My tragedy/What did I do wrong??

Ok so I had a system that I bought with a friends (good) advice and that was my into to salt water reeftanks. After ups and downs with it for 3? years I read a little (not enough) and decided I wanted to have a bigger tank. I had lots of different thoughts and read a little about a lot of different things (not good, read more about less, so you can understand it) and decided to go for it. Long story short I misunderstood a lot of stuff about how things should be set up to avoid problems. I got pretty bummed over all of it and was thinking about quitting reefing altogether, but I decided to slowdown and start over. Here is what I'm making now http://www.3reef.com/forums/show-off-your-fish-tanks/damon-sarahs-20g-low-108400.html

and I'm going to be starting up that 8.5gal that I took down to safeway. I'll post a link to that soon.

I'm not going to fix this system, it's going down, but I thought it would be interesting to post some pics of it and see how many things people can point out that I did wrong. There are plenty of them. The pics are a little hard to see, so if you want to see something from a different angle let me know. I'm scraping the glass now (ya I got bummed out and stopped caring for the tanks as much as I should with some of the nice pieces I still have).

 

Looks to me like you need to clean the glass more, since it is covered with coralline algae.

How often did you clean the canister filters? Should have been done thoroughly every two weeks.

 

I really do not have enough information regarding the lighting and filtration.

From what I can see both tanks look like they did not have enough flow as in power heads.

The bottom tank looks to have an anemone that looks like it is struggling, whether due to water chemistry or lighting can not say.

I would have relied more on LR in both tanks rather than a canister filter.

Looks like you could have used more snails and a mag-float.

Without knowing more and assuming you have a limited budget to devote to the hobby it very hard to make an assessment, without sounding judgmental.

 

oh go a head and be judgmental if you want to, I'm not really to happy with myself over how I've done this, but I suggest asking questions first. No that is not a anemone. I will also add that most of the stuff that is dieing (brain, plate, and some sps are things that where given to me already dieing, I was just willing to try to see if they would live or not in my tank) As I said there are many things I did wrong. Yes the filters are a pain to clean and, so they don't get cleaned often enough, and I don't really have the flow that I want. I used the filters because they where free and I was hoping they would provide more flow than they do. They would work if I clean them enough, but that's the point of this thread. You can't mix systems too much, know how what works and why what works and then you won't do this lol.
The upper tank is a 55 with a 5000 L/H PH and the canister filter, with a current 4bulb t5 system (24in long).
The lower tank is a 35low with 4 36in odyssey t5s, a koralia1 and the canister filter.
I'm open to talking about the coral, but I was talking about the tanks set-up mostly. All things considered the coral is doing pretty good for how hard it is to maintain this set-up.

 

I have a mag-float, but if your too bummed on your tank to want to look at it you won't use it, and I have a very large CC in both tanks, I think the CC is one of the only reasons things are not worse.

 

Man that looks like a mess. Can you explain the tank thats sitting on the floor by the filters? I'm trying to figure out your filtration setup but its pretty confusing in those pics. And the bulkhead placement seems random to me. I would've kept everything towards the top of the tank so that in case a hose or filter fails, it wont drain half of your tank. I just do not have enough information on your setup. And the 24 inch fixture over the 55 gallon is giving you really poor light coverage on the sides of the tank.

 

Ok a bit confusing, but we'll hammer through it. First those hoses are pinched on the back of the tank, that will restrict water flow. You need a lot more live rock, but more importantly we need the specs. IMO I would not use canister filters for saltwater. As pointed out already you need more flow.

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The tank on the floor is a pitiful sump (10gal sump on 90 display), so you can imagine what the top off rate is as well as mixing canisters and sumps is not really the best idea. I'm not a fan of canister filters at this point, but I've seen them work. Yes the holes are pretty random, and tuned out extra bad, seeing as I did not bother to add a overflow. The other thing that is a big killer is that I did not know the difference between a gate valve and a ball valve, so at this point it's really hard to stop a small siphon from power outage even if I turn everything off because a ball valve and the canister filters can leek a little when off. I'm sorta surprised at how much light I'm am getting from the 24in light, but yes it's all in the middle.

 

oh it's going to be nice to get into the new tank soon!

 

yeah If I where you bro I would just start from scratch, In my 55G I have 4 power heads not 1 so flow is def a problem for ya, 24" light obviously not to good on a tank twice that size, is there a skimmer hidden in the mix anywhere?? def ditch those canisters there just being a nitrate trap for you, unless you clean them religiously I'd say there doing more harm than good.... Um as stated before the glass needs a razor blade, and I am on a serious budget as well so I understand the frustration of not being able to afford what you want, however through friends, local forum and craigs list I have been able to pick up an extra power head spare heaters canopy stand even a skimmer for 50 bucks after haggling the price, Im def not in love with my system yet either but it just takes work and love