need help please

[seanstewart]

Hello,

I have a few questions i need your help with please. First of all my tank size is 90 gallons set up Feb. 01 2008 it has the following in tank 70 pounds of live rock 80 lbs of live sand, protein skimmer ,phosphate reactor ,2 hydro koralia 4 1200gph ,ehiem can filter and 1- 150 mh pendent light.
Fish yellow tang and 2 damsel and turbo snail 5, urcins 3, crabs 15
1 clam, brain coral, devils claw, 2 frog spawn and mushroom

Water changes every week most of the time using ro water testing of water shows the following ammonia 0, ph 8.2, nitrite 0, nitrate 0, phosphate 0, dkh 11 and calcium 400mg

My problems are many in more ways then one
1. Brown algae covering rocks and sand
2. Corals frogspawn are not looking so good
3. I will need to move the tank to my new house next month (help)

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

1. consider a goby some sort but after the move, unless you qt your fish then it could be added a week or 2 after the move.
2. do you have any flow in the tank? also a mh's usually only spread about 2 feet i believe, so if the corals arent within the 2 foot spread they may not be recieving enough light.
3. others can help with that 1, just try to save as much water as possible, maybe ditch the sand, put wet newspaper over the rock to reduce die off, and put everything else in 5 gallon buckets. its pretty much at least a day long project.

 

[Ziggy953]

Is the brown algae dusty looking or more like velvet? I'm guessing your corals aren't too happy because the light is a bit lacking. Frogspawn is one of the easier LPS to keep but you have to have the proper amount of light to support the coral.

Can you post some pics of the algae you are talking about? Have you made any recent changes to the system? Added rock added sand things like that? Do you stir your sand when doing maintenance in the tank?

 

[Ziggy953]

Oh, and Welcome to AA!

 

[seanstewart]

thank you for youre feedback
i forgot i have a golby
the flow in tank 2 1200 gph fans
i shift the sand when doing maintance
also dicth the sand? do i have to replace sand when i move?
thanks again
sean

 

[seanstewart]

brown stuff is dusty looking

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

also dicth the sand? do i have to replace sand when i move?

might want to, its upto you but it usually stirrs up nasties in the tank when u re set it up. or u could just rinse it good. or you could take the risk and just transfer it without doing anything. upto u.

 

[melosu58]

If it`s dusty then it`s diatoms. Kind of looks like this?

I`m afraid your lighting is well lacking. That`s not enough lighting except for maybe the mushrooms. What type goby do you have? Maybe you need one that is a sand sifter.​

 

[seanstewart]

yes it looks close
but it is all over the rock and some on sand
thanks
when wife gets ome i post a picture

 

[austinsdad]

Even the crudest of measure for reef aquarium lighting says you only have less than 2 watts per gallon/wpg. That's really on the low side.

Frogspawn on the bottom? May have to move it closer to the light until you get new lights. That 90g is kinda deep isn't it?

 

[seanstewart]

the brown stuff is getting worse i first i thought it was dusty looking but now its more like a coating of some sort all levels are same no change and i have tiny air bubbles on the rock and sand

 

[Ziggy953]

The air bubbles is an indication of Cyanobacteria. This is feeding off excess nutrients in your system. You can get false readings when you test your water because the cyano is eating up the nitrates really fast and they don't show up on a test.

The best solution is to siphon out as much as you can while you do a PWC. Frequent PWCs is the best course of action against cyano and other forms of algaes. Don't fret it happens to all of us. After my upgrade and tank disaster I'm just now starting to get mine under control.