Fishmonger70's 75 Gal Reef Journal
- Thread starter Fishmonger70
- Start date
I'm about ready to give up. Over the past 2 weeks my tank has developed an outbreak of brown algae all over my rock, subsrtate, and glass. Also my nitrate level won't drop below 20 ppm. I thiunk the 2 are related but I can't seem to shake the problem. I've done water changes up the ass, tried cleaning everything, and my CUC doesn't even seem to touch the stuff. I am getting so p'd off!
its normal for new tanks to have brown algae and it should clear up.... about the nitrates not dropping below 20 for one try a differant testkit and also do larger water changes... still no corals right? if not try leaving the lights out for 3 or 4 days and that should help with the algae.... u cant give up without a fight! 
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I bought a new Nitrate test kit and that wasn't the problem. My other SW tank tests fine with both kits. The thing about doing a larger water change at once is the water itself. I only have enough containers to haul 15 gallons at a time from the market. the only other option is to buy a big plastic garbage can at Walmart and make 2 trips to the store to get water and mix it all in the garbage can with my salt mix instead of 5 gal pails. I will try leaving the lights off for several days too. Too bad cause the coraline on my rocks was just starting to grow.
i only have 3 X 5g jugs so thats 15g and i like to do 30g water changes so what i do is get my 15g first than come home and remove 30g of water from the tank and add the 15g i just got than rush back to the lfs and get the other 15g... lucky for me thers a lfs about 5 mins away that sells NSW for .50/gallon so its not too bad but it is definitly a PITA
It was just kind of sudden. I went out of town for a weekend and left a somewhat clean tank and when I go home there was brown algae all over the place. It took over in the 2 days I was gone.
Tre, is the water you get from your LFS premixed or just regular RO? My LFS I believe just has regular RO at around .50/gal so I just go to the grocery store where it's .39/gal and mix it when I get home. I actually have 2 5's and a 7, so I can haul 17gals at once.
Quaddity, I live in a small townhouse and have limited space. No room for a RO system of my own.
Tre, is the water you get from your LFS premixed or just regular RO? My LFS I believe just has regular RO at around .50/gal so I just go to the grocery store where it's .39/gal and mix it when I get home. I actually have 2 5's and a 7, so I can haul 17gals at once.
Quaddity, I live in a small townhouse and have limited space. No room for a RO system of my own.
i actually use NSW = natural sea water i have a ro/di unit that i use for my topoff... only because its convenient but im in the process of setting up a mixing station where my watechanges will all be done by the flip of a switch and at that time ill switch over to prolly reef crystals cause the price is right
i have a ro/di unit that i use for my topoff... only because its convenient but im in the process of setting up a mixing station where my watechanges will all be done by the flip of a switch and at that time ill switch over to prolly reef crystals cause the price is right
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