packman9111 June 13, 2004 June 13, 2004 just returned from vacation to find my tank so green that i can't tell who's alive and who's not. i made the mistake in the begining of using tap. system's been going for about a month and tank has cycled. Amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0 (which suprised me), PH around 8.2. I haven't tested other params. the tank is 26g BF, 45lbs fiji LR fm Marine Depot Live and assortment of snails, herms and one blue damsel. Started w/seaclone which was pulling lots of junk, but upgraded to remora which just added before leaving for vacation. Both skimmers were running while I was gone. Also just invested in RO and only had a chance to make one 3-4g change with RO water before I left. I had ditom when I left and knew the cleaning crew were having trouble keeping up. Made another 3-4g WC when I got home and mixed about 8g more water for tomorrow and plan to only run the lights for a couple of hours tomorrow. Is there anything else I should be doing? BTW not that it really matters, but only the remora is running now. any help appreciated - rick
michaelg June 13, 2004 June 13, 2004 Sounds like you are on the right track for straightening things out. Can you post up you nitrate and phosphate levels in the tank. Running a phosphate remover might be useful- use phosban or ROWaphos. What lighting do you have? Direct sunlight hit the tank?
packman9111 June 14, 2004 Author June 14, 2004 No direct sunlight. Light is 130w Dual daylight 16,700k/10,000k // Dual Actinic 420nm/460nm by Current. Did about 50% WC today and will do again tomorrow. Nitrate is near 0 but will check phosphate later. Tks.
Grav June 14, 2004 June 14, 2004 I would avoid massive water changes. Sometimes they can be part of the problem. This is just part of the cycle, keep the lights down (8 hrs a day) clean the filters and just let it take time. Funny story, this has NOTHING to do with you... something just reminded me. I was once called to help my Boss's girl friends FW tank. She had paid someone to set up a 180 in her office and a month in was having a single cell alge bloom. When I asked how long the lights were on she said: "24 / 7" She was scary, yer gonna be fine. Phil
packman9111 June 14, 2004 Author June 14, 2004 The goal of the massive wc is to remove all non-RO water. Think the tap water I was using before the RO could still be providing nutrients for the algae. Thanks again Rick
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