120 gallon having issues... Help!

[AlgaeNator]

Ahhh tap water! Prolly FULL of phosphates depending on your location and water quality could be very high. (Agriculture areas can have lots of phosphates from farm runoffs.) Def agree 86 the Tap water, do water changes ASAP 50% to start and maybe in another two weeks another 50%.

Mmm... also...Instant Ocean? Is it Instant ocean REEF Chrystals now?? I see a bucket there... Well if so then....there's your problem! lo.... JK. maybe not, but you should be aware they have had quality control issues in the past, I would be WARY of using that product. Go with SeaChem or Oceanic salt mixes. Some have had no problems with I Ocean others stay clear of it..I have heard people having problems with that Oceanic salt mix a few years in the past... Bad Batches with too high phophates and or HIGH ALK killing the tank and or causing EXACT problems like this. Not saying this is your cause, but could be.. Do a phosphate check, it bet they are high

http://www.reefland.com/forum/reef-aqua ... blems.html

I have had good success with both Oceanic and SeaChem, you might consider switching salts too, and by ALL MEANS as other say only USE RO/DI WATER.

SM is also right about even the SAND and LR having and leaching phosphates, and also he is right about your tank being young...still cycling....

Do a water change with a different salt product using RO water.. If you cannnot make it BUY it at local water store. Just make sure its RO.. if you can get RO/DI ((de ionized- de ionization helps remove excess minerals) RO/DI is even better to remove the minerals (most water stores dont always use DI filters) Some will hook you up with temp bottles too if you give them right back.. I have a local store that will DELIVER me 10 5GA bottles I dump in clean new 40 Gallon trash can with new salt, then i aerate, then use small pump to pump back into tank.

Salt Prices are pretty much the same too. Might have to buy online if your local store doesnt carry SeaChem or Oceanic.. Try marinedepot.com

Also, your tank is also pretty young and you can have spikes of growth like this early on no matter what you do so give it some time, youll be fine

[rahjelli]

Update! I use reef crystals, the IO is the first salt I tried but I have since went to reef crystals, I kept the bucket because its handy lol. Thanks to the advice here my algae in the tank is gone from the glass, some is still on the rocks (light green haze on the rock, no hair) and I have since changed the screen out to 2x2 pancaked screen roughed with a hole saw. I will post pics. I also changed the reflectors to 10.5 inch which spreads the light more. I can literally SEE pods crawling all over my glass now, literally overnight, its unbelievable. there are also new "things" showing themselves from my live rock, I always had 1 polyp type but now there are 3. I will try to get some clear pics up soon. looks like I am om the right track, just need to populate slowly. Thanks all again

[ChrisD]

Great to hear things are improving. Sorry for the length of post - apologies if it's saying stuff you already know but even then it can be nice to get some reassurance.

I just wanted to echo the thoughts re the tank being young. It's only 5 weeks since live rock went in to the system (yes - I know this feels like an eternity ). Many tanks are still going through their first cycle at that point. I can't imagine the tap water start will have helped speed up this process. To what degree it may have impacted is difficult to say without an expert (not me!) looking at a full chemical analysis of the water. I would have thought any residual chemicals (Chlorine derivatives?) used in the water treatment plant wouldn't help the bacterial colony in the live rock. Albeit a number of weeks on it may be worth running some carbon and/or something like polyfilter for a while to make sure any compunds still there is stripped out.

Have you been monitoring Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate for their respective spikes? I'm sure the scrubber will suppress these to some extent if it is exporting algae (maybe this is not the best thing at cycling stage? Will start a thread on that I think) but you should still be looking for ammonia, and nitrate to be dropping to undetectable to show that the biological filter is up to speed before adding livestock.

You don't mention how much the live rock in the system weighs. Remember the 1 to 2 lb per gallon guidelines (dependant on planned stocking level) and that it will be a while (months, not weeks) for your dry rock to colonise. So stock really steadily. If you don't have the total weight of rock requried in the tank now (with some allowance for rock that corals come in on) my advice would be to get it now so it cycles before more livestock is in there. Adding more rock later can kick off another (mini) cycle. IF you have very local access to well cured live rock it clearly minimises this risk.

:!: Personal view warning - based on my opinion and approach, not 100 research papers and 40 years experience.... :!: . When stocking, for the first 6 months while the rock is colonising, you could base stock limitations on the amount of cured live rock put in and forget about the dry rock used. So, if you used 40lb of live rock it would normally support a 40gl system and size the fish accordingly. Still stock steadily (several weeks to a month between additions) up to that level

I can but dream of a 120gl (mines about 50 plus a 10g sump - most I can fit / afford). I'm sure if you are patient (think first do later!) and stay well informed it will be an awesome tank. Best of luck (we all need some :lol: )

[routestomarket]

To be honest only really usefull for the UK Scrubbers here but I did find a fantastic link for United Utilites which you put your postcode in and it gives you the FULL breakdown of your tapwater!

http://www.unitedutilities.co.uk/waterquality.htm

Think i might even start a new thread!