New member

[Mikebfc]

I'm mike from Blackpool England just jumped on here to gain the advice I need when I need it from people that aren't after my money! Currently got a 15 gallon reef tank with a maroon clown! Valentini puffer and a watchman goby (which has lost all it's colour!) with a half decent clean up crew!

[molliwopp]

Warm welcome to Aa! Ok, well afew questions first,
Is your tank cycled?
What are your water parameters?
Have you owned tanks before?

[Mikebfc]

My tank is fully cycled it's been running for 2 1/2 years now my salt levels are around 1.25 to 1.27 and unfortunately that's all I can tell you as I take my water to local fish shop to be tested! Which were all ok but with very high nitrite at the min!

[molliwopp]

Well you've just answerd the question. Nitrite is terrible stuff and would 100% cause stress and loss of colour.. you need to bring it down, yu should have barely a trace. Have you checked your filters arn't being ristricted? Could be old tank syndrome.

Im guessing you dont you have a water testing kit? You should get one. Im supprised your SW tank has lasted 2nhalf years without one so you must be doing something right.

If you get a testing kit youd be able to cross off some possibilities,

I know too well that rising ammonia and nitrite can be caused by blocked or restricted filters.

When was your water last tested and when was your last water change? Do you buy water from the lfs?

[Mikebfc]

My last water change was about an hour ago! And yes I do buy the water from the lfs the only thing that may be restricting is the string algae that has bloomed in the past months but I'm told this will be due to the high nitrite! He lost the colour before the nitrite spiked so apparently this could be due to him changing into a female due to him gaining sexual maturity.

I have been looking at test kits recently and I will be purchasing on after I get back of my holidays in a couple of weeks!

[HN1]

Welcome to AA Mike!

[Mikebfc]

Cheers mate! Thought I'd better get some advice seen as my tank looks a mess now rather than a nice reef

[molliwopp]

The algae is more likely to be because of high nitrate not nitrite. Theres a big difference as nitrite is more toxic.

How much water are you changing? If youre fosh are creating more waste than your changing out it will just continue to build.

For example: if you fish create 30ppm of nitrate weekly and you change 50% weekly it will continue to grow.

I.e 50% of 30 is 15.

The week after you fish produce another 30ppm so now you have 45ppm

50% of 45ppm is 22.5ppm

So now you have 22.5ppm + 30ppm for the next week, you now have 52.5ppm

50% of 52.5 is 26.25ppm +30ppm is 56ppm and so on.

Id recommend more changes. This would also help with your algae problems as high nitrate cause excess algae growth.

People will do small changes weekly and one big change every month or so to make sure they dont continue to build.

[Brad M]

If you want to get a handle on it quickly your should drain 80% then add 10% drain 10% drain 10% drain then fill er up. This should reduce your nitrate or nitrite in full. I recomend keeping your fish in quarantine until the ph balances out to avoid ph shock while you do this.

[Mikebfc]

I got everything checked today and parameters are bang on! So gonna do another big water change then the owner of the lfs said to kill the light for a couple of weeks to solve the algae problem! After I take my coral to the shop for him to look after!

[Mikebfc]

This won't effect the fish will it?

[Brad M]

Yes it can. I would put your fish in a small 10g tank or a clean bucket with some of the current water in the tank.

Do the water change like I said before and when the salt level and temp are equal to the bad water they should be good. Still run the risk of ph shock but I think its better than nitrates that high.

[Mikebfc]

Cheers need to do something it's made my tank a horrible thing to look at and it only took 3 weeks to get like this

[Mebbid]

Is this pic really your tank?

What are you using for nutrient export? Do you have a skimmer or a refugium?

How long do you run your lights per day?

What exactly are your nitrates / phosphates at?

How long do you run your lights per day?

Do you have a clean up crew?



My first piece of advice would be to do as much manual removal as humanly possible. Pull the rocks out, scrub them clean in a small bucket of tank water, and then rinse them with more tank water. All of this needs to be done outside of the tank. After that we can start to look at other control methods

[Brad M]

Yea thats bad looking. Im guessing the high levels of nitrate are helping this. 3 steps to help get this started.

STEP 1

Make sure lights are on for a max of 8 hours a day and cover the nearby window to the left of your tank. We need to control the lighting so the algea cant grow as much.

STEP 2

Remove fish and corals and place in bucket A with tank water. Remove rocks and place in bucket B with tank water and scrub all that junk off there and rinse em good. Also clean inside of tank including sifting the sand to remove algea growth.

STEP 3

Drain your tank down to 20% then add 10 to 20% and remove back down to 20%. Do this a few times to make sure all that nitrate is gone then fill her back up and put everything back.


WARNING

It is very important that your filter is not touched, looses water or anything to mess with it. While the above steps will solve your tanks algea and nitrate issues it will also fully destroy your biofilter inside the tank leaving only you normal filter left to handle your nitrogen cycle. You should buy and use or take a water sample to you LFS every 3 days for the first 12 days or so to make sure your not getting any chemical spikes that will harm your fish.

[Mikebfc]

How's that for a transformation?