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dread240

So I'm new here, but got a few questions

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by
dread240
, 04-16-2010 at 02:00 AM (2050 Views)
Well, I found the site by the way of melev's reef... his 29 gallon is definitely the inspiration for mine.

I started a saltwater tank 3 years ago when I got my apartment. Frankly I always wanted a fish tank, the parents would have nothing of it, so when I got my own place, it literally was the first thing I did. My wife really got interested in it too after we had some diving trips in jamaica for our honeymoon, so she's one of the reasons we've had to turn it into a reef tank (oh darn!).

Right now the setup is a 29 gallon all glass kit, bak-pak II skimmer with the maxi-jet 1200 pump, a petco power head and another maxi-jet 900 stirring up the water surface. It was originally a fish only tank with a hang on the back filter and just one piece of live rock, I kept a coral beauty, oscellaris and velvet damsel for about 2 years in there, and then the algae started to hit. I tried janitors, but they didn't phase it, and that's when I decided to go to full live rock filtration and threw the filter in the trash, and boy have my nitrates dropped after that. The new live rock I got had some algae on it, but the snails are handling it quite nicely.

Livestock currently:
True percula baby clown
Brittle star
condy anemone
about 9 astrea snails
1 unknown ******* hermit crab
some green zoo's (5 little patches of 1-2 polyps each now thanks to the ******* listed above)
green star polyp frag
orange ricodrea

Well that's the background, here's the meat of the post.

Number one, I have a hermit crab I've had for about 2 years. He's rather large, and has black/white stripes on his legs (but they're not horizontal like the zebras I've seen, they're vertical... and he's about 2 inches). He's really becoming problematic now that I'm trying to keep some corals, and my cluster of zoo's I picked up has now been fragged 5 times thanks to him. He's not eating them, he's just large and clumsy, and his shell has knocked them apart a few times. These weren't on a plug, they were glued directly to the rock, and my buddy at the pet store literally just took a small cluster out of his display tank and gave it to me, so they were kind of fragile. What can I do to protect them for the time being or should I just get rid of this hermit crab? He's been with me a long time, so I don't really WANT to, but he's being a bit of a pain right now
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My second issue is the ph. I've recently heard about agitating the surface water alot to reduce the co2 in the tank, so I'm trying that now. It has been lingering down about 7.8 most of the time, only jumps up when I add the ph adjuster or the kent pro buffer. I can't seem to keep this stable at all. My tank inhabitants seem to be doing ok with it. the zoos are opening up when the lights are on, the anemone is always out and full. I do about a 5 gallon water change every 2 weeks, and even right after that my ph is still low. For awhile I even tried 10 gallon water changes every week and couldn't keep it up around 8.2. Any other suggestions on keeping it stable? I know smaller tanks are harder on water parameters, but I've seen plenty of other people pull it off :-\

Third... I got this really awesome red shit going on, but I'm not sure if it's good. It has only recently started, but on my left piece of live rock... it's getting these really bright red sections (not the red slime algea I know for a fact) that is flourescing underneath my blue led moonlights. good? bad? what the hell is it? I kinda want more.
Click image for larger version Name: redstuff.jpg Views: 177 Size: 122.0 KB ID: 1429
And finally, fourth, my lighting. When it was fish only I was just using the regular run of the mill flourescent fixture for the fish. When I started making the transition to a reef setup, I bought a nova extreme 30" t5 ho fixture. It has 2 24 watt bulbs, one 10k, the other actinic, with individual reflectors. Is this going to be enough for some acro's near the top? I also mounted a blue led strip to the back of it for my moonlighting.

Sorry for all the questions, but I kind of worry about just listening to the guys at the LFS. I'd much rather talk to people interested in maintaining their own tanks.

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Tags: corals, lighting
Categories
‎ Tank Entry , ‎ New Additions , ‎ Tank - Full Summary , ‎ Lighting

Comments

  1. Alaska_Phil's Avatar
    The Red stuff looks like a type of coraline algae and a good thing.

    As for the pH, what is your Alkalinity (Kh)? Kh and pH are directly related, if Kh drops so will pH. I have to dose my 50 gal with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda nearly every day to keep my alkalinity and pH up at 8.3.
  2. dread240's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Alaska_Phil
    The Red stuff looks like a type of coraline algae and a good thing.

    As for the pH, what is your Alkalinity (Kh)? Kh and pH are directly related, if Kh drops so will pH. I have to dose my 50 gal with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda nearly every day to keep my alkalinity and pH up at 8.3.
    that was all quite on the high side. My alkalinity test kit read it at about the 3.0ml or so (I can't remember exactly how it measures it, but on the card, it was in the high range) and my dkh was actually quite high too at 18 (I'm letting it drop since I read it should be between 8-12dkh)

    Reading these It's kind of implied that I should not have ph issues at all, since the buffers are so strong, but I still do. I'm waiting to test it again once I get home (full test, calcium, dkh, alkalinity, ph, nitrite, ammonia, nitrate, phosphates, sg and temp is all what I record on my tests). I'll post them back up on here when I'm done to see what you think. I did add the api 'proper ph 8.2' yesterday as well too... and it seemed to bump me up to about 8.1, I'm just hoping it maintains that with the way I redid my powerheads to keep the surface broken up very well.
  3. Alaska_Phil's Avatar
    If your Kh is that high, I think you need to try a different ph test kit. I've always found that if my Ca and Kh are in line, my pH will be too. What time of day are you checking it? In most tanks the pH rises over the course of the photo period. Mine is about 8.2 in the morning and up to 8.5 by the time the lights shut off most days.
  4. dread240's Avatar
    That's the thing, I actually have 3 test kits total... and both of them read the same.

    I use the api saltwater master kit (high range ph, nitrite, nitrate, ammonia), the reef master kit (calcium, Carbonite hardness, nitrate, phosphates) and a red sea ph and alkalinity test. My calcium was also reading about 540 3 days ago too... so I'm really baffled. I've even looked into the co2 scrubber things for my bak pak skimmer

    The 2 ph tests generally read the same, and the alkalinity and dkh tests generally coincide with each other too. I'm checking the ph near the end of the day... and I run my t5's for 12 hours a day, and moonlights for 12 hours. I'm baffled at it honestly myself, and starting to think I may need voodoo or a witch doctor to get it right
  5. dread240's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Alaska_Phil
    If your Kh is that high, I think you need to try a different ph test kit. I've always found that if my Ca and Kh are in line, my pH will be too. What time of day are you checking it? In most tanks the pH rises over the course of the photo period. Mine is about 8.2 in the morning and up to 8.5 by the time the lights shut off most days.
    Ok, full tank stats from tonight
    temp 81
    SG 1.026
    PH 8.2 (first time it's held that in awhile, but this was tested at the very end of the daily light cycle)
    Alkalinity 2.3
    Ammonia .25 (This has been 0, but I added a royal gamma and some new corals yesterday, so should be back down quickly)
    Nitrite 0
    Nitrate 5
    Phosphate .5
    KH 19 (I really need to lower this)
    Calcium 440

    Again this is confusing though, because I've gotten mixed results now on everything in my red sea test kit.

    On my api kit, the ph indicator was clearly a dead set match for 8.2, however on the redsea kit, it was kind of a blueish color, which corresponds to really nothing on their chart (theirs goes from green to purple)

    Then I even tested the KH twice in the api kit, making sure to hold the bottle perfectly perfectly straight, and it took 19 drops for it to go yellow. The red sea alkalinity test was very clearly a greenish color looking down through it, which indicates a normal level.

    Which one do I trust?
  6. Alaska_Phil's Avatar
    I've never been too impressed with Red Sea test kits. I go with Salifert and Elos myself.
  7. melev's Avatar
    Your alkalinity is still a little too low. It should be between 2.86 - 3.89 meq/l - buffering up alkalinity will bring up pH as well. Do some reading about using baked Baking Soda, and don't overdose your tank. Using just a little and measuring the results is much safer than dumping in a specific amount only to watch your livestock struggle. You can dose a little bit, wait a while, and dose a little bit more later in the day. Usually, people with small aquariums use a two-part dosing system, like ESV's B-ionic. You simply dose each part every single day and it maintains alk, ca, and pH, as well as a variety of other stuff we don't think about as much.

    Phosphate is too high as well, but your tank is young. Try to back off some feeding, do bigger water changes, and clean your skimmer daily. There are chemical solutions you can use as well, but your skimmer may not be good enough for those.