lighting

[merlin0883]

still having a little trouble with cyanobacteria. long spine urchin taking care of most, but not all. have the large compact fluorescent light system: 2 65watt whites and 2 65watt actinics with lunar lights. how many hours of light do the coral actually need? been running 10hrs because not the strongest lights out there, but cut it down to 8 hrs. can I get away with running them even less? have great flow, a backpack skimmer, a tornado skimmer by aquarium systems, and a wet/dry cannister. I posted about this a while back, but it's still a problem. also, hard time keeping nitrates below 20ppm. all coral doing fine, or they at least seem to be: sea whip, open brain, zoas, shrooms, red and black sun polyps, ricordea, xenia, star polyps, finger leather, spaghetti leather. all still growing rapidly, not just barely alive. any further suggestions, even if purely speculation, most appreciated. also, could leaving the lunar lights on at night help the cyano grow???

[Bill S]

Tank size, other parms?

A couple ways to keep nitrates down: Feed less, export them (skimmer &/or macro algae), change water.

I get some cyano sometimes too - good flow will keep it in check.

[MissT]

feed less, at least for a while, siphon it out during weekly water changes and cut the lights by another hour for a little while. If it just keeps coming back, to no avail... use ChemiClean.

[Jeff]

replace the bio-balls in the wet dry with live rock rubbleand clean out the filter floss material at least twice a week. get a larger skimmer and more flow in the tank so that you can continue feeding as much as you do. last but not least you can get chemi-clean for the knock out punch.

[merlin0883]

55 gal. shallow sand bed. much live rock. few fish. feed fish only 3X per week. feed coral once a week-target feed DT's, cyclops eeze, zoo plan. rotate these each week. Give brain frozen krill when I feed. He gets a couple down.

[merlin0883]

replace the bio-balls in the wet dry with live rock rubbleand clean out the filter floss material at least twice a week. get a larger skimmer and more flow in the tank so that you can continue feeding as much as you do. last but not least you can get chemi-clean for the knock out punch.
have no filter floss material. all trays just have the bio balls. I like the rubble idea. will try when i find some for cheap. don't already have enough to fill trays, and don't really want to crush one of my rocks.

[MissT]

just make sure that you either use all cured liverock to replace the bio balls or that you only replace with uncured rock at a ratio of 5-10% of the total liverock weight in your tank so not to cause a major re-cycle. i.e. 50 lbs liverock in your tank, only add up to 5 lbs. uncured. Best to get the cured stuff though since you're already having a bit of a nitrate issue...

[erikharrison]

turn off the lights for 72 hours. Do a large water change before and after. Feed before the water changes. You should see a large decimation of the algae. The key though, as stated above is to stop the cause. How big is your clean up crew?

[Headless_donkey]

Split up your water change. Do 1/2 water changes twice a week.

[merlin0883]

As my clean-up crew, I have a large red brittle star, long spine urchin, one cuke(6 inches), 7 nessarius snails, 6 other algae eating snails, 1 emerald crab, one sally lightfoot crab, one marine catfish(the one shaped like a sea man), 3 very small hermits, and 1 lg hermit. The urchin actually plows through the cyano, as well as the coraline, though. So far, he works better than anything else I've tried. Any thoughts as to what else I should get, or if what I have is detrimental for any reason?

[alton]

Blue Life Red Slime Control and do water changes once a week. I may get it once a year in one or both of my tanks. I use to use Chemi Clean But I tried the Blue Life and like it better. I think I get Cyno because I probably get lazy and don't change my RO filters enough?

[MissT]

You should probably get more snails and hermits. I'd do like 15 more snails and 5-10 more hermits. They'll help keep everything cleaner and hopefully once you get the cyano under control they can help to fight it coming back. As for types, Astrea snails are really good cleaners but I really like the Ceriths and Nassarius for their sand sifting efficiency and Nassarius are fast little guys that really pull their weight and then some. For the hermits, I'm partial to the scarlets.

[MissT]

"I think I get Cyno because I probably get lazy and don't change my RO filters enough?"

That's one thing that can really have an affect on your water parameters. If the TDS coming out of your RO unit gets too high then you are getting behind before you ever even start your water change. Replacing the cartridges on your RO unit are the only way you can ensure it's performing well enough to warrant what you paid for the thing.

[crossxfire2]

what's wrong with getting another urchin?