Murphs_Reef Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 Sure ill do that.. No idea if my parameters are in balance BTW. Ive never tested any parameter in a freshwater tank except temperature. Ive never had any trouble either until the JBJ Heater incident Man I'm really gutted for you, it looked amazing before the problem. Assuming it's salinity is 0.010 you should get away with saltwater test kits, if it's 1.001 you'll be better with freshwater. Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 15, 2015 Author Share Posted August 15, 2015 Man I'm really gutted for you, it looked amazing before the problem. Assuming it's salinity is 0.010 you should get away with saltwater test kits, if it's 1.001 you'll be better with freshwater. Sg is 1.005 Ordered a Flipper Maxx Magnet and am planning on doing a rock bleaching this week. Gotta get it back on track! 1 Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 16, 2015 Author Share Posted August 16, 2015 Maintenance battle. Took off the 80 lbs lid and working on it now 1 Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 16, 2015 Author Share Posted August 16, 2015 Here's the new scape. A bunch of realizations hit me. Mainly, the phosphate and nitrate of the hose water is HIGHER than that of the tank. So basically every time I do a 150g water change, I am feeding algae. Damnit. Resolution? No more water changes. I redid the sump layout to allow efficient use of filter floss, installed a BRS GFO reactor, and have another 600gph pump moving water behind the rocks to mix up the detritus. Very optimistic at this point! The higher phosphate and nitrate in the hose water means that the algae was being fed SOOOO much after each water change! 1 Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 16, 2015 Author Share Posted August 16, 2015 Observing some rotting within the lid- whats the best way to fix this? Sand it down and repaint using marine paint? 1 Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 17, 2015 Author Share Posted August 17, 2015 Now running new BRS high Capacity GFO in their single reactor. Lid is off for maintenance and some work. Interior rotting areas need to be resealed with marine paint. Flipper Maxx arrived this morning! Ive never had an Amazon package arrive at 8:00am, but who am I to complain? 1 Quote Link to comment
piano15 Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Your tank was truly gorgeous. Cichlids are awesome! Your tank doesn't look bad at this point but I understand the frustration. When you vacuum the sand is there lots of crap in it? I'm not an expert but maybe changing out half the sand or all of it may help. With the increase of temp and the work you've been doing with the old sand bed it may have stirred up a lot of material that was built up in the sand and now its causing algae as well as particle matter in the water? Cutting the lights will help with algae. Can you put a powerhead in the tank to get the particle matter flowing and sucked into your filter and change out your filter floss or pads every few days? Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 17, 2015 Author Share Posted August 17, 2015 Your tank was truly gorgeous. Cichlids are awesome! Your tank doesn't look bad at this point but I understand the frustration. When you vacuum the sand is there lots of crap in it? I'm not an expert but maybe changing out half the sand or all of it may help. With the increase of temp and the work you've been doing with the old sand bed it may have stirred up a lot of material that was built up in the sand and now its causing algae as well as particle matter in the water? Cutting the lights will help with algae. Can you put a powerhead in the tank to get the particle matter flowing and sucked into your filter and change out your filter floss or pads every few days? Sand is super clean. Cichlids constantly grab mouthfuls of sand looking for food and spit it out! Temperature..... That's a very interesting point. The tank used to run at 72-74, but now has a heater keeping it at 78. Higher temperatures= more algae? Should I take the heater offline or slowly take it back down over a week? Lights are "cut". Took out 4/8 bulbs and am running them for 5 hours a day. Could do a blackout, but I think ending my water changes (full of phosphate and high TDS) will have an effect within a month. I'm in the market for a powerhead. Need something above 1500 GPH I think, but it can't be too intrusive. Reccomondations? Quote Link to comment
PicoSavvy Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Now running new BRS high Capacity GFO in their single reactor. Lid is off for maintenance and some work. Interior rotting areas need to be resealed with marine paint. Flipper Maxx arrived this morning! Ive never had an Amazon package arrive at 8:00am, but who am I to complain? Dam, that thing is almost as big as my whole tank Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 17, 2015 Author Share Posted August 17, 2015 Dam, that thing is almost as big as my whole tank Freaking awesome though. Took out sheets and sheets of hard algae that has built up over the 5ish years we've had it and the 5 years of the previous owner. Quote Link to comment
Murphs_Reef Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Sg is 1.005 Ordered a Flipper Maxx Magnet and am planning on doing a rock bleaching this week. Gotta get it back on track! Good man, in other news I just lost my trumpet... 11 heads disintegrated in 6 hours... Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 17, 2015 Author Share Posted August 17, 2015 Good man, in other news I just lost my trumpet... 11 heads disintegrated in 6 hours... WTF that sucks... Some corals are just evil. I have a trumpet coral somewhere in the back of my tank but never really see it. or maybe it's w candy cane... Is there a difference? Quote Link to comment
Murphs_Reef Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 WTF that sucks... Some corals are just evil. I have a trumpet coral somewhere in the back of my tank but never really see it. or maybe it's w candy cane... Is there a difference? Haha let's not start that again I "think" it's the same thing.. Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 17, 2015 Author Share Posted August 17, 2015 The tank looks sort of good! I filled up the filter with InTank polyp floss and already replaced that once- it was nice and black. There's no more particulate matter floating around, but the rocks aren't great. I flipped them over algae side down, but they really need a good bleaching. That's a lot of work though- there's a good 300lbs of that stuff in here! Pictures to come in a few minutes Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 18, 2015 Author Share Posted August 18, 2015 Here's how it looks!!!!! New scape that's sort of odd, but it's definitely interesting. I need to bleach the left centerpiece to get rid of all the algae! Taking temperature down to 74 again to reduce algae Quote Link to comment
Jorgieee Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Here's how it looks!!!!! New scape that's sort of odd, but it's definitely interesting. I need to bleach the left centerpiece to get rid of all the algae! Taking temperature down to 74 again to reduce algae Harry it's looking nice !! Quote Link to comment
yomon347 Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Hello, in addition to my reef tanks, I have a few planted FW tanks and have battled FW algae on many occasions. I have never heard of a temperature difference of 4 degrees causing algae, (74 vs 78). I would just run carbon to filter the particulate, and keep my lights off until all the algae is gone. Tap water can have high nitrates and phosphates which contrubute to algae, but the dissolved CO2 gas in the water can cause algae issues as well. Due to the take crashing you might have phospate soaked rock now, which will continue to leach phosphates and thus grow algae. I would not run GFO or anything that absorbs phosphates from the water column. This is because the water column will have less phosphate than your rock and sandbed, and cause it to leech more. I have some rock in one of my reef tanks which has been leeching phosphates and growing algae for 6+ months now, it sucks but I can tell its slowly getting better. It will probably take a year to get all the phosphate out of the rock. You could "cook" your rock and remove the phospahate that way, thereeftank has a post about cooking live rock and its very informative. In my planted FW tanks I dose nitrate, phosphate, potassium and trace and can tell you high levels of all three do not directly grow algae. I normally have 20 ppm nitrate and 5 ppm phosphate in my planted tanks and only get algae if I have too much light and not enough dissolved CO2 in the water. Quote Link to comment
Hammerstone Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 Wow I want your tank :-) Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 20, 2015 Author Share Posted August 20, 2015 StevieT from InTank is awesome. So the poly floss he sells is too small for the 300g sump, but he offered to get sheets CUSTOM CUT to the exact required dimensions. Pretty sweet' So 25 sheets of poly floss, cut 14x22, are on their way!!!! Wow I want your tank :-) Thanks! if only I could redo it as a reef tank! Lol Looks very nice. Thanks! Picked up a gallon of bleach so I can start bleaching the rocks soon 1 Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 20, 2015 Author Share Posted August 20, 2015 Looking not so bad! For perspective, this tank is 8 feet long! Quote Link to comment
Jorgieee Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 It's looking nice dude !! Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 20, 2015 Author Share Posted August 20, 2015 It's looking nice dude !! Thanks! I'm excited for my new package from InTank with custom cut poly filter! 14x22 and it's going to be awesome Quote Link to comment
Jorgieee Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 Thanks! I'm excited for my new package from InTank with custom cut poly filter! 14x22 and it's going to be awesome Damn those are some pretty big sheets of floss lol. Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 20, 2015 Author Share Posted August 20, 2015 On 8/20/2015 at 4:13 PM, Jorgieee said: Damn those are some pretty big sheets of floss lol. The NanoCube/Cichlids Growout (where I put and grow the babies before I sell them) uses pieces that are 2 inches by 1 inch lol. Tiny Quote Link to comment
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