seting up a s/w aquarium from scratch!

[oliver moggridge]

yeah hes dead now the hermits are moving about and the emerald crab is movin about but the snails arent moving at all! the algea on the glass is out of control and the water seems to be a bit murky? ive added some seachem purogen to the filter to see if it will polish the water a bit so ill see if that makes any difference. is there any tests i should take for the new critters? the amonia is 0, the nitrite is 0 and the nitrate is pretty much gone. just wondering if theres anything else i should be checking for that is a must check?

 

[oliver moggridge]

hi there, ive bought a new cleaner shrimp hes hiding alot but thats probably cause hes adjusting. one of the snails died and the other two are starting to move about but not much. the algea is still out of control i cant seem to slow it down. i asked the guy at my lfs and he suggested some rowa phos, po4 and sio2 absorba and its been running in the filter for three days now and still no change. its realy anoying me now is there anything anyone can suggest. its making me so anoyed with the tank im thinking of just ripping it all out and starting again! which i dont realy want to do tbh. please someone help.

 

[Zer0]

Chill out before you freak out.

What water are you using? RO water or tap water? More than not, the tap water has trace elements in the water column that will cause some serious and some nasty algae growth. As well as diatoms. I would also consider getting more snails, as a "couple" just won't do. Don't go overboard and get like 50.. but a reasonable number of snails should be added to your tank. I have a 55G and i have 8 astrea snails, and they pretty much destroy all of the algae in my tank. It's quite amazing what such a small number of them can do. Anyways, what are you feeding the fish, how many times a day? If it's frozen food, do you rinse the food before you geed it to them? Frozen foods usually have phosphates on the outer coating, for reasons i have no clue, but they just do. Phosphates also cause algae problems etc..

What are your lighting cycles? How long do you keep them on during a day?

 

[oliver moggridge]

i use ro water. i have no fish. the lights are on for just under 12 hours. ill consider getting some more snails but the first three i boght dont do much at all, they just stay on the same rock the whole time. theres this green stuff on the suface of the water its nasty every time i put my hand in the water it sticks and turns my hand green its nasty stuff.

 

[InfernoST]

1st you need to test for nitrates, phosphates and silicates. Nitrates should be < 1.0 ppm, phosphates and silicates < 0.2 ppm. 2nd siphon out the stuff on your substrate to get as much as possible out of the tank (use air tubing, it may take a little longer but it wont drain your tank that fast) and 3rd I would leave your lights off for 3 or 4 days to reduce the chance of the cyano from coming back the reduce your photo period from 12 hr to 6 or 8 until you can identify the problem (IE the above test results). The brown powdery stuff are diatoms which everyone gets and will go away. The green stuff on the surface sounds like you don't have enough surface agitation, the agitation of the water surface would break the tension and greatly increase o2 exchange.

 

[fishmonkey]

are you still there? dont give up!

 

[oliver moggridge]

na i cant give up now too much money has been spent to just give up. algea going down some but the algea on the glass is doing my head in. ill scrape it all out and itll be nice and clean for like two days and then it will be back to normal again. realy not happy.

 

[fishmonkey]

do you have anything that is eating it? you need shrimp and stuff...

 

[oliver moggridge]

yeah i got
1 cleaner shrimp
2 hermit crabs
1 emerald crab
2 large tubo snails

 

[thominil]

IMO a cleaner will get too big for that tank. Might want to take it back and grab a few sexy shrimp.

 

[oliver moggridge]

right, algea going down now slowly but surely. got some soft corals in now but they are quite small here are some pics

 

[thominil]

Looks like it is mostly mushrooms and some zoas, good starter coral IMO. In the first pic below the mushrooms, and in the third pic the hermit is crawling on it, that looks like a bubble tip anomone to me. Looks great!

 

[Aquarium1]

That's great.

 

[oliver moggridge]

hey, i got good news, the other day i had a day off of work and noticed that at about 12 o clock the sun comes round and hits my tank so i coverd the tank so that no sunlight hit the tank for a couple of days but still kept the lights on for the same amount of time. and now the algea problem is no more. woop woop. i thought id never get rid of it. but now im gonna have to move the tank cause i cant keep it coverd all the time. but its suprising how much just a little bit of sun light will do to a fishtank.

 

[InfernoST]

That's good news.

 

[fishmonkey]

or you could put some blinds on the windows...

 

[oliver moggridge]

haha. i have blinds on the windows its a small gap on the side. its mad that so much sun light can get through.

 

[fishmonkey]

mayb fasten the blinds to the wall or something to close the gap then?

 

[oliver moggridge]

its ok now ive got new blinds they are nice and tight now.

 

[fishmonkey]

good.