advice

[Cheech]

I haven't been maintaining my tank for a while, and it started really looking pretty bad. I had algae all over, that red slimy stuff covered all my rocks.. Anyway, this is my setup..

-90 gallon
-4" live sand bed
-about 70 lbs live rock,
-RO water
-Classic sea berlin protien skimmer with a mag pump,
-powerheads
-eheim 2217
-2 X 110 watt VHO
-1X 400 watt MH.

Anyway, Throughout these months, I've noticed that the amounts of little critters living in the lr/ls has been multiplying. I mean, there are bristle worms all over the place... they even started coming out in the day, crawling on the glass.. Should I be worried? I also found one that was about 18 inches long... Greyish in colour.. I let him be, but should I try to catch him ?

So I finally decided to do a nice cleanup to the tank. Took out all the rocks, and I started shifting the sand around, when I hit something.. To my surprise, I found a clam buried in the live sand.. Strange thing is, this looked like it came from the supermarket. After some investigating, I came to find out that my dad decided to save a clam from supper, and placed it in the tank.... :rolleyes: Question: Do you think the clam could have in any way contaminated the water, and could it be part of the reason behind my tank looking horrible?

So, finally, after a whole day of scrubbing the glass, changing the water, etc etc, everything looks good. Only prob. is that the rocks are still mostly covered with algae, so for the time being, I shut off the lights completely. It's 2 days now, and it is looking better. All the red algae, surprisingly disappeared.

I have some leather corals, mushrooms, and caleurpa (which by the way is the only coral that totally took over the whole tank, growing like weeds) My question is, how long is it suggested to leave the lights off, and not harm the corals that much??


Anyway, that's the story of my tank... Please let me know if there's anything I'm missing on maintaining the tank...

I apologise for the long post...


oh.... last thing,..,.. how long do you guys wait before doing water changes? Monthly? Bi- monthly??

Thanks for any help/suggestions/comments...

[kreblak]

I try to do a big (25-50%) monthly water change. The red slime algae should melt right away with proper water circulation. I used to have it really bad, but the addition of another powerhead reduced my problem greatly. As far as your algae problem, Caulerpa is a good thing. If your algae is green hair algae, then go get some blue legged hermits and an emerald crab.

Your corals are going to need the light, so darkening the tank to kill the algae propably isn't the best idea. Oh, and you asked about the clam possibly fouling your water...was the clam still alive? If it was dead, then the clam would just rot like a cocktail shrimp used for cycling. That would provide a lot of nutrients in the water column which your algae would thrive on.

[Cheech]

Thanks for the help ...


I will put the lights back on tonight...

As for the clam, it was still alive, so I guess that wasn't it...

I'll be looking into getting a few more crabs in the tank, seeing how I do have quite a bit of green hair algae.. Thanks again .

[mogurnda]

Sounds like a lot of nutrients and food. Bristleworms are usually around, but become a plague if there is a lot for them to eat. Most aren't troublemakers, though. Algae also tend to thrive when nutrients are high.

If your tank has been neglected for a while, I would expect nitrate to be up, Ca and Alk to be low, putting your corals at a disadvantage to the algae. What I'd suggest is just using the VHOs for about a week, while doing a couple of sizable water changes to get things back in line. A decent cleanup crew, like a small group of hermits, and a bunch of trochus or astrea snails, would probably help as well.

I tend to do 20-25% water changes every 1-2 week, by the way, but it's a small, heavily populated tank.

[HoopsGuru]

My best guess is that your tank looks the way it does from the admitted neglect over time. It should all go away with your renewed interest and maintenance. Unfortunately, the corals need to photosynthesize just like the algae, so turning the lights off will not solve the problem....removing the excess nutrients that are fueling the algae will do the trick.

For the caulerpa, this would be best for you to harvest some periodically. Nutrients get bound in it and can thus be removed from the system. As you have seen, it will quickly grow back in. This why many use it and other macroalgaes in the tank or refugium and harvest it to remove nutrients.

I would increase your cleanup crew...snails, hermits, etc. and stick to a good schedule of water changes for the next few months of every two weeks until things are back in order.

[Cheech]

Thankyou very much for the advice...

I'll definately be giving all the suggestions a try....

one last thin I noticed that I forgot to mention. Months ago, I had very few of those things that kinda look like slugs, but I had many many copecods. Now, when I turn the lights on at night, the tank is covered with those slugs, but I don't see any copecods...


Strange, very strange,., , ,


Anyway, thanks again for the advice, I'll be taking it as it goes...

:)