Brent's 150 gallon build (1 Viewer)

[scffvariable]

Depending on how long it's been set up and how deep the sand is you may be ok to just pull it all out without having to move anyone out. In any case I would do it. If it's already giving you issues it will only get worse and will be much more difficult latter on.


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[Bschowa]

Thanks, I'm gonna give it a shot,


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[Bschowa]

Well after about 4 hours I am one happy reefer! Water has cleared and I absolutely love!!!! The way it looks no more egg crate and a lot more open space makes my tank look so much bigger to me at least here are some pictures


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[Bschowa]

Took some readings on my tank, no cycle yet but I am having algae issues. Here are my levels

Calcium 435
Alk 149
Phosphates .04
Temp 79.1
Ph 7.85

Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 2.5

Is it possible that my ph is causing algae issues? It has been that low since I started and I read that you are better off acclimating fish longer to your ph then trying to get your ph up to match what it needs to be?




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[Bschowa]

Ok, so up until recently everything has been thriving in my tank, today I did a water change even though I had no detectable levels, I'm very lightly stocked two small clowns and a small yellow tang. I do have a few corals, frogspawn, a Duncan, zoas, Xenia, acan, tyree toad stool, green hynaphoria and two unknown pieces of Sps that I was given to test out by muskeeman

All of these are still doing great I was getting polup extension out of everything until three days ago,

All at once my frogspawn, Duncan, Xenia and toadstool closed up and stopped putting out their polups. The frogspawn is starting to bounce back, about half the extension that it had and one of the Duncan heads opened up.

The only thing that I changed was putting Chaeto and a light over my sump.


Readings are all exactly the same as above except my ph is 7.81 now


Does anyone have any ideas on what could have caused this or what could be happening? I am completely stumped but I did the fail safe water change either way


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[LowersMyBP]

Anyone's guess. I have had LPS do that in a newer tank. Could be some sort of adjustment in certain types of bacteria levels as your tank matures. Could be the leathers getting upset and starting some sort of chain reaction. Who knows. I just rode it out. Kept up with my maintenance routine. I ran carbon in case it was some contaminant in the water. Once you get through it and the tank matures some more, I don't think you are likely to see this again unless something upsets the ecosystem dramatically. Good luck, hope any losses are minimal.

 

[Bschowa]

Thank you for your quick reply, I am running two seperate two little fishes carbon and gfo reactors to combat my algae issues so hopefully that will help with this as well. I will keep watching everything. Should I pull anything from the tank? Or is there a possibility that these will bounce back. I should mention that when cleaning the glass right now it feels almost like there is a coating of baby oil on it


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[LowersMyBP]

Sounds to me like a mini cycle (spike in nutrients leading to a film algae on the glass) likely caused by disturbing the sand a week ago. Between that and the tank only being half a year old, the event is not unprecedented. Much of what you have should bounce back once the levels equalize again. Unless you have a frag tank etc that is stable to put things in, you just gotta work through it. Good luck.

Note: I assume you don't see elevated levels because the film algae is working hard to use them up.

 

[Bschowa]

Thanks again. I will try to resist the urge to do anything other than water changes for the next few weeks. Would you recommend large ones (35 gallons) once or twice a week or break it up and do a small one every night?


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[Bschowa]

Well I am happy to report that I am now algae free! The tank looks great, I think it's time to put a few more corals in there and maybe start quarantineing a new fish


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[Bschowa]

I think it's time to update with some pictures

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[reef junkie]

Wow those colors pop aginst that new rock. Nice lookin corals

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[LowersMyBP]

Good work.

Rocks indeed are still 'very clean'. You may still have some growing pains while the tank matures. Maybe, maybe not, don't get too discouraged if something pops up again, just keep at the maintenance. If things don't eventually resolve themselves like they just did with the film algae, then you know your routine isn't sufficient. Only time is able to tell.

 

[Bschowa]

Thanks for the words of wisdom! I'm hoping to see some coralline start growing soon. I am noticing that maintenance is key. Good schedules and record keeping has proven very helpful


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[Bschowa]

Here is a little FTS update of the tank for all those who have been following along,

I haven't done much to it as far as equipment but I have added a few corals, mainly acans and zoanthids, I am starting to get rid of the corals I don't really like as well to make room for more so I started a sale thread.

As far as fish are concerned my current stock is
Yellow tang
Hippo tang
Sailfin tang
Court jester goby
Sixline wrasse
2 green chromis
Black and white clown
Orange and white clown
Lawnmower blenny


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[reeffamily]

what did you end up doing for your return pump and watch your nitrates

 

[Bschowa]

I am running a waveline 12000 dc pump, I had to cut out a bunch of my return piping and make it simply a two port return, I realized there is no way that I would be able to avoid powerheads so I am currently saving up for 2 vortech mp40 controllers this way I can at least minimize the amount of heat and equiptment in my tank


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[Bschowa]

Still a work in progress but I realize I never posted any of my sump "room" I was thinking of going with a DSB so that I could grow some macro algae in my sump and possibly have a place for some other corals if needed. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Bad idea? Should I keep it bare bottom and just go with Chaeto? I like the looks of some of the ornamental algaes out there and would like to try mangroves at some time as well


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[BEAV9900]

I really like having a "display refugium". It's nice to have something to look at when the main lights are off and it's almost a 2nd tank. I have picked up 3 or 4 different macros which make it look nice.

On another note. Can't tell if that is clear tubing but I'm starting to get algae build up in mine (since I have a lot of light for my fuge). Will be changing mine out soon.

 

[Bschowa]

That's what I was thinking and yea it's algae build up but it was tubing I had laying around I might go with something more flexible the next time around


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