2 month old 75 gallon Reef

[ReefFan]

Hey guys, i'm knew to the board and reef keeping in general and was hoping some of the fine folks here wouldn;t mind helping me address a few issues I've encountered..

I have a 75 gallon tank that I've converted from a fish only tank, it only had my large 16 year old grouper in it. Now it has a little over half the amount of live rock I intend to fill it with. I added pieces gradually, one piece here, two pieces there, week by week. The first two pieces I bought had gotten consumed by brown and green algae and now are fairly barren ex ept for a few small patches of coralin algae thats reestablishing itself/ Theres some other life forms left on them like tiny duster type organisms . I have other pieces that still look like quality rock, with fairly lush coralline and various life strewn all over. To make a long story short as my tank has cycled, having started to use RO water and frequent water changes with high quality reef salt, my rock seems to be stabilizing and regenerating. My concerns are the following..

I created a make shift, baffle-less refugium down there with a 24 inch T5 light with one 6500k bulb and one daylight bulb. What I did was put two bags of carib-sea live sand in a typical styrofoam live fish packaging cube. This give me 3-4 inches of sand in the box. This box got submerged into the 55 gal sump so as water travels over the boxes walls and creates this "negative space" I was trying to achieve. I came up with this design after talking to my reef store guy about his custom refugium design. I didnt have the 200 bucks he wanted to glue in 4 pieces of glass for baffles so I thought I could create the same method on my own. I already had the sand and the rest just fell into place. In the fuge box is macro algae, caulerpa (sp?) and a fair amount of red slime that I am now treating with red slime remover (I assume its bad). I'm wondering how effective this negative space concept is in terms of nitrate and phosphate reduction. My goal right now is to lower those two levels so I can begin to see coralline algae expanding. Is this an effective method and if not what might y'all suggest?

Also I was wondering about the lumen output of my Light. Is 2-54 watt daylight bulbs and 2-54 watt actinic bulbs enough for a fairly unrestricted 75 gallon reef? I can deal with not being able to sustain stoney corals and such at this point.

Any advice would be welcome as I'm doubting the customer commitment level of my local reef store. I bought equipment and rock based on their blasé attitude about the ease of reef keeping. I have to travel 30 minutes to the next nearest store where I can actually get into the exact reef keeping needs a dedicated aquarist might have. Thanks in advance.

 

[Ben1]

Also I was wondering about the lumen output of my Light. Is 2-54 watt daylight bulbs and 2-54 watt actinic bulbs enough for a fairly unrestricted 75 gallon reef? I can deal with not being able to sustain stoney corals and such at this point.

For softies and lps I dont see this as an issue, just remember the key is good reflectors with using T5's.

I'm wondering how effective this negative space concept is in terms of nitrate and phosphate reduction.

Have you done any water test? This would be easy to figure out if you take a Phosphate and nitrate test. The idea of a remote fuge is a good one as it can always be removed. How effective it is depends on many things. IME a fuge is a nice part of the puzzle but alone, unless very large, is not enough. I perfer to use a fuge, skimmer, GAC, and GFO. I run the carbon and p04 media in seperate reactors. If you are having cynobacteria, I would not use chemicals to treat it. If it is in the main tank try increasing flow in the area and running some GAC and GFO. Are you running a skimmer?

I have to travel 30 minutes to the next nearest store where I can actually get into the exact reef keeping needs a dedicated aquarist might have.

Welcome to reefkeeping lol. For me I have 1 smaller store that is 10 minutes, but the rest are 45min and 70 minutes away. The furtherest one is the largest of course :lol:

 

[Ben1]

BTW, you may want to look into getting some cheato http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaetomorpha I perfer it b/c it won't go sexual ever and grows faster in most cases then Caulerpa. A good LFS will give you a handfull for free, in a bag of course :lol:

 

[ReefFan]

Have you done any water test? This would be easy to figure out if you take a Phosphate and nitrate test. The idea of a remote fuge is a good one as it can always be removed. How effective it is depends on many things. IME a fuge is a nice part of the puzzle but alone, unless very large, is not enough. I perfer to use a fuge, skimmer, GAC, and GFO. I run the carbon and p04 media in seperate reactors. If you are having cynobacteria, I would not use chemicals to treat it. If it is in the main tank try increasing flow in the area and running some GAC and GFO. Are you running a skimmer?

Yes I have a berlin triple pass XL skimmer over to the left where the bio ball chamber and drip plate is. The skimmers pump is sitting beneath the bio cube and the skimmers output is falling straight down onto the side of the bio cube (made of eggcrate). This defracts the output nicely and I dont wind up skimming the same water over and over.

What is a GAC and GFO? I think I'm going to abandon the make shift fuge and just go out and by some glass and glue it in myself. I'm really concerned about the set up. I do not want all this rock I've spent lots of money on to perish. Plus all the money I've spent on lighting and other equiptment.

The red slime is only found in the fug really. Its overtaken some rocks and is actually starting to infect the macro algae. You say to increase flow to help with this problem but again.. this negative space concept is the opposite of increasing flow. How can I increase circulation to the fuge when the goal was to have uncirculated water under the light. I dunno, maybe slack water isnt good at all. I used the red slime remover that promises to not harm anything a reef keeper would want but for 24 hours now my skimmer is goin bonkers. I have the flow rate on the pump set to its lowest and foam continues to gush over the top of the skimmer.

I'm about at the end of my budget for this project. I already blew well over what i had origionally projected and within these two months I've probably spent close to 1500 dollars. I jsut dont want it to go to waste.

I'm going to make up some blueprints for the refugium I'm planning to make. Maybe theres some way I can draw/scan a picture or use some kind of drawing program so I can post it here for people to weigh in on.

 

[Anonymous]

... In the fuge box is macro algae, caulerpa (sp?) and a fair amount of red slime that I am now treating with red slime remover (I assume its bad).

Posting exactly what you water test results show is helpful to us, so if you can please do that. The "Red Slime Remover" is actually counter productive to what you are trying to do. That is an antibiotic treatment, and it kills off the bad bacteria but also the good! Address the excess nutrient issues (like you are doing with good RO water, skimming,macro algae etc) and the cyano will disappear on its own. I second the notion you need to get rid of the caulerpa...it's better to have chaeto as your nutrient exporting macro it's much more stable.

Overall I'd let the tank stabilize before I change anything else. By adding your live rock on piece at a time you are essentially in one long cycle as far as the bacteria is concerned. Let things catch up, keep up on the water changes and use a good grade GAC (activated carbon) to help things along. Also, if you think there is a phosphate issue or pH issue (I tend to think there is), a low tech way to help with that is to drip Kalkwasser. It's cheap and fairly easy to do.

 

[ReefFan]

Things actually have stabilized nicely. I've pretty much made my mind up that i'm just going to make an algae scrubber using that 24" T5 light I have over half of the sump. I've been reading alot over the past few days and these turf scrubbers seem to be a no brainer. I'm surprised everyone doesnt use this effective and simple method to keep nitrates and phosphates down. I dont see a down side to them. I figure i'll just buy a 24 " long tank (20 gallons?) and set it on top of a tall standing cabinet i have right next to the tank. Theres enough space to fit the small tank between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling, this will allow me to set a pump down into the display tank and pump water up to the scrubber and overflow back into the DT. I'll section off the tank in half long-ways so the water enters and overflows on the same side. I'll just leave a space in the partition so the water can make a U-Turn back towards the DT.

Then I was thinking I cut small sheets of eggcrate, line em up like dominos in the scrubber and tilt them at the top slightly towards the input, to maximize surface area to grow on and exposure to the light. Maybe I'll put the two bags of live sand I put in my sumps make shift refugium, into the scrubber, or into the display tank. The macro algea I have down there maybe I'll just put in the DT for a while to help keep it free of algae. I dont know how the macro/micro algae situation is work out but may the best algae win. In the end all i want is no nitrates or phosphates and no algae in the DT.

I did a full water test today BTW. Phosphates have dropped to .2 and nitrates down to 20. Calcium 420, PH 8.2, Salinity 1.023.

Screw the whole 55 gallon partitioning deal. I'll keep it as a sump and fill it 3/4 with water. All that will be down there is my skimmer, drip plate and the bio balls, which I'll gradually phase out as the scrubber gets established. Also I'm thinkin I'll remove my 16 yr old grouper from the DT and let him live in the sump. The new Sailfin Tang I have is thriving and actually beatin on the grouper who's 4 times his size. Spot gets pissed off after a while and throws a fn fit throwing rock this way and that. This will also allow me to put smaller fish in the DT without Spot gulping them down.

So what do ya think about the scrubber idea?

 

[Anonymous]

:lol: use the search function here and you'll find lots of discussion of the 'merits' of a turf scrubber. They have their limited application but overall I think that limiting nutrients you put in, aggressive skimming, water changes, high quality AC is a far better way to go.

 

[ReefFan]

ya thats prolly it.. i did add in a 2 part life extension formula that listed "vibrant and colorful plants", i'm guessin this had a good amount of "nutrients" in it. I added it hoping to increase macro algae growth, so it would lower phosphates and nitrates. But obviously it also nourishes microalgae because this is quite the vibrant green carpet on the glass. Not sure what to do about this. I suppose I can leave much of it to the clean up crew and let the tank cycle, maybe add a few more critters. Could make that algae scrubber too.

The mistake I think was in using that cyano-killer stuff. The packages said it harmed nothing in a reef including nitrifying bacteria but i have a feelin it messed somethin up. I know it messed up the skimmer for a while, for 3 days the skimmer would blast like a geyser unless i stuffed somethin in the airline to the venturi. I'm thinkin if the skimmer worked better id have seen a drop in phosphates.

Nitrate levels seem to be down as well... maybe that deep sand bed refugium with the macroalgae is startin to work? Still trying to find that balance to get the most out of my live rock. My simple goal right now is to get coraline algae to be noticebly growing. The only thing I havnt tried, other than lettin the tank just sit for a week, is add that turf scrubber. I still cant find a downside to them.

Thanks for your replies