Ok, I have made many mistakes & have invested more cash because of these shortcommings on my tank. Its been hard lessons, but I will still proceed forward to accomplish my goal of a beautifull reef tank. With that being said, have mainly used this forum for all of my reef tank knowledge. Thanks in advance for all the continuing support.
My 46g bow has been up since march of 2007. I have had numerous issues that have been or are being dealt with still.
Water parameters:
sg 1.025, ph 8.2, am 0, no2 0, no3 0, mg 1140ppm, kh 60ppm according to hagen master test kit. ca 430 by salifert.
I have a few snails & crabs, & 1 peppermint shrimp whom I havent seen in 3 days, but have seen 2 translucent molts on ph's.
I have been fighting hair & bubble algae almost as long as tank has been up.
I have been reluctant to purchase any fish/coral till these issues get resolved.
After researching some more here, I learned something again today. Sorry for noobish mistake, but am still a reef noob.
Thought I was doing proper maintenance to tank. Have an ato with ro/di, do 10% water changes once a week, check water parameters every time, have a sump/fuge, & now a quality skimmer. Clean glass/ph's.........here it comes.......Never have vacuumed sand bed. Never knew I had to vacuum bed.
Ok, with that said....(Goes and hides in corner).....Do you all think I have to much LR....about 80 to 90lbs in tank?
2nd question about fuge. The fuge portion of my sump has sand/LR rubble & Chaeto. The Chaeto doesnt look real good, but is not real bad either. It covers the top area of fuge, & lets no light to sand/rubble underneath it. Also, just noticed detrius build up all over underneath. Should I take sand/rubble out?
I would think there would be more coraline in tank by now, but alas there is very little on tank, & some seems to be fading on LR.
Here's a few pix of algae im fighting:
Bubble algae...best pix can get with my camera.
Unknown....
Any help is greatly appreciated, & thanks for taking a look.
Also need to know what everyone uses to check alkalinity with?
Judging my water parameters, I see there are some things being out of wack. Have Tech M-mg, but really do not know where to start to get chemistry back in shape.
Dose mg to get it back to acceptable level, then work on ca/kh?
Thanks again for help all.