ARGH what am I doing wrong?

[Anonymous]

ahh ok. that is for the jawfish if I ever manage to get them.

Cool! No, I'm not really for or against it, but I do know when they go sour it can be really bad for a reef. Some people swear by them, others do it for looks, or in your case for a jawfish. It's a cool idea to have one of those.

~wings~

 

[Tackett]

I guess water can go stagnant in the middle of a DSB? that would make sense. But it shouldnt be too bad with the Jawies in it would it? They would keep it pretty stirred up wouldnt they? Yeah I have wanted some jawies for a long time and read a while back that they needed about 7 inches of substrate so I comprimised with about 4 and a half to 5. Oh yeah, two things: The torch is not dead, after changing the water the other day i had accidentally left a powerhead unplugged and he wasnt swaying and looked stiff so I just figured it was dead, and went off the deep end on the forum. (no pun intended.) secondly I noticed something kind of suspicious. The stainless clamp that is clamping my hose to my mag drive in my sump is rusting, Im going to have to change that one for a plastic one but none of the jackweed hardware store has no idea what im talking about when I say plastic clamp, and look at me like i have some kind of mental disorder when I describe one to them. (note where I live.) So i guess ill have to mail order some. Anyways, you dont think that this tank is a lost cause do you, If i up my water changes to twice a week do you think that everything will clear up? And btw thanks for all the help everyone, I appreciate it greatly.

 

[Tackett]

oh yeah in a few months when everything clears up ill post new pics of it for you guys to check out and see the difference.

 

[Anonymous]

From what I understand, and you DSB guys correct me if I'm wrong, there are spots in your sand that will convert bad stuff into Nitrogen, which should get released up into the water and out of your tank. This is done somewhat in the deep parts of your live rock. If this process gets stirred up (perhaps even by a jawfish), it could spoil your tank by way of PH (among other things). This is all from what I gleamed here at RDO and friends in the business. I have no experience firsthand with a DSB.
~wings~

 

[Anonymous]

oh yeah in a few months when everything clears up ill post new pics of it for you guys to check out and see the difference.

Please do!... it would be interesting to see the difference, and document what you did, that may be helpful to others here as well!
~wings~

 

[Tackett]

Ill start a log today maybe an excel sheet with lab trends and descriptions of what it is doing ormaybe even pictures: Eg. Phosphate levels on the rise after hair algae clearing up...That would actually be a pretty nifty thing to see in a graph. Any suggestions as to what else I should put in it?

 

[Anonymous]

I'm a little anal, but everything I do to the tank I document in a notebook. If I add critters/coral, do anything to the mechanics (changing bulbs,etc), or whatever. Sometimes I write down when things change in the tank too, based on the date. That way I can look back and find out when I had a little diatom problem, but then read what I did to the tank to set it off. A spreadsheet would be nice to see trends too. Most people don't, but I enjoy reading data from people who write everything down... from the hobby side, I don't think this is done too often.
~wings~

 

[Tackett]

could be a cool little opportunity to get some helpful data, thanks for the help.

 

[Anonymous]

could be a cool little opportunity to get some helpful data, thanks for the help.

'Welcome.
~wings~

 

[Anonymous]

Try increasing the amount of circulation in the tank, that will help with the hair algae (a bit). I'd also hold off on the additives and such for a while and maybe bump your water changes to every three weeks. (that will help with the hair alage a lot). In a tank that size you don't have enough critters sucking stuff out of the water to really need that many supplements. If the carbon is too expensive do without it, I've never really needed it in any of my tanks, and unless you are really over feeding you probably don't either. If you need something for water clarification look for some purigen (made by Seachem). It's a resin that absorbs organics and works a lot like a skimmer in really small tanks, the big plus is it is reusable so one pouch will last you quite a while. Not sure how many fish you have in there, but they probably don't need as much food as you are giving them.

Finally, clams that small require a large amount of phyto plankton as a food source as their mantles aren't large enough to provide all of their food from the zooxanthellae, that's probably why yours isn't doing well.

 

[LCGoldman]

I'm kind of jumping in in the middle of tihs thread, and please forgive me if something was posted that I overlooked...

How much Live Rock do you have in the tank?
I've read that using distilled water is NOT good.

Just my two cents.

Lonnie

 

[Tackett]

Rover, Ive been feeding that clam Phytoplankton twice a day (kent marine chromaplex to be exact.) and yesterday was my start of changing water every two weeks. (its easier to remember, I just do it the day I get paid.) I also changed the activated carbon (which was nasty and rank by the way.) and changed the 110watt powercompact bulbs which were way overdue for a change. I wrote the date with a permanent marker on the bulbs so that I could tell at a glance when they need changed again. After all of that, the clam looked alot better that evening, his mantle was out alot further than Ive ever seen it. Althogh I did run into one more problem. There is this white buildup on the front of the tank (on the inside) that will not come off no matter how hard I scrub, I'm thinking that it's chalk buildup from the dowflake calcium that I was using. f it is, how in the name of zeus do I get it off?

 

[DonJasper]

I think Eric Bornemann's Myth #15 should be required reading before you could by a salt mix.

I'd suggest you'd save yourself a ton of money if you invested the time to figure out what specificially each action or gizmo or design or CREATURE is before you buy it. I'd suggest you start by researching "nutrient export" and "hair algea".

Example: You've not talked about your sand. You've mentioned jawfish. Hummmm. So is your sand deep enough? Is it too fine? Do you have too much rock in your tank? Do you have too little rubble? Is there something that you can do to prevent "cave in's"? Will some other fish compete for it's territory? OR you can go ahead a buy one - and if it has a short miserable life in your tank - then you'll know that one of the answers to those questions was 'no'.

You're learning about the mortality of making major changes to a reef tank. Some of those things listed above are easy to change, others will make an experienced reef keeper mutter "I sure wish I knew that upfront, because changing now is a royal PITA. (sigh) Guess I'm stuck with/without it."

Maybe now's a good time to step back - take stock and decide if you really want to deal with all the hassles of running a reef tank. Before you learn about the dreaded mantis shrimp.

PS - Razor blade. The white stuff means to me: "Self, I just screwed up big time. Now what did I do so hugely wrong so I can avoid it next time? Good thing I've only got mushrooms, 'cause I may have just killed more sexy creatures." :wink:

 

[da colts1]

what is the size of the maxima? i think the chromaplex could be a big part of the problem. twice a day is far too much even in a well stocked reef. clams really only depend on plankton feeding when they are small as the zoozanthelle are not in abundance in their bodies, after they have grown a good supply of zoos, they rely mainly on the carbs they get from the lighting. i feed dt's every other day and that is in a fully stocked 125 reef. i really think you should cut back on the chromaplex.

 

[Dubge]

Ok I am not sure if anyone said it yet but why are you adding Ca if you are not testing for it?
The white build up could be calcium and try using a razor to scrap it off.
I would never add anything to my tank unless I am testing for it.
You are also definatly overfeeding the tank, I feed 1 cap of DTs 3 or 4 times a week and that is a fully stocked 75 with 2 clams

Hope this helps and good luck solving your problem

 

[fish tales]

Your getting alot of good advice here so I'll keep my post short but do you have a LFS near you ? They usually will sell you ro/di water and salt water all ready made up . This is of course if you cant get your own ro/di . For me it made the biggest difference when I first started up a reef . Without good water you'll never have a good tank . HTH
Good Luck
Jeff

 

[Anonymous]

The white stuff on the glass isn't corraline algae is it? If it is dots enlarging into circles, with a pinkish tinge, it is.

Some of the posts above are to long for my 15 second attention span, but here's what I would do with this tank.

-Add herbivores. Turbo snails are the only ones that can be counted to eat hair; put in half dozen at least.

-Increase flow.

-Double check quality of the source water.

 

[Anonymous]

Ditto to what Dan said. The other thing I would say to do is that you could be compounding the algae problem with the bioballs and the biowheel. Plus the skimmer you have is not all that effective. I would also look closer at your dosing. You may be manipulating your PH and Alk too much.

 

[fishfanatic2]

I would cut down on the additives for a while since they may be ueling that hair algae in some way or another. I have a 29 gallon soon to be reef, and I change about 20% of my water every other week. From experience in freshwater i found once a motnh to be not frequent enough yet once a week to be a little wasteful of salt. Once a week with 10% is fine, i was basing the previous statement onthe fact it ake out 20% per change. HTH, i know the pains of hair algae (everyone else probably does too) and hopefully itll come thru.

 

[KoCook]

I think da colts hit the nail on the head, too much pytoplankton, is too
much nutrients which leads to too much algae. :idea:
IMO, I think the DSB is overrated for causing problems, its most likely
something else before its that.
Everybody has different problems with the same causes. Heck, I had a
refuge that was suppose to help limit the algae, when all it did was add
to it! I had so many different species of nasty algae growing in it, that
even the crabs would keel over (even that funny hotdog bubble algae).
Then I got new halides and now things are moving along...