A
Anonymous
Guest
Well, much like having an son or daughter that became a criminal, having a bad tank is something that people tend to not give too many details about it other than giving some generic "having a nutrient problem".
Well I have a nutrient problem
Now I"m showing this not because I'm particularlly proud of it, but more the opposite, and hopefully people can say "ewww I dont like that" and be more careful. I'm about 2 years experienced into the hobby, so I'm not a complete newbie, but along the lines I probably have made some newbie like mistakes, and maybe someone else who's doing something similar can stop before it's too late. Also I'm not really asking for advice, I don't want to hear "do a massive waterchange", I dont have the containers to do a massive water change, I just did 30gallons today, which is about a 15% water change for my total system volume.
I'm really unsure what exactly was the cause of my nutrient problem, whether it was one thing or combination of mistakes which just intensified the problem I really don't know. But here are some potential causes that I have a feeling might be potentially to blame
1: Feeding, not necessarily overfeeding but how I fed, for most of my tank life I fed primarily frozen mysis shrimp, now I had two methods, at first just to throw a hunk in, then I started to thaw it with a ziplock bag and some tank water, then dump it into the tank. Now I've recently come to the knowledge that the liquid stuff that's comes when you thaw it is actually a bunch of food to feed the mysis shrimp prior to packing, and while it will help feed stuff in your tank, the liquid is "rocket fuel" for nuiscance algae. So there's one mistake, now I thaw it in RO water, drain and rinse then put in only mysis into the tank.
2:Got live sand from someone's established tank (all of it). While they move to barebottom, I got a bunch of sand, now I used this sand in the smaller of my two interconnected tanks, but they are interconnected so what water one shares so does another. Problem is this sand might have had a bunch of nutrients trapped in it for the years it's been in service, and I was thinking more about the life forms in it (reason I didn't clean it) and the fact $1/pound aragonite sand was free!
3:Got super cheap live rock from someones established tank Now this wasn't the best of live rock, it wasn't covered in coraline, but it didn't look terribly bad either. But it did come from someones unknown tank, and other than looking for potential pests I really didn't think about squirting the stuff off to remove nutrients. When my tank started having cyano & hairalgae issues I've noticed the newer rocks is exactly where the problems started happening (before branching to other rocks that were coraline covered).
4: Lack of really decently flow. Now while now I have in my 135, 3700 gph worth of flow (about 27x turnover), before I got a seio1500, I had my 1100 crap out on me, and while waiting for a replacement part kind of went cheap on the flow, about 15x turnover before finally buying a new pump. Now this is one that was perpetuated by everyone saying to newbies 10-15x turnover is what you want... when infact you probably want closer to 30-50x turnover! Now here's something that really needs to be planned out before you start a tank, trying to put some sort of closed loop system into the tank after everything is setup is really difficult, leaving the only option as powerheads. I'm still waiting for that replacement part, so should hit the 30x mark with it, but on my next tank setup (other than a prop tank) will definately do some plumbing prior to putting in anything.
5: Improper skimmer setup. I had a cheap skimmer that was a HOB unit, well I had a hood that I slid partially off to get into the tank, so I "converted" the HOB to a sump model, well not thinking straight, I neglected the fact my sump didn't have any areas that had a fixed water level (ie no baffles or something), and as a result the skimmer occasionally worked nicely. I also built a downdraft skimmer, but for some reason it also worked sporatically at best, sometimes bringing a good foam, sometimes nothing, I also think this had to do with the fact it was sitting in the sump where the water level varied. I recently fixed this issue by putting another container inside the sump which keeps the water up to the top as it trickles over the wholeside into the sump, and now get a good dark coffee mixture out regularly, I've since ditched the homemade skimmer bit for now.
6: Fish choice, now while I'm happy with my fish, one thing I did get were "pigs" that are herbivores, now the mantra is feed nori seedweed which you can get in a japanese market. Well I've heard that is high in phosphates, so feed that, and you're feeding phosphates in the tank. I've stopped feeding nori, as all my fish eat mysis, and occasionally I toss a bit of cheato into the tank for some veggies, no more nori.
All of the problems first were noticable though when I recently changed from 14k hamiltons (that were nearing the end of their useful life I believe) to 10kK XM bulbs. The problem perhaps being that now there was a wavelength of light that cyano actually liked, so it started growing rapidly. I don't really attribute the lights as part of the problem, they just may have (pardon the pun) caused a light bulb to go on over my head and let me know of the issue. So the cyano is rather a mixed blessing, which has allowed me to take steps to fix the problem rather than one day just having a massive dieoff.
Now my system consists of a 135g tank which drains into a 30g sump, and a 50g tank that dumps into a 18g fuge, which dumps into the sump, there everything is mixed up and pumped back to the tanks. Now I did a "big" waterchange today and pulled a lot of cyano out of the sand and off the rocks so the tank isn't as bad as it was, but still isn't pretty. One thing I do pride myself with is healthy fish, while yes I have had fish die, never *knock on wood* have had any ich in the tank, nor any other problems.
So here's the pictures (yes you have to read all of that before seeing ugly pictures.. I'm sorry), this is the 135 with a flash, so all the detail is there
Here's a pic of just about all the different fish in the tank (yah I know a tad overcrowded), with the exception of a scooter blenny & watchman goby (which I'm unsure if its still alive, although occasionally I see him pop out under some rocks).
1: Blue damselfish
2: Royal Gramma
3: Kole Tang
4: Coral Beauty dwarf angelfish
5: Foxface Lo
6: Green Chromis
7: Lawnmower Blenny
8: Naso Tang
9: Tomato Clownfish
And the 50 all except a neat colored little damsel (not as many fish in this one). This tank really didn't show any signs of cyano until recently, which could be attributed to a different spectrum of lights.
1: Sixline Wrasse
2: Percula clownfish
3: Purple Tang
4: Bicolor Angel
Well I have a nutrient problem
Now I"m showing this not because I'm particularlly proud of it, but more the opposite, and hopefully people can say "ewww I dont like that" and be more careful. I'm about 2 years experienced into the hobby, so I'm not a complete newbie, but along the lines I probably have made some newbie like mistakes, and maybe someone else who's doing something similar can stop before it's too late. Also I'm not really asking for advice, I don't want to hear "do a massive waterchange", I dont have the containers to do a massive water change, I just did 30gallons today, which is about a 15% water change for my total system volume.
I'm really unsure what exactly was the cause of my nutrient problem, whether it was one thing or combination of mistakes which just intensified the problem I really don't know. But here are some potential causes that I have a feeling might be potentially to blame
1: Feeding, not necessarily overfeeding but how I fed, for most of my tank life I fed primarily frozen mysis shrimp, now I had two methods, at first just to throw a hunk in, then I started to thaw it with a ziplock bag and some tank water, then dump it into the tank. Now I've recently come to the knowledge that the liquid stuff that's comes when you thaw it is actually a bunch of food to feed the mysis shrimp prior to packing, and while it will help feed stuff in your tank, the liquid is "rocket fuel" for nuiscance algae. So there's one mistake, now I thaw it in RO water, drain and rinse then put in only mysis into the tank.
2:Got live sand from someone's established tank (all of it). While they move to barebottom, I got a bunch of sand, now I used this sand in the smaller of my two interconnected tanks, but they are interconnected so what water one shares so does another. Problem is this sand might have had a bunch of nutrients trapped in it for the years it's been in service, and I was thinking more about the life forms in it (reason I didn't clean it) and the fact $1/pound aragonite sand was free!
3:Got super cheap live rock from someones established tank
Now this wasn't the best of live rock, it wasn't covered in coraline, but it didn't look terribly bad either. But it did come from someones unknown tank, and other than looking for potential pests I really didn't think about squirting the stuff off to remove nutrients. When my tank started having cyano & hairalgae issues I've noticed the newer rocks is exactly where the problems started happening (before branching to other rocks that were coraline covered).4: Lack of really decently flow. Now while now I have in my 135, 3700 gph worth of flow (about 27x turnover), before I got a seio1500, I had my 1100 crap out on me, and while waiting for a replacement part kind of went cheap on the flow, about 15x turnover before finally buying a new pump. Now this is one that was perpetuated by everyone saying to newbies 10-15x turnover is what you want... when infact you probably want closer to 30-50x turnover! Now here's something that really needs to be planned out before you start a tank, trying to put some sort of closed loop system into the tank after everything is setup is really difficult, leaving the only option as powerheads. I'm still waiting for that replacement part, so should hit the 30x mark with it, but on my next tank setup (other than a prop tank) will definately do some plumbing prior to putting in anything.
5: Improper skimmer setup. I had a cheap skimmer that was a HOB unit, well I had a hood that I slid partially off to get into the tank, so I "converted" the HOB to a sump model, well not thinking straight, I neglected the fact my sump didn't have any areas that had a fixed water level (ie no baffles or something), and as a result the skimmer occasionally worked nicely. I also built a downdraft skimmer, but for some reason it also worked sporatically at best, sometimes bringing a good foam, sometimes nothing, I also think this had to do with the fact it was sitting in the sump where the water level varied. I recently fixed this issue by putting another container inside the sump which keeps the water up to the top as it trickles over the wholeside into the sump, and now get a good dark coffee mixture out regularly, I've since ditched the homemade skimmer bit for now.
6: Fish choice, now while I'm happy with my fish, one thing I did get were "pigs" that are herbivores, now the mantra is feed nori seedweed which you can get in a japanese market. Well I've heard that is high in phosphates, so feed that, and you're feeding phosphates in the tank. I've stopped feeding nori, as all my fish eat mysis, and occasionally I toss a bit of cheato into the tank for some veggies, no more nori.
All of the problems first were noticable though when I recently changed from 14k hamiltons (that were nearing the end of their useful life I believe) to 10kK XM bulbs. The problem perhaps being that now there was a wavelength of light that cyano actually liked, so it started growing rapidly. I don't really attribute the lights as part of the problem, they just may have (pardon the pun) caused a light bulb to go on over my head and let me know of the issue. So the cyano is rather a mixed blessing, which has allowed me to take steps to fix the problem rather than one day just having a massive dieoff.
Now my system consists of a 135g tank which drains into a 30g sump, and a 50g tank that dumps into a 18g fuge, which dumps into the sump, there everything is mixed up and pumped back to the tanks. Now I did a "big" waterchange today and pulled a lot of cyano out of the sand and off the rocks so the tank isn't as bad as it was, but still isn't pretty. One thing I do pride myself with is healthy fish, while yes I have had fish die, never *knock on wood* have had any ich in the tank, nor any other problems.
So here's the pictures (yes you have to read all of that before seeing ugly pictures.. I'm sorry), this is the 135 with a flash, so all the detail is there
Here's a pic of just about all the different fish in the tank (yah I know a tad overcrowded), with the exception of a scooter blenny & watchman goby (which I'm unsure if its still alive, although occasionally I see him pop out under some rocks).
1: Blue damselfish
2: Royal Gramma
3: Kole Tang
4: Coral Beauty dwarf angelfish
5: Foxface Lo
6: Green Chromis
7: Lawnmower Blenny
8: Naso Tang
9: Tomato Clownfish
And the 50 all except a neat colored little damsel (not as many fish in this one). This tank really didn't show any signs of cyano until recently, which could be attributed to a different spectrum of lights.
1: Sixline Wrasse
2: Percula clownfish
3: Purple Tang
4: Bicolor Angel
