Getting Discouraged

[sen5241b]

3 things:

1) I played with flow for months before it was just right

2) Test kits can go bad, LFS tests are not terribly expensive.

3) Try some bacterial additives like Stresszyme - These things have worked well for me to establish bacteria.

4) Stay away from expensive corals

5) Once your tank is right, you will NOT have to come everyday and tinker with it

6) MDs are super sensitive to ammonia and nitrites

7) okay there were more than 3 things

 

[Rcpilot]

I mess with each tank about 5 minutes per day. And then I spend about 30 minutes on Sunday changing water and scrubbing algae or coraline off the walls of BOTH tanks. I spend about 1hr total per week messing with my tanks.

Have you adjusted your skimmer so it's flowing the maximum bubbles? Skimmer adjustment is critical to proper function.

Here's a couple short videos on adjusting the air intake for my CPR skimmer:


Part 2:


Sunshine can you adjust your skimmer so it's working better? Is it working okay now? What kind of skimmer is it?

 

[parrotchute]

I'm not so sure we're looking at this correctly. Besides the flow, which is a minor, correctable issue, I think Sunshine is really stressing about the appearance/health of her tank, which is the ammonia and the algae.

I've been there Sunshine, and it's really discouraging when you see beautiful tanks out there and you're spending all this time and yours looks crummy.

Got any pics of your tank? I'd suggest taking a look at the quality of water that's going into the tank. Maybe you need new filters or start running phosban and/or charcoal. Hang in there, hopefully we can help your tank look beautiful again.
Alex

 

[Sunshine]

I came home, the Bubble Anemone went half way under a rock, my salt was at 1.027, don't know how it got that high. Checked the ammonia, it was at 0. Weird. When I do a water change, I suck the sand up a little to get the diatoms and algae. There was a lot of brown crap when I suck it up, will that make the ammonia spike ? I did a water change, added some StressZyme. Hopefully lowered the salt, I'm letting it circulate than I'll check the salt again. I'll take my water to the LFS when I go so he can check it.

 

[fastrd400]

You can also turn your lights off for a couple days to help kill off that algae. I had to do the same thing at one point. Once the algae was gone everything else was easier to manage and get under control.

 

[Sunshine]

The skimmer is a Bubble-Magus. It is working good. The RO system is only a few months old. I had charcoal in there for awhile. Here are some pics of the tank.