Almost Quit . . .

ATS: Algae turf scrubber. Look into it. Easy to make from scratch, does an excellent job of exporting the phosphates and nitrates. Chaeto will have a hard time competing with one though.

 

worms

yea, I had lots of worms and you may not beleave this one but i'm gonna say it, there was one worn that come up outa that sand that just about gave this oldman a heart attack after my heart started beaten again I rounded up my fish net and still shaken, got him in it. biggest da__ worn I ever seen. look like 2 foot snake. I still got that worm as far as I know. everytime I put my hand in there I think about that fellow.

Now, that being said, you have a very good looking tank, I was just trying to help with the high nirate levels. But you made me think about it, when you ask did I have worms? the strange thing is that was all that was in the sand.There were no spg worms, stars, or serpents, just bristle worms.So that makes me think they died before the crash. So in my old wore out mind I think that just bristles alone could not keep up with the bioload of detritus that 200lbs of live rock and live stock produced. I started at the max so to say, for a 75g tank, and there was not enough time for the critters to populate enough before the bioload become toxic. So I thank you for making me think about it. Please think of me as a brother in the hobby and if I can be of any help at all please ask. James

 

I think it looks nice, very neat and organized really.

 

i like the idea of the display refugium. i have been considering that myself. i think that if you get that going with a lot of macro, you will see a big difference with your nitrates.

 

i have also heard that the crushed coral makes it more likely for food particles to get trapped thus possibly increasing nitrates. however, i have no experience with crushed coral.

 

have been dealing with some of the same issues as you lately. Right now im sitting here waiting for my bio pellets to get here and will be adding a reactor fed right into a recirc skimmer. gonna try that. My nitrates are low but right now im battling a bit of red turf algae. I currently thinK that this is fooling my test kit into believing that there is no nitrates. Im running gfo and do 15-20% water changes a week. and still get film algae and the turf algae. Im hoping to get something good out of the bio pellets. Have tried vodka dosing and it seemed to help but not completely get rid of the turf. It is tuff stuff and so is the bubble algae. Just remember when you beat it is when you get the most satisfaction out of caring for such a small eco system. Feeling of accomplishment and other things of course.

Hope you decide to stay in the hobby as a hate seeing people give up. No tank is the same and some times it takes a little bit of playing around to get what you think is the best results. These forums are great for info usally what I do is use them as a tool to see how many ways to deal with said problem. Then try a few diffrent things. But what I have learned is that there is nothing in this hobby that is fast. So slow down maybe scale down and try try again.

Best Quote
LA Fishguy
KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!!

Good luck

 

I know everybody's gonna jump on me but here go's.
I would not do any water changes for awhile and I will give my reasoning behind this crasy statement. yes when ever you do a 15% water change you are taking out D.O.C. and that is good but you are also taking out aged water with good bacteria and the new water also has more chemicals which may feed the algae such as iodine and others, what I would do is put the algae on a little diet, use kalkwasser to bring up calcium to 450 to 500 in a slow drip fashion, vaccum as much of the area that has the algae as you can and place live sand on that area, I use carab sea. use lights 7 hours per day, this has worked for me in the past. James

 

It's not crazy, although I don't agree in this case. Trace elements can feed algae, and for certain algae outbreaks, limiting water changes is sometimes recommended. The idea being that you can starve out the algae on a necessary, but unknown trace element. Sometimes, that's true, but not always, and I don't think so in this case. Wrong kind of algae and problems. As to bacteria, there really isn't any useful bacteria in the water, at least as far as filtration goes. Nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria are benthic and therefore live on surfaces.

I'm holding off more recommendations until we get accurate test though, the test results are wrong, mag=0, ca off the charts, but alk 10 no way, not even remotely physically possible. Also, phos 3.5, very unlikely. So, I don't see any reason to trust nitrates are over 100. I think the numbers should be re-run with different test kits, and/or brought to an LFS for testing.

 

God, I love this forum, you guy's are making me go back to the beginning,I love it.
Nitrosomas bacteria are free floating in water they turn ammonia into nitrites after they have gained a good population they are capable of turning all ammonia into nitrites .
then there is another bacteria forming on the filter and surfaces called nitrobacter it needs air to populate which feed on nitrites turning them to what we all want to get as low as possible nitrates. That is a reason we don't do really big water changes we would lose nitrosomas and a little bit of ammonia would bleach the coral and kill the live stock. James

 

You will not find a significant population of nitrosomonas in the water. They are motile and can have a flagellum, but are primarily benthic and they thrive on the surfaces, not in the water column. If they did no one would be running a UV sterilizer