So many questions... So little time...

[redBernadino]

So now that my tank has done most of it's cycling (after 5 months), I decided to add a tiger goby (?) to help sift the sand bed in order to keep any unwanted algae from growing. But I noticed that there seems to be a ton of "dust" floating through the water when he's doing his job. The majority of the tank that he has cleaned looks amazing, but this dust seems to float around the tank, and most of it lands on the rocks.

The tank was previously owned by someone else, so I have no idea what kind of cleanup crew he had, or what this material could be. I am curious whether it is organic detrius being stirred up, and if it is, can I hook up my AquaClear 300, run a sponge pad and 2 carbon filters, and suck this stuff out day by day until its gone for the most part? Other than the particles, the tank looks pretty good. I dont have a digital cam, but I might be able to borrow a friends.

My other question is why might my mushrooms not be opening up completely? I have power compacts, pretty decent water flow, and my pulsing xenia and zoos seem to be very happy... I also was given a yellow daisy coral, which seems to be doing terrible. It is developing brown jelly, and somebody had told me to do a freshwater dip, but I'm scared I would kill the whole thing. Any advice for either problems? My water seems to be a bit yellow when the blue lights are off and only the daylights are on, so could there be a lot of unwanted stuff in the tank? pH 8.2, 0/0/5, temp 79-80.... Kinda getting worried about the tank. TIA

 

[loganj]

When you do a water change, you can vacuum up any detritus that is on top of the sand. Running the HOB filter for a while won't hurt anything, but you don't want a bacterial colony to get well established on the filter pad as it might increase your nitrates. The yellow water is a sign of dissolved organics in the water. I would definitely run some AC for a while until the water clears. Do you have a skimmer? If so, what type? If not, I would consider making that my next purchase. How much flow do you have in the tank? Not sure why the shrooms aren't opening up all the way...they will usually do well even when nothing else will live. A FW dip might help the coral...I would probably pick up some Kent Tech D and dip it in that instead. Whether that will have any effect on the brown jelly, I don't know.