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Jato460

Get to know my tank

Rating: 17 votes, 5.00 average.
I am 14 in michigan and I love this hobby. My first aquarium was a 20 gallon fresh water tank that somebody let me borrow when I was 11.
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less than a year after that I got a 75 gallon fresh water tank off craigslist.
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about a year and a-half ago somebody offered me a 75 gallon aquarium with stand, light, 200 pounds of dried out rock, and a sump with a return pump and an internal overflow box. Since it had everything for a saltwater tank I decided to try saltwater and I love it. I still have my 75 gallon freshwater but I am trying to sell it. the sump that they gave to me was only a 15 gallon fish tank with a skimmer in it it was packed and I had a huge micro-bubble problem in the display. I put a bubble trap in the 20 gallon tank that was a freshwater tank and got an internal return pump. the pump I got with it was a little giant external pump its flow rate was very high and I had to prime it every time I turned it off because I had it above the sump. Six months after that it started to leak, the bottom of the stand was always wet and I was topping off a lot which led to drop in salinity. To replace that sump I bought a 30 gallon glass aquarium, did some research about building a sump on melevsreef.com and built my sump with 1/4 in. acrylic that my dad cut out on a cnc machine at work. He also cut out a skimmer stand. Here is the design I drew for it on google sketchup.
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then I put it together and put it under my tank.
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three days after that I lost a sand sifting star fish, (made my sand look very clean and want to get another one.) a royal damsel, and a foxface, also I had a hair algae explosion.
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I took a water test into a very knowledgable fish store in lansing called preuss pets and told them my story. They told me that my water test didn’t have any clues on why I was losing fish. They suggested that I didn’t let my silicone dry long enough in my sump which I didn’t, but on the topic of silicone I remembered that I was soposed to use the silicone made by all glass aquarium I told them that I got the silicone from home depot and didn’t pay attention to what kind it was. They gave me some active carbon and a tube of aquarium certified silicone and told me to cut off my sump and redo it and to let it dry for 2 days. Also to run carbon through the tank. My tanks sump was a 5 gallon bucket with only carbon and a heater while I was re-doing the sump with the right silicone. With no skimmer it made my algae problem even worse than it already was then after I got my sump running right I went in and pulled out the hair algae and got a uv sterilizer and got rid of it and the uv sterilizer made my water more clear than I have ever had it. My first coral were a rock with green star polyps and button polyps and another rock with zoanthids and only a couple button polyps. It wasn’t long before the button polyps ran over the zoanthids. for some reason the zoanthids never looked very good but water test showed no clues.
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Last weekend I cleaned more algae out her are some Before and after pics. This algae grows on everything except rocks does anyone have any ideas on how to keep it away I was thinking maybe a phosphate reactor. Some thing on my want list are a rose bubble tip anemone but it will have to be big because of my 5 inch clarki’s, another pc4 module for my reefkeeper lite, and a phosphate reactor.
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Comments

  1. Blown76mav's Avatar
    What are you using for water? Do you have a RO/DI unit? If you using tap water and declorinenator your gonna continue to have a hair algae problem. If your getting your water at a store (wal-mart, lowes etc.) their ro machine probably needs new filters and isn't much better than tap water.

    As far as the silicone if you used GE type I then you are ok, if you used Type II then you need to remove all the silicone or you will continue to have trouble. The Type II has a anti mold chemical that will kill a lot of stuff in the tank and will do so even with the uv sterilizer and carbon.
  2. Jato460's Avatar
    I am using my own ro filter that tests at 4 tds. My ro filter does not have a DI stage on it so the tds is a little higher than 0. I also use my ro filter for drinking water. I don't know what kind of silicone I used the first time but the tube said 10 year mold free so I scraped it all out and re-did it with the silicone made by All-glass Aquariums.
  3. dread240's Avatar
    The second it says mold free is no bueno for a reef tank.