Masoch Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 My inch thick substrate is a detritus / poop trap and hair algae breeding ground: mixed aragonite from very fine to very course (whole shells, almost 1 cm in size). Can I add something more even on top (say, another inch) without unleashing an evil, tank destroying plague? Or ... is there some creature that will help clean things up? Specs: 20 gallon 2x 64 watt PC (10k + 50/50 10k) 2x black and white ocellaris clowns 1x royal gramma 2x cleaner shrimps 1x Prizm w/ PhosGuard in outflow 2x Hagen 301 PH 2x colonies of polyps a few shrooms various snails (3 nassarius, 2 margarita, 2 cerith, 6 nerite, 4 or 5 astrea) and some hermit crabs some macro (red dreadlock, red ribbon, unknown hitch-hiking green) Usual levels in spec (no phosphates, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, calcium around 425). I've thought about a refugium, but I'm not yet ready for one. Thanks! Link to comment
jdiver Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 Adding more substrate on top to cover up the mess won't really solve the problem. How long has the tank been set up? Link to comment
Masoch Posted March 25, 2003 Author Share Posted March 25, 2003 How long has the tank been set up? Sorry, that's one thing I forgot to mention -- initial set up was late November, fully cycled by mid-December. I could, I guess, vacuum the substrate ... but that's so freshwater, and I'd lose biodiversity. Link to comment
jdiver Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 How many hermits do you have in there? My hermits seems to do a good job of cleaning things off the sand. I would probably add at least 10 hermits to a 20 gallon. Also, Trochus snails have been good sand sifters for me, so if you can find some then they would be worth adding a few IMO. You can try lightly vacuuming the detritus off the sand when you do a w/c. I used to start a siphon with airline tubing and lightly vac the sand during w/c's, but (knock on wood), I haven't had the need to do that for a while. Link to comment
Xavier Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 you could also get a tiger tail cuke.. mine (along with about 10 hermits) keep the sand in my 25 very nice.. by pouring more sand on top, chances are, you'll kick all that gunk up into the water column, or just cover it up to decay... Link to comment
sjpresley Posted March 26, 2003 Share Posted March 26, 2003 The tank is young, be patient. You WANT your substrate to collect detritus. DON NOT VACCUM IT. Eventually it should "turn into" live sand with a good assortment of little critters as well as a very healthy bacterial colony that will give you good filtration. ANY sand "cleansing" will retard this process. This system usually takes some time to develop such that hair algae stops growing. Just wait. You were due for some hair algae about now. Seems like a lot of tanks go through it around 3-6 months. I would NOT get a bunch of hermits, they don't rally do much on hair alga as a rule and will be a pain in the ass. The cukes might help, but eventually they won't have anything left to eat and you'll have to get rid of them. If you get in there once a week and crop the algae down short, snails should be a big help, they don't usually bother with really long stuff. Link to comment
Mnesarchus Posted March 26, 2003 Share Posted March 26, 2003 My sandsifting star does wonders on my sandbed. Link to comment
~_~ Posted March 26, 2003 Share Posted March 26, 2003 Sounds similar to my detritus/pod factory. I just vacuum mine up with one of those hand-held battery powered vacuum thingys... I don't see any point in letting ALLOT of it sit around to foul things up. The vac is pretty weak, & I don't actually put the vac in the sand, so nothing besides detritus gets sucked up....*maybe* some really really small pods, but nothing actually visible. (I check the stuff I vac out) Link to comment
Xavier Posted March 26, 2003 Share Posted March 26, 2003 talk to ReefMatrix.. he's a pro in vacuuming his tank Link to comment
Masoch Posted March 26, 2003 Author Share Posted March 26, 2003 Hmmm ... I sat down, read, digested, and considered my options last night. And then I stuck my hands in the tank and did some some scale re-arranging. I picked up all the larger chunks of junk in the front of the tank and moved them behind my rock -- I figure that the back of the tank could be a mini-refugium (w/o a lot of light). Apparently, pods like the homes chunky. Now my substrate is smoother, but still looks rough with all that beige crud. I also shifted a PH to blow across the frong glass (and then down over the substrate) so that less stuff collects down there. I like the suggestions of cukes and stars (fascinating critters), but I think the cuke would eventually starve ... and stars, while great at cleaning substrate, are, well, great at cleaning the substrate. They'll hoover out many of the worms and pods I want in there. Ditto for the gobies one of my LFS's reccomended. My crabs prefer shell-jacking my snails to doing anything useful (red and blue-legged, about 6 total, plus 2 Hawaiian). But I do like their personalities. And the Hawaiian ones look cool (zebra stripes!). I'm not sure how much bio-diversity I have in my tank -- my rock wasn't exactly crawling with life, but I did seed my substrate with that ugly scunge (free!) from the bottom of my LFS's LR tank (Big Al's on Steeles, for anyone in Toronto ). So ... I think I'm down to ... a couple more cerith snails and some more nassarius. My nassarius are breeding (I saw a tiny, 2mm one on the glass, plus there are a couple that are inexplicably small) ... but one of my shrimp likes snacking on them. And the ultimate elixir for a young tank: waiting. In the mean time, I'll syphon off some of the bigger patches of crud, but leave the majority alone. Thanks, guys! With your help, maybe my tank will actually start looking decent Link to comment
Dave ESPI Posted March 26, 2003 Share Posted March 26, 2003 as an observation, chances are you filled your tank with too much "Top End" too fast. 3 months is the break-away-point for nanos as far as stability. By loading up the tank and not letting it mature at a "snails pace" (punn intended) you introduced nutrients and acreated an environment that ill allow for algaes to grow and excess mulm to collect. By chance are you running rodi and what salt are you using? How often do you do W/C ? What have you been feeding your tank and how often? All imortant factor stuff. Link to comment
Masoch Posted March 26, 2003 Author Share Posted March 26, 2003 Ahhh, complicated questions. Distilled water (confirmed with source that it contains neither copper nor phosphates, RO/DI is a PITA to get around me) ... but there was a slip-up with some icky spring water used for top-offs for a few days (about .5 gallons' worth). Stupid, stupid me. Istant Ocean for salt ... but I'll try out Crystal Sea as soon as I find someone in Canada with it. Water changes at 10% / week, haven't missed any. But ... I think I'm slowly winning the battle of the hair algae. My new form on nutrient export = toothbrush + red dreadlock macro (can't find a scientific name) in the water column. Hair algae rubs off, sticks to macro, macro gets pruned. It ain't pretty, but it works. As for food, most days it's Nutrafin Max in the morning, a few flakes at a time. When the first piece touches down, feeding time's over. If I'm feeding the polyps (a couple times a week), the fish get chunks of vitamin-enriched shrimp and the polyps get ~ 1/3 - 1/2 cube of Hikari krill. The shrimp keep the fish busy so the polyps can eat Once or twice a week I swap the Nutrafin for some of Big Al's spirulina flake. Big hit. The shrimp molt every 2 weeks or so, the colour on the fish is great (my royal gramma hasn't faded), and the polyp colonies are slowly spreading. I even have a new 'shroom on the 'shroom rock. So ... other than the mulm, the signs are good. One thing I didn't mention is that, at the start of the last cyano outbreak, I started using a QuickFilter on one of my PH's. I had used 'em occasionally before, but when the cyano started dying off, I had to change filter pads daily. Very, very gross -- the pads smelled like particularly thick skimmate. Link to comment
Masoch Posted March 27, 2003 Author Share Posted March 27, 2003 You know ... 1.5 months or so ago, I went from 1x 55 watt 10000k 50/50 (Coralife) light to 128 watts of 1x actinic + 1x supposedly 10000k that came with my fixture. I just pulled out the actinic and put the 50/50 for giggles... and noticed that my "10000k" looks red compared to my Coralife 50/50. I think I know one more additional source of my cyano scrouge: funky light. So, until I get some $$$ for a new bulb, I'm going for the 50/50 + actinic. Yup, I am officially stupid. Live 'n' learn. Now I just have to decide on 10000k + actinic, 2x 10000k 50/50s, 10000k+50/50. Link to comment
Dave ESPI Posted March 27, 2003 Share Posted March 27, 2003 Chances are the bulb has colorshifted or is not peaked anymore. Get a new one. DO NOT SWITCH TO CRYSTAL SEA. you will curse yourself for the rest of your reefing life. The nutrafin Max flake food... read the ingredients. It may be contributing to your problems. Get Omega 1. Other than that, good luck! Eventualy you will beat back the hair. Link to comment
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