# My Tank Revived, Sort of, HELP!



## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

Last summer I bought my brothers ten gallon aquarium. Since then I have been taking extreame care of this tank. Well actually the last few months I have been much more concentrated on my music and sports. Unfortunatlly during this time I did not keep my water or salinity levels constant. So now I have red algea, my candy-cane coral looks like it is almost dead, my snake polyps have once again stopped extending and I cannot find one of my red mushrooms. Last week I began taking care of my tank on a daily basis; I check the water level and salinity everyday and kept them almost exactly constant. Here are my levels that were tested today.

Salinity: 30

Water level: At the top

PH and the other levels: Cannot find my kit:-( 

Please if you know any way to help me revive my tank except for daily Zooplankton. There is still green on the edges of my candy-cane polyp, do you think that adding Photoplankton can bring it back.
Thanks for everything!


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

I need parameters first, pH, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, alk, calcium. phyto won't fix your problems, a steady pH and salinity reading will. Also what is your lighting? filtration? tank stats?


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

The thing is I did not feed it during that month and it has released the Zooxanthellae which give it color and most of its nutrition so I was thinking that is I added photoplankton which includes Zooxanthellae


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

That won't help unless you fix all the other stuff that made it bleach in the first place, and lack of feeding isn't that cause.


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## cheseboy (Aug 5, 2005)

Some people have never feed their corals and they do fine.


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

Doing research, I have found that most of "bleaching" actually is just the release of Zooxanthellae within a coral.


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

Pinguin 400 on medium water flow
Standard Allglass aquariums florescent 10 light
Some iderecet sunlight
2 Aristones
PH 8.2
The rest I will test and add to this post in a minuite


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## cheseboy (Aug 5, 2005)

Ok, well it is very apparent that your brother did not do much research. Corals need to be kept under *Much* more stronger lighting. That's probably one reason they are bleaching. Not sure but your nitrates are probably high because of your HOB filter. Also do you even have a protein skimmer! That is important for such a small tank.


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

I am hoping to get a small air stone operated protien skimmer this weekend. What kind of lights do I need to get, new tubes hopefully.


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## cheseboy (Aug 5, 2005)

No not new tubes. Air driven protein skimmers are O.K but I personally would go for venturi skimmers. For the lighting I would recommend 4 or 5 WPG at the very least. You have about 2 WPG. To find WPG divide the watts of lighting by the number of gallons in your tank.

Here's something nice. even comes with moon lights.

http://cgi.ebay.com/20-Satellite-2x-40-Watt-Moon-Light-Aquarium-Fixture_W0QQitemZ7742228622QQcategoryZ46314QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Oh yeah and you'll want to stick with Power compact.


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

How would I run a timer because I take frequent weekend vacations, but I would still like my moon light on a cycle

Seperate power cords never mind


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

Actually it is funny that you suggest this light because I told my brother about this one you suggested and he said that his LFS sold him one that is still unused the other weekend and he is going to trade me for my All Glass florecent and just buy a plant tube for his 10gal community planted tank


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## leveldrummer (May 27, 2005)

timer!! hey i just found a pretty cool digital timer, you might want to look for one, litte expensive as far as timers go, but worth it imo... it has 8 plugs, 4 are set by timer, and 4 are always on, of the 4 on a timer, 2 are always on when the other 2 are off, then they switch. its very handy, i run my whites and actinics, and my moon and sump light, and they just switch. and the skimmer, heaters, and return pump are always running, very very cool.


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

do you have a link?


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## fishn00b (Jun 10, 2005)

I don't know if this is the exact one that leveldrummer was talking about... but here is one that is pretty much like it:

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=SE1171


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## leveldrummer (May 27, 2005)

actually thats the exact one, thanks alot noob, saves me some trouble searching...


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## fishn00b (Jun 10, 2005)

Lol, well how about that. Any time, my friend.


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

I already looked it up on drs foster... and the digital one was only $27 MUCH cheaper. You just need to shop around


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## fishfingers (Apr 10, 2006)

It's going to be really hard for us to pin point the problem until you get us all your parameters. I'm sure that your lights are one of the major problems but due to your lack of time for the tank (because you've been busy) then it's possible all your parameters are out of whack. If your parameters have been fluctuating this can cause a lot stress for your livestock. My first suggestion would be to buy a better light, then stock up with all the test kits you should have for a reef tank, these are:

Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate
Akilinity
PH
Kh
Calcium
Phosphate

And I think that's it. Someone chime in if I've forgotten something. You say that you are experiencing red algae growth. This leads me to think that you've got high nitrates, high phostphates or a high level of nutrient in your tank. High nitrates and phosphates can negatively affect corals, and this could also be a problem. Usually when red aglae starts to growth it's a sign that something could be wrong. How often do you do water changes? I'd suggest doing a couple of them over the next few days to try and bring these levels down. Another thing you might like to think about is raising your salinity. For fish only 30 would be ok, but for corals they should have a salinity of around 36 (thats the salinity of the ocean). That being said...it seems that every country has a different preferred salinity. For example American's have lower salinity tanks than Australians (don't ask me why). I personally keep my S.G at 1.027 as this is the S.G of the Great Barrier Reef, where most of my livestock comes from.

So even though you are going to buy better lights this may not fix/help the problem at all. We really need all your parameters!


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## leveldrummer (May 27, 2005)

get that skimmer you were talking about, that will cut your nitrates way down.


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## madman3000 (Mar 29, 2006)

I might go get a new test kit and the protien skimmer this week


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