Slowly starting a salty tank

[Andrew_B]

Skimmer was doing great the first few days. I have the water level inside skimmer at just below the collection cup and it has been steady. First few days there was maybe 3-4" of foam above the water level. Woke up this morning to see no foam above the water level. Does that mean there's nothing to skim? Or something wrong with the tuning of the skimmer. I'll work on posting a short video of it running

[johnnymisty]

Nothing wrong with the skimmer just nothing to skim mine does it like that pull a bunch of crap then nothing you can.turn it off for a few hours feed turn it back on and should start skimming again or just wait it'll pick back up soon enough

[Andrew_B]

That's good news. I guess Id rather have it have nothing to skim than skim too much. My bio load is still minimal no anyway, so it makes sense.

[Andrew_B]

[Andrew_B]

About to order up some new bulbs

Currently in fixture:
-Front-
10,000k
420/460
10,000k
420/460
10,000k
420/460

I'm looking for more blue in the tank. This is what I was thinking

-Front-
ATI Blue+
ATI True Actinic
ATI Blue+
ATI Purple Plus
ATI Blue+
ATI True Actinic

Would I lose/gain growth? Any thoughts or anything I should switch out?

[Andrew_B]

Finally added some new lifestock to the tank. A small clown and a Bubble Anemone. I went into Pet City on 1960/45 for the first time last night and it's a nice little store. Some nice saltwater stock with good prices.

[SunnyHouTX]

Video set to private boss man. Can't view it :(

[Andrew_B]

Fix'd, but an old video anyway!

[Andrew_B]

Well following my flatworm treatment, I got hammered with hair algae and none of the corals looked good at all. Fish were fine and still eating, but lost a shrimp last night and still none of my cerith snails are moving. Picked out most of my snails last week thinking they died from flatworm toxins. Ordered more snails, and these new ones havent been moving yet and it's been roughly a week. So today I decided to do a soft tank reset. I drained probably 60% of the water in the tank. Took out the rock and siphoned the gravel. I scrubbed the rock with a toothbrush, dipped it all into coral dip and put back into the tank. Did the same with my corals.

Put new GFO into my reactor. Replaced the purigen in my second reactor and running carbon to try and get any left over flatworm toxins in the water. Everything is filled back up and going to play the waiting game now. Also, noticed in my refugium, that my chaeto is a darker green color instead of its normal bright green and it's pretty full in the compartment. Should I take out a couple handfulls so it has room to grow more?

[Andrew_B]

Tested my tank water and reading 0 ammonia/nitrates/phosphates. pH is around 8.2. Corals all look terrible and pissed off. Fish seem fine and eating still. Skimmer is going crazy and catching black garbage, maybe its just extra debris from my carbon. Taking a bottle of my water to Miguel on Sunday so he can properly test it. Is there some kind of test to see if there are still flatworm toxins in my tank or the flatworm exit itself? Since my last dose, I did 3x 20% water changes, and yesterday was about a 60% water change. I replaced my GFO media, carbon, cleaned my skimmer, replaced my micron sock and sponge in my sump thinking maybe the toxins are getting caught up in those. How often should I change carbon? Should I change it every 2-3 days, or more often? Couple snails are moving again, but most are still.

[Andrew_B]

Update: Everything seems stable again. Did a rescape last night and took out most of the dry rock I started with and kept only the established live rock. Seeing if that helps keep my phosphates in check. I'm real happy with it! From now on, I'm only going to run filter socks for a day or two after water changes. Much longer than that, I seem to get algae blooms. I'm running the bio-pellets only, and turned off my GFO. I have the pellet pump intake after my skimmer, and the return before my skimmer. Hopefully it helps. Now I can actually try and get coral growth instead of worrying solely on keeping algae in check

[semper]

It's looking good. Glad you are back on track.

[nano reef heaven]

Re: Slowly starting a salty tank

Nice

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[Geral]

I just went and read this 36 pages , man how the tank look now, really good info in here long thread but very usefull
Is helping me a lot in my first salty tank too!!!