okay, finally took some pics,....

[awcrimety]

Alright, I've been meaning to take some pics to show off how crappy my tank is :(

Anyways,..maybe this will help in finding out what's wrong with it....any suggestions or tips would be appreciated,.....

thanks

[awcrimety]

here's a pic of the tank,...it's not quite as cloudy as it appears,...but it's not clear either....

[awcrimety]

Here's the top of my skimmer,...does it look like it working right?
I cleaned it about 2 days ago.

[Michael_Lambert]

its looking good.. Its look exacly like what a new tank should look like.. It takes time to clear up! :)

[awcrimety]

I set it up in september,...how long will it be 'new' for? ;)

[commie]

What kind of clean up crew do you have? Get some snails in there, the more variety the better. Also pick up 2 fighting conches, that'll help clean up the sandbed.

Also, how is your flow at the bottom of the tank, noticed most of your powerheads are at the top. If there are dead spots at the bottom level of tank...Move/add a powerhead to the lower levels. Cyno really loves to grow when it doesn't have good flow of water.

Let your tank mature....Its going to look better.

[kentracey]

It seems to me that if you set this up in Sept. you should be past this stage. What skimmer is that? It should have the riser column basically filled with a "thicker" more dense column of bubbles. Is it an air stone type skimmer? What air pump? What water pump? Tell us more about your husbandry. What inhabits your tank? Feeding? Water changes? Need more info, but I think the skimmer is a start. Post everything you can possibly think about regarding your tank and we'll see what we can do.

[awcrimety]

Alright,...here goes,...

The skimmer is a saline solutions, powerhead 201, and an optima airpump,...the biggest pump of that style(not sure of model number)

The lighting is 2 48" NOs, one marine glo, one powerglo, new in september

The waterflow is with two powerhead 301's in the corners, one pointing straight to the centre, the other pointing down and to the centre. I also have a aquaclear 200 hang-on, that is currently holding carbon, rinsed daily.

Clean up crew,...I've had bad luck with the snails. I have four naisaurius (sp?) snails, I've bought i think six or seven turbos, but my crabs keep eating them,there are three left alive...not sure if they are dying first, and then being eaten, or killed. I put in 10 sundial snails,...which all of two have died. And 10-15 astrea snails, half of those are dead too. Of the snails still alive,...they don't move. They never move, i sometimes see them flipped over, and i make sure they are still alive, and if so i flip them on their right side. I have tried to remove the dead snails as i see them.

Crabs,...3 blue legged, 4 red legged, and 1 starry eyed?

Two blood shrimps,...the only things doing well in the tank.

1 fire goby.

I had a marroon clown,...but he died.

<sigh>


so much death....

A month ago, i swapped out all the water, (with crtters living in a seperate tank for three days) with fresh RO/DI water as i originally filled the tank with tap water. I scrubbed all the LR at the time, to get rid of the TONNES of hair algae that was everywhere. I have done 4 five gallon water changes since then.

It's a 50 gallon long tank....

All my levels have always read fine,...never spikes in anything, and I even had a LFS test the water for me once.

Okay,..i can't think of anything else to add,..

what do you think?

[Michael_Lambert]

By changing out all the water.. then you would get a bloom like this.. as for rinsing out the carbon.. if all you are rtunning in that filter is the carbon leave it for 3-4 weeks and just change it .. no need to rinse it..

as for the crabs.. you need to keep a number of empty shells.. as the crabs grow they will need new shells.. So they will kill the snails for them .. if they can not find any.. leave some nice different sized shells in the tank..

Waterflow, You might want some more? i would add swap out your conner 301s fora couple of 402s.. and run the 301s in the center of the tank towards the bottom facing to the front conrers.. while the top 402s face the center of the tank..
How much live rock is in there.. ?

as for the air pump.. I would replace it.. I got that air pump as well from Big als when i bought there skimmer i have sence repalce the skimmer but when i had it i replaced it witha tetra pump and a Air Flow knob.. the new tetras are much more stronger... and more reliable.. i found with the Opitima pumps i was replaceing the Diaframs in them like every 4-5 months..

Just my thoughts..

Not sure on what you have to spend.. But if the tank is not drilled.. maybe go with a little giant or other Extermal pump and run a closed loop.. Sucking water from one end and returning it to the other end.. lots of nice water flow there! :)

[commie]

I would get rid of the crabs if you plan on getting anymore snails.
Its a hit or miss with all crabs...Some people have luck in having the crabs behave...But some are very predatory. I never found hermit crabs to be much use. If you want something to eat leftover food...get a serpent star, they do a much better clean up job.

Don't add anymore fish, until your tank is stablized. Let your sand and liverocks stabalize and do its job before adding anymore fish. The sand needs to be filled with worms/pods/critters before it can have any beneficial effects, and that takes time. Don't add anything that is predatory to the critters until they have grow to a significant population.

What test kits are you using? How old are they?

I would first start by getting rid of the crabs, and picking up a few more snails, those mexican turbos are pretty good. And pick up couple of fighting conches. Then let your tank reach a balance before adding anymore fish.

[kadaytar]

The stuff on the rocks in the first picture looks like cyano. What are your water parameters? Too much death. Did you take out all those dead animals? You may have excess amount of ammonia and nitrates.

Kadir

[awcrimety]

I took out everything that died, that i noticed before the crabs ate it anyway.


There are lots of empty shells in there though. I bought some empties, and the crabs have eaten up a few of the dead ones, so i left those shells.

The air pump is strong enough i think, i don't even have it turned quite all the way up. When it's on full, the bubbles,..come right out of the top, before turning to foam.

I have the hagen master test kit, that is about one year old. I would consider replacing this, but i get the same results as at the store.

Tooloud,...you say to leave the carbon? I have always heard to rinse it. I think i heard it called a cesspool for nitrates. something like that anyway ;)

There is 54 lbs of LR.

I like your suggestion for the powerheads,...But i don't think i want to look at 4 powerheads in there. I have my aquaclear in the centre of the tank, pouring down,....as they do. I bought one of those surface skimmers for it, and it has done a pretty good job of keeping the film off the surface of the water

[kadaytar]

I am following a Turkish forum as well there has been a thread about hagen test kits there for three days. There is a guy who set up his system 3 weeks ago his nitrates result with Tetra test kit was over 80s. He bought a Hagen test kit yesterday and hagen showed nitrates as 10. Huge difference. There are some really experienced people using Tetra for years and they say Tetra is brutal but accurate, hagen isnt so. I dont know if your problem is related with this but for me loosing too many snails isnt a normal thing. there must be something wrong. Many of us
advice tet kits that are user friendly and economic. What about the accuracy? IMO getting simillar results from three different test kits doesnt show those three kits are accurate. The forth one giving completely different results may be the accurate one. Does anybody know anything about the calibration of test kits or accuracy of them? Especially Hagen and Tetra. The difference is huge.

Kadir

[jack spiesz]

Hi

My tank was looking pretty moch the same till a week ago,I didn't have any thing die on me other than a few blue leged hermit crabs,and all my levels were fine.my tank is 2 months old and looked awful until i insalled 2 maxi-jets 900 (230gph each)and faced them in the back corners facing middle front.I also added 2 more 40 watt NO's for a total of 4 NO's.With in 2 days the tank looked awsome and brown algae has cleared up and now a week later the coraline algae is starting to spead.I don't know which of the two made the difference or if it was both but maybe this may be some help to you since our tanks are more less the same size.


Jack

[awcrimety]

Okay, I'll get a new powerhead or two,...are the maxi jet 600 stronger than the 301's? I don't want to go too powerful, as the tank is really not that big,...48x12....

That's the other problem i'm having,....without spending a whole whack of cash, how can i upgrade my lighting, if a two bulb NO canopy already takes up most of the tank? I had a single canopy, but there is no room to add it,...any suggestions on getting more than 2 NO's in a 12" space?

I just redirected the other powerhead to point down,...and it started blowing crap all over the place,....I'm going to leave it like that till tomorrow anyway,....does that sound good? The skimmer and aquaclear should grab most of that crap,...right?

And test kits,....

Which brand do you all use?,....err,...lemme rephrase that, is there an econimical accurate brand out there?

Thanks again for all your help, keep it coming!!
:D

[Michael_Lambert]

"That's the other problem i'm having,....without spending a whole whack of cash, how can i upgrade my lighting, if a two bulb NO canopy already takes up most of the tank? "

If you are only having a fish only tank with Live rock.. no corals whats so ever.. you have no need for more light!... you are only using the lights for Viewing!

as for the test kits.. i really like for the cost the Aquarium Pharmaceticals Saltwater Master Liquid test kit sells at Big als for around $40 has the PH, Ammonia,Nitrite and nitrate... and i use it with good sucess!

[jastonataquapro]

Just curious, where did you pick up that rock from? Are you sure it was fully cured? Perhaps what you need is one or two awesome pieces of rock to help assist the bacteria populations... I could very well be grasping at straws here, but I'd be suspect of the rock if it's taking that long.

[jack spiesz]

With my set up 55gal FOWLR the 2 NO's would probably been fine,but the live rock and everything else was getting covered with brown algae,so i went to home depot and bought another dual 48 inch light and a 4' 1x4 ,a 6' 1x5 pine and built a cheap canopy to fit the 4 NO's.As for the power heads i went with the 900's and they work awsome,lots of current and every one is happier now.

[Chrismo]

Dont worry about the lights, I doubt more will have any effect on your algae.

Water flow will likely make a big difference. You can never have too much waterflow as long as your sand stays on the bottom :)

[awcrimety]

The live rock came from ORG,....40lbs walt smith cured. And one 14lb piece of that dead stuff he was selling.

Well, i just looked in there tonight, with a flashlight and saw tonnes of bugs running around. That's gotta be good, i haven't seen as many during the day since i did that massive water change, but it looks like they are building back up again. Great.

Anyone selling any powerheads? I've been trying to keep an eye out for used ones, but i always seem to miss the deals.

[Hark]

you should have stocked up on the power heads at the boxing day sales the LFS were having. i got mine for 30 bucks a pop for a MJ1200, which isnt too bad.

Hark

[afss]

*** Thread moved **** Please try to post in correct forums.

Thanks