Your thoughts on my current setup

[wigglejaggles]

Hello all,

I am upgrading my tank this week from a 50 to a 65 reef ready! This will be my first tank with a sump! I just bought a euro reef cs80 skimmer for the sump. I am thinking of just going with a mag5 for the return? The allglass overflow is rated up to 600gph. Do you all think 300gph through the sump is ok?

Here is some info on the inhabitants of the tank. This tank is 100% soft coral. Xenia,green star polyps, mushrooms, anthelia,zoanthids,two sarcophyton, and two sinularia.

I have 5 damsels,two false percs,and a big old clarkii clown. Surprisingly all these fish get along great.

I run my tank on the dirtier side as it is now. I have about a 1/2 shallow sand bed and about 80-100 pounds of live pacific rock. Circulation in the tank comprised of maxi jets is about 14x

lighting is a pfo aluminum hood with 175watt iwasaki 14k on for 12 hours a day on the left side and on the right a 250watt aqualine bushke 10k which is run at peak daytime for three hours.

The tank has been setup since april. Things are going great except that I have been getting cyano on the sand bed and some now on the rocks. Since I have noticed this in the past two weeks I am now starting to do weekly 10% water changes and I started blasting the rocks with a turkey baster.

I dose b-ionic daily and keep the alk at 12 and the calcium at 400. Ph is about 8.1 during the day and 7.8 or 7.9 at night. ammona,trites,andtrates are 0.

I find it quite interesting that I have zero nitrates but yet have some cyano. The cyano has definitly been manageable. I do believe I overfeed. But I think the softies like the dirtier water. I also went months without a water change.

So...with the new 65 gallon do you all think I should keep the shallow sand bed or do barebottom?

I have been reading through some odler threads here about barebottom softie tanks and I am still not quite sure what to do.

The reason I am thinking about barebottom is the fact that the cyano seems to really start growing on top of the sandbed. I hate siphoning the sandbed...so if I up the flow in the 65 a bit to say 25x with two seio's you think it would keep the bottom free from cyano? Perhaps alot of gunk will settle in the sump and I can just siphon that as needed....surely easier to siphon than in the main tank I am thinking.

I know there are dead spots in my 50 now as I have alot of rock with just 14x flow....so that could contribute to the cyano.


Well I guess I am just rambling...but if anyone has read this far and thinks they can give me some advice on my tank I would be grateful.

thanks!

[tims]

heheh yup read it all......

not doing the water change and the other feed will have the cyano to live nicly...

and yes softies do tenfd to like a "dirtier" tank
you might want to raise the Ph just a little bit more.
when you change over to the new tank try and have it up and running and have the Ph and SG level the same if possible. ,if you are looking at a change the same day , have half new water . still the same Ph and SG level.
rinse the LR off really good in a bucket several dips will halp knock off any ditrious. if you are thinking of still doing the sand bed use new sand adn just a little of the old to help seed it. Unless of course you are going BB..

[wigglejaggles]

Thanks Tim!

I just printed out your directions! I am hoping to transfer everything wed. It's all gonna be done the same day because the 65 will be going in the same spot and using the same aga pine stand.

Thank you again!

[wigglejaggles]

hey now,

in doing some research I found a quote in another forum by spanky,

"But yes sand can leak right off the bat - not leak for quite some time. That's why people have cyano and algae problems with a new sand bed in the beginning. Then after the bacterial layers get established, it does go away for a while."

Ok so I think this is what I am going through now. My tank is four months old and my sand is getting full of cyano. I just changed out 15 gallons today and tried siphoning the sand bed best I could.

It sure seems that siphoning a bare bottom tank to get the crud out is alot easier than trying to get the crud out that is mixed in the sand without taking the sand with it.

So barebottom softie tank here I come.

Cyano really ticks me off.

I guess I should ask...is it possible to keep a tank with a shallow sand bed and not ever have to worry about cyano breaking out?

[three90s&125sump]

I think one thing we might not be thinking about is Phosphates here. With your test showing 0 nitrates you may want to test for PO4. Not really sure about cyano eating PO4 but I think it will.

[wigglejaggles]

so I could have a phosphate problem. Are water changes the only way I can control phosphate?

I know I need to feed less if it is a phosphate issue.

The other thing could be that the remora on the back of my 50 isnt doing a good enough job?

I will be running a euroreef cs80 in the new 65. Hopefully that will help.

What other things can I do to control phosphate?

thanks!

[three90s&125sump]

If your tank is only 5 months old and you have a phosphate issue I think feeding is not the (only) issue. Was the sand new? do you use RO/DI water? where did your rock come from? I am not impressed with the remoras, some people are I think you will have much better luck with the ER skimmer.

[wigglejaggles]

Hey Now,

No RO/Di for the first four months. I have a unit but didnt think I needed to use it as the tank looked great. Since I started noticing cyano I have started to top off with my ro/di and am now doing water changes with ro/di and tropic marin salt.

Rock is all pacific rock bought from lfs.

Sand was new. Its only a 20pound bag of sand in a 36x18 tank...so its just about an inch deep.

Maybe my source water has phosphates!

[three90s&125sump]

if you are using the ro/di and all the filters are new there will be no phosphates in the water. test the water syply both before and anfter the filter and test your tank water for PO4

[Casey]

Did you use tap water for the first 4 months? The rock could have PHO in it now if you did.