• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Help! Can't get tank under contol!

Andy Aquariums

Andy Aquariums

NJRC Member
Nearly a year ago, I (intentionally) chemically wiped out Xenia that was taking over the tank. I have been battling getting the tank under control ever since. I finally got the nutrients under control with the help of NoPox. That cleaned up the tank but the corals and RBTAs started suffering when phosphate and nitrate went down to zero. I pulled back on the NoPox and phosphate is now .03 and nitrate is now 20ppm. As soon as I pulled back on the NoPox this ugly brown shading on the sand came back. I'm at wits end. Hopefully, I'll be installing a new 180 gallon in the next few weeks, but I need to keep this tank up and running until the 180 is cycled and I can transfer the livestock. Any ideas on how what is going on and how to get this under control? The headache this is causing is starting to make this hobby not fun and causing me to have some trepidation about the new tank.

IMG_7919.JPG
 
DYIguy

DYIguy

NJRC Member
Both are ugly- dino's are worse to look at- they're different kinds- I had a case of the stringies- very ugly- but both do go away - better than briopsis or even hair algae in the long run
 
B

Bot587

NJRC Member
you need to let your system balance. Using NoPOx artificially pushed nitrate and phosphate down. When the nutrients came back diatoms moved in first. Give the system time. You will probably get hair algae in the next few weeks. Once that starts, they will beat out the diatoms.As long as you have control of your nutrients, you should be able to pull the clumps of hair algae and keep your nutrients level. A bloom like the one you are having leads me to believe that 0.03 and 20 ppm nitrates are what you can detect (your levels are being tied up in the diatom bloom).

Moral of the story is time and good husbandry
 
Andy Aquariums

Andy Aquariums

NJRC Member
Bot587 said:
you need to let your system balance. Using NoPOx artificially pushed nitrate and phosphate down. When the nutrients came back diatoms moved in first. Give the system time. You will probably get hair algae in the next few weeks. Once that starts, they will beat out the diatoms.As long as you have control of your nutrients, you should be able to pull the clumps of hair algae and keep your nutrients level. A bloom like the one you are having leads me to believe that 0.03 and 20 ppm nitrates are what you can detect (your levels are being tied up in the diatom bloom).

Moral of the story is time and good husbandry
Click to expand...
The system doesn't have time, lol! Perhaps it knows that and this is its way of getting revenge. The new tank is getting installed in a few weeks and then this just becomes a holding tank until the new tank is ready to accept livestock. I just don't want this to be such an eyesore and a headache in the meantime.
 
DYIguy

DYIguy

NJRC Member
Diatoms are the least of whatever problems you can have with that tank- looks like you have coralline on the back glass- the diatoms will go away- or you can blast them with a baster or siphon them out with a water change- if you have clear water and your parameters are good leave it alone- after you make the move to the new tank I think this one will still have some sort of 'growing' pains
 
B

Bot587

NJRC Member
my advice is to give this tank time. Use that time as a "holding tank" to allow it to balance. The worst advice i think you could get is to move it to the 180 when this is happening. You are setting yourself the propagate a problem into a larger aquarium.

Once again, this is my opinion, I have only every moved stable reefs from one aquarium to the next.
 
Andy Aquariums

Andy Aquariums

NJRC Member
Bot587 said:
my advice is to give this tank time. Use that time as a "holding tank" to allow it to balance. The worst advice i think you could get is to move it to the 180 when this is happening. You are setting yourself the propagate a problem into a larger aquarium.

Once again, this is my opinion, I have only every moved stable reefs from one aquarium to the next.
Click to expand...
Definitely not moving any of this rock to the new tank. I am starting fresh. Only the fish and coral frags will get moved over. And only when the new tank is ready.
 
DYIguy

DYIguy

NJRC Member
If you are moving livestock, you have nothing to worry about- even if you plan on moving rock to the new tank- just leave the sand behind- this tank will be fine by the time you have the new tank cycled
 
Andy Aquariums

Andy Aquariums

NJRC Member
DYIguy said:
Diatoms are the least of whatever problems you can have with that tank- looks like you have coralline on the back glass- the diatoms will go away- or you can blast them with a baster or siphon them out with a water change- if you have clear water and your parameters are good leave it alone- after you make the move to the new tank I think this one will still have some sort of 'growing' pains
Click to expand...
Why is the coraline a bad thing? I thought that was desirable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top