My nitrates are still around 50 and I am having a wonderful time with hair algae, slime, and a green coving on my sand :mad: What can I do all? I am going crazy that my tank looks so bad. I know that you are not suppose to turn the sand bed ( no life in my sand that I can see ) but if I don't my tank would be solid green in days. I have talked to ipsf but my last 2 emails have gone unanswered :confused: They were great the first 5 but have stopped for some reason. If I get the mix and match with critters I probably do not want to turn the bed by hand right?? Will they do that for me?

Thanks all,

a sad reefer
 
#2 ·
hooked said:

They were great the first 5 but have stopped for some reason.
Hehe... he's got a business to run ;). Not to take business away from Gerald, but I think you need to get to the source of the algae problem. Are you using RO/DI water? If not, then use the 100 bucks and get one!

If you are already, the getting the kit would probably be a good idea. Refresh my memory...how long has the tank been set up? What kind of bioload do you have right now? Do you have any mechanical filtration/filters, skimmer, etc.?

Brooke
 
#3 · (Edited)
Gerald has been great, just haven't gotten anything the past few days on 2 emails I have sent. I have been using distilled water

system has been running for 6 months

running 3 powerhead and a whisper2, bakpak2, and 96w smartlamp running around 11 hours

1 soft tree coral, 1 cup coral and a feather duster

3 fish, clown, royal gramma, and a dottyback

1 cleaner shrimp, 2 peppermints, 2 emeralds, and a few snails

thats about it.
 
#5 ·
#6 ·
Hey Johnny,

I read someplace on this board that 1 or 2 at the most conch would keep my tank clean. I have 4 and they aren't doing much at all. I have a few sand sifter crabs but they never stay on the bottom, always up on the rocks. I guess I really do need to try and get some snails to help with the algae.

Thanks for the link :D
 
#8 ·
hooked,

looking at your tank specs, i might be mistaken but i don't see a protien skimmer. you have quite a few creatures in your 38 and unless you have a skimmer or don't feed your creatures, you'll have to do an aweful lot of water changes to keep your nitrates down. unless you get your nitrates down (and your phosphates - did you check for those?) you will not be able to get rid of your algea or slime infestation. my nitrates are less than 2.5 ppm and phosphates less than .1 and i still have cyano problems. yuck! big water changes help a lot!

good luck.

bill
 
#9 ·
hooked said:
Hey Johnny,

Nice link but they don't have hardly anything in stock:funny:

I still have a backorder with premium and still waiting on a email to give me an update :(
I was at 1 of the LFS's todayand they had plenty of the Nassirius and Turbo snails....thats MO for you I am still having problems with milky water w/ a new setup. I am not excatly the most patient person in the world, the wife can tell you that, too much nervous energy....lol
 
#10 ·
I think critters are the key to alot of sandbed woes. I see big tracks every morning in the sandbed from my turbos, and call me crazy, but I sit and watch my red leg hermits pick up and turnover the sand, grain by grain. Maybe I just have a lucky crew of red legs.:D
 
#11 ·
Call Bryan at www.aquaticreefsystems.com and see if he can set you up with an RO unit. Tell him you are a member of TRT. ;)

A clean-up crew will help quite a bit, but not if your water is the source of the problem. I don't think conchs like the green stuff as much as they like red/cyano/diatoms.

Another question...how much live rock do you have? You may not have enough to filter the tank. Do you have any media in the whisper?

Brooke
 
#12 ·
Hi took a look at your tank specs.

I did not see a protien skimmer? Your snails will eat algea and excrete waste products, if you have a skimmer then some of the products will be removed from your system. But if you don't then they just stay in the water column feeding the algea growth.

Another option is to start a refugium and remove macro algea from it (exporting nutrients)

As brook said you may need to increase the amount of LR, also your sandbed could be increased to 4" this will help with denitrification, get rid of any sand sifting stars, they will deplete the sandbed fauna and make it a nutrient sink.

How often do you feed, if everyday, would recommend that you cut that back to every other day and only half the amount.

The quickest (cheapest) thing you can do right now is to add a refugium, this would help alot. You might think of lowering your bioload, trade in some of the fish, at least until you sandbed matures. A protien skimmer would be second on the list, followed by more snails (or other cleanup critters)

Are you using a under gravel filter?

Hope this helps:)
 
#14 ·
Hooked,

sorry to rain on your parade but if you add the critter kit now with the fish and shrimps that you have, alot of the life you will be spending 100+ bucks on will become a tasty snack. I would get rid of the shrimps at least if you are considering the critter kit.
 
#15 ·
hooked,

don't know about your skimmer but mine needs cleaning about every four-five days to really work well. i've also noticed that if i add viniger to my kalkwasser (see advanced topics section) my skimmer really puts out a lot of junk and my cyano finally seems to be going away.

good luck,

bill
 
#16 ·
my skimmer is doing a good job. It's collecting about 1/4 to 1/2 cup every day. It's brownish yellow mostly. I cleaned the algae from my glass the other day and it was a green color but mostly brownish yellow. The sand sifter star is dieing because I have been stiring the sand bed. I need to take him back to store and that probably will happen tonight. I will get a few snails also when I am out. The refug was a big part of my next project.

Snails have been dieing on me like crazy so that is the reason y I do not buy them. I will try again to keep them alive.
 
#17 ·
hooked,

snails seem to be really sensitive to water conditions. your nitrates are high. what seemed to help me keep them alive is very slow acclimatization. just dump their entire bag into a bucket and drip water into it from your tank slowly. it won't hurt to take a few hours to do this. i also put them right in the middle of the waterline so that they can enter the water at their own pace. after doing these two things, i haven't had any more die on me.

good luck!

bill
 
#18 ·
Ok, my two cents worth.

As you have been advised, a RO/DI( the DI part is important, it removes phosphate & nitrate ions) would be a good investment. Alternately you could use distilled water, although try to make sure it was not distilled using copper vats( I'm not sure how you would find that out, maybe ask the supplier)

Looking at your specs, I would remove the following:
sand sifter star, they are sand fauna predators.
the bumble bee snails, they are predatory on sand infauna also.
the peppermint shrimp, oppurtunistic omnivores, they will eat
your pods if they can catch them.
all of the crabs are possible predators

I believe that Dr. Ron Shimek writes that the copepods, amphipods, spaghetti worms and the all important bristle worms are all the sand bed" sifters" you need.

I may be wrong, but if your skimmer is producing that much effluent in 1 day I would say that either it is producing too wet a foam and therefore removing too much water, or you are feeding too heavily. I suppose your make up water could also be loaded with organics, causing the skimmer to produce that much, also causing your alge problem, but I'm just speculating.

I don't know how long you have been fighting the algae, but you may re-evalute your feeding regime also. It's my opinion that most of us(me included) probably overfeed our fish. I know you are supposed to feed your sand bed, buts thats assuming you have the critters to feed.It sound like yours are gone.

R1Bill gave good advise on acclimating snails, you may try adding a few more, but be aware that if you add too many at once they may graze all the algae and then starve and die, causing nutrient bloom.

Nassarius snails are a good addition IMHO just be aware they a carrion eaters not algae eaters, they will help to clean up leftover meaty foods, I would add just a few in a 38 gal.

Try asking your LFS for a cup or two of the muck in the bottom of their live rock tank or some sand from a coral tank, this should be full of pods & worms.

I wish you the best of luck!
 
#19 ·
Jim-

This is what I would do:

1. Get an RO/DI unit
2. Add more well-cured live rock to the tank. You can cure it yourself in a rubbermaid container. Add a new piece to the tank every few days once the ammonia level has dropped in the rubbermaid. (Do not...I repeat, do NOT go out and get 20 pounds of new rock and throw it in the tank. You will have a mini-cycle.
3. Do a 15% water change every 4-5 days until nitrate level drop off to 10 or below.
3.5 set up your refugium. fill refugium with caulerpa
4. when nitrates are low, order a bunch of snails, and a kit from ipsf. I love trochus, margaritas, and nassarius.
5. sit back and enjoy an algae-free tank....hopefully

I hate to keeping beating the RO/DI dead horse here..but water is the life-blood of your tank...everything revolves around it.

HTH and keep us posted-
Brooke
 
#20 ·
Hey Brooke,

I talked to Bryan today and got me the base line 4 stage ro/di. I should have it by Friday I hope, at the latest monday. He has instructed me to possibly expect more algae from the start rather then less. He was telling me that the ro/di will bring out more algae growth till I deplete the nitrates. Was also telling me that my rock is probably saturated with nitrates also since my reading was so high. I am to be patient and give it a month or two with weekly changes and I should be seeing good results.

Thanks all,

ps, I also purchased 6 turbo snails, 3 nassurius (all he had), and 8 blue leg crabs. I hope they will help me out a little :D
 
#21 ·
Hooked,
I had a huge algea problem and due to an unfortunate event I had no lights for 5 days. All my red & green slime algea is gone and that was the major problem. Have a little hair still but not as much. My snails should be able to keep up with what is left. Im not saying turn out your lights for 5 days, but maybe you should cut back to 8 hrs as opposed to 11. Fighting Conch are great sand bed snails, I currently only have 1 in a 120g tank. Thats not enough. I plan on getting 4 or five more. They are great at eating the brown stuff that grows on the sand, as well as stiring it up a bit. Cerith snails cover everything sand, rocks & glass. I love them.

Im droning on, what everyone else said sounds good, I just wanted to add the lights thing.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top