Green/Grey Clumpy Crushed Coral

[Shino74]

OK help, this is driving me mad, for the past two weeks I have been having to scoop away the top layer of my crushed coral due to it being clumpy and grey/green.
My readings are as follows:-
Nitrates 0
Nitrites 0
Phosphate 0
Calcium 475
Magnesium 1275
Sg 1026
Ammonia 0.25

All my corals are fine and growing well as are my 4 fish (2 Clowns, ! Six Line and 1 Yellow Tang)

Correct me if I am wrong but the above seem fine.

So these bits of crushed stuff that have formed into clumps....do I remove? and how on earth do I correct this?

Would a picture be of assistance or the above a good enough description. Someone please help put me out of my misery!

Steve

[Shino74]

help....anyone......someone......please

[Shino74]

Please?

[ahullsb]

How long has your tank been running? Your ammonia should be 0 unless you are still cycling. Can you get a picture? That would help immensely. You might be better off slowly switching from crushed coral to sand.

[Shino74]

Thanks for the reply. The tank has been running for nearly 2 years now! So changing from Coral to Sand is the answer?

[Shino74]

OK So have just returned home from work and now my live rock is turning white....god help!

[-=Efrain=-]

Pictures may help..

[Shino74]

Ok here goes.









And now the white covering on my coraline on live rock.





Hope these can help you guys stop me taking a hammer and smashing my beautiful work to pieces!

[Shino74]

Bump!

[realest]

I am not sure in regards of the rock turning white. But for the crushed coral sand. I had the same issue. But my was all over the sand (only where the light can hit).

I have setup a fuge and 1 month later. It is all gone!

Hope that helps!

[ljosh]

You really should not have any ammonia in your tank. It is dangerous at any level.

What is your alkalinity?

It looks like your coraline algae is bleaching.

You might want to consider bringing your MG up to around 1400ppm.

Some other system info would be helpful

What does your filtration consist of?

Skimmer?

Carbon?

How often are you changing water?

[Shino74]

Thanks for the responses, further info for you.

Fluval 405 running filter wool and phosphate remover...no carbon.

Skimmer Deltec MCE300

Lighting - Aqua Medic Ocean Light 150T (1 MH 2 x T5)

2 Tunze 6025 Powerheads

2 Year set up

No alkalinity test (Will purchase tomorrow)

I do have a Mg boost (Tropic Marine)

Should I also by a vacuum and suck away the green clumped algae??

How do I remove ammonia?

Water changes 20 - 25% fortnightly

1.5 Litre evaporation top up daily (RO/DI)

Hope that helps.

[ljosh]

I would remove the clumps but you want to becareful disturbing the sand bed because you could make the ammonia worse. It looks like you have a lot of build up of stuff in there. What do you have for a cuc?

I would try and verify the ammonia test with your LFS or another kit. Since you say the corals and fish are doing fine.

The bleaching of the coraline could be caused by low alkalinity.

Your system sounds like you have decent flow and filtration.

What size is the tank?

How often do you clean the fluval floss?

How old are your bulbs?

[Shino74]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I will take a sample down to my LFS for ammonia and alkalinity.

Tank is 45g.

The filter wool is changed every 4 weeks and I have changed the sponges to new ones about 2 weeks ago.

The bulbs are as old as the light - 6 months.

Cuc consists of 2 Cleaner Shrimps and approx 10 Turbo's which like to spend all their time on the back glass!

I cant believe it either all my fish and corals are thriving tank looks so unsightly though with that mess at the bottom!

Thanks Again.

[ljosh]

You may want to consider switching out your substrate to sand. I have no experience with it myself but lots of people advise against using CC because it traps debris easily.

Another thing to consider is that you fluval is trapping a lot of debris that would be better off removed by your skimmer. When it gets trapped in your fluval it rots away for a couple of weeks fueling algae. Where as in the skimmer it is completely removed before it rots. Fluvals make excellent FW filters but you may be better off running carbon and GFO in an inexpensive TLF phosban reactor. With enough pounds of Live rock the Fluval should not be required at all. How much LR do you have in there currently?

You should get some snails that will clean the sand bed like maybe Nassarius snails. They will also keep it stirred because the like to go into the sand as well. This should help with clumping. Keeping a variety of snails instead of one type would help all around. I like micro blue hermit crabs as well. Some here say they are predatorial but I have have no problem with them or red legged hermits.

[Shino74]

OK I do wish I had gone with sand to start with, Ill post a question on how to change and over what period etc.
Below is a pic of my tank so you can gauge ow much live rock is in it!



Thanks again

[ljosh]

Thats is 45G UK?

[Shino74]

Yes

[Deb91]

Man you need so major help. It really looks like you let that go for a long time! I don't even know what to tell you but at least it will bump you up again. I saw your other post about switching over from coral to sand but I didn't think it was this bad!!! Good Luck!!!

[stevelkaneval]

when i changed from cc to sand. i took all the rock out(put in a rubbermaid container w/water), took all water out(but i didnt disturb the cc, only water) then scooped all the cc out, it smelled like a mix of a loaded diaper, sulfer, and haveing your nose buried in a skimmer collection cup. so be prepared, put new sand in(if you get regular sand there should be no cycle), then i put in 30% new saltwater and filled the rest of the tank with old water, then lr back in then corals. everything went well in my tank no new cycle, like i said i didnt use live sand. you can get a cup or two from a fellow reefer and that will make the dead sand live.

like i said before DONT DISTURB THE SAND when your takeing water out.

[FishFace28]

I hate to tell you, but I've got sand substrate, and I've got a similar situation on my hands. My sand is clumpy and brown/green icky. I've had this problem before, and a diamond goby is always my solution. My problem is that my tank isn't big enough to support a goby all the time. So, they clean me up, but eventually they get skinny. I don't know if you can have a diamond goby in cc or not. Does anyone know?

[Shino74]

The thing I cannot understand is why my corals and fish seem so untroubled by this?
in fact my corals are thriving, its just the unsightly mess on the cc.

[ahullsb]

I think you you could add quite a bit more rock for added filtration. It seems that your flow is good enough, so I'm guessing you have a very high nutrient load or something? I do think sand would give you far less problems. A phospate reactor, might help a little. A refugium is something that many people are using as well. If you haven't been testing your alkalinity, it would explain the rocks turning white. The coraline will come back if you keep ca, mg, and alk within acceptable ranges.

[Jocephus]

I would add some hermits to stir the sand bed/CC. You can't effectively use nassarius snails due to the size of the crushed coral.

Also, do you have an urchin?

[Shino74]

Thanks again to all that have given me some advice, No there is no urchin in here!