# Few Questions



## MightyMouse (May 15, 2007)

Hi, I still consider myself fairly new to the hobby .. I've had my saltwater setup for nearly a year now but have only been adding fish in the past few months because of a water clearifier wiping out everything but my damsel (I think that was back in May). Anyway, my fish are doing great, I have the original damsel still, a Gold banded maroon clown, 3 Condies, 1 algae blenny, 5 of the original blue legged hermit crab, 1 serpent star and 1 maroon star (very small). The Annemones are growing pretty quickly and everyone seems to be very healthy. The clown, though, experienced a rough day yesterday. I was out of town and my wife screwed up every single thing possible. She didn't empty the skimmer (which was a POS anyway) and ended up just removing it, she turned the day light on 12000k, but not the actinic, and she forgot to add water to the tank, which caused filteration to completely stop one day (well, some filteration, the wet/dry stopped, but the canister still did it's job). The brown algae growth was down right scary when I got home on Saturday, so I started to clean yesterday.. First thing done was the removal of "the castle" This is an aquarium castel with lots of places to swim in and out of and the clown preferred to stay hidden in the tallest tower at night. The thing was covered with algae so I pulled it out to clean it, but didn't get around to cleaning it. I used my hand to scoop up as much of the algae as I could, but it wasn't working..... I finally decided it's time to rid myself of the sand-bed and go with crushed coral or something that won't get sucked up if I use my tank vacuum. I had my father-in-law bring a 20Gal tank he has in storage so I can move everyone into that while I redo my tank. I figured I can syphon off 20 gal of water from my original tank and then move everyone over, drain the original tank, remove the sand, clean the glass, move the canister filter to the other tank and then put the crushed coral and everything else back in the original tank and yada yada yada.. "getting to the point".. I didn't actually do this because when I netted my clown fish the poor guy fought the net so hard that he got all four spines on his face caught in the net. I had to bring the net to the top of the tank and hold him while I worked his face free. After about 10 minutes of this I finally got him loose. I felt awful about this, as I'm sure he must have been afraid and hurting. I figured putting him in the "holding tank" was a bad idea at this point so I gave up on that and just scooped as much of the algae as I could and then sifted the sand as best as I could by hand. The clown had white marks on him as if I rubbed his oily coat off and it left a film. later in the night that all went away, but this morning I woke up and his tail fin looks like a sweater that began to unravel. It's "stringly" looking towards the back and just looks a little beat up. All night he was sitting in the same spot, just floating near on of the condis and almost touching the live rock. Is this a sign of stress or was it because he didn't have his normal hiding place and my over active damsel decided to attack? The clown fish seems to be doing well. He still seems to be hanging out in the same place, but rushed to the glass when he saw me, ate normal, and is still kicking up sand with his tail like he normally does. Any ideas?

The other question is this. I mentioned my POS skimmer earlier in this post. I have another one that came in the mail while I was gone. It's a Berlin 250 classic. It seems to be working and collecting some nasty foam, but here's the problem. The pump that came with it seemed to have been damaged beyond repair or use during shipping. The pump that I was using for the other skimmer is WAY too small for this thing so the only other pump I have is the one in my wet/dry filter. So, I have it setup like this until I get another pump for the skimmer. 

fluval 303 canister by itself cleaning the water on one end of the tank, the overflow box on the other side. Water's going into the wet/dry and the pump is pumping that filtered water into the protein skimmer, which skims and then drops it back into the tank. It seems to be my only viable option at this point, since i only have one pump at the moment. Will this cause any problems if I leave it like that for a few days at most?
I was also wondering if I should take my fluval and move it down to the wet/dry area and let it "refilter" the already filtered water?

Oh, I do have a powerhead in the tank as well (just in case anyone wanted to know about that as well).
Please let me know what you think.. Thanks.


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## CollegeReefer (Sep 1, 2006)

I have read this thread a couple of times and there are a few things i am confused about. First off are you saying that you had this major algae bloom in one day? Also do you have live rock or do you only have the ornament? 

As for your clown he could just be severaly stressed but without pictures i can't give you a solid awnser.

As for filtration i am a little confused on what you all have. You have two protein skimmers, a wet dry, and a canister. What are you using for biolocal filtartaion. 

Keep the sand, crushed coral will/can cause more algae problems.

As for your algae problems, what you actually are having is not algae at all but actually a diatom bloom. I have to run so look it up online and you will read more on what it is and what causes it.


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## MightyMouse (May 15, 2007)

I have 1 protein skimmer, had a crappy one, but replaced it recently. not sure how long it took for the "bloom" to occur, as I was out of town for a week. I'm guessing it just got worse and worse every day. I have some live rock, but not a lot. I am using bio balls in my wet/dry filter and the ceramic things from fluval in my canister. 
So, I have 1 wet dry filter and 1 canister filter. The system was running sole on the canister and i picked up the wet/dry filter about 2 weeks ago and I don't want to remove my canister for a few months. 
I will do as you suggested and look it up and find out what's causing it and how to get rid of it. Thank you for your help thus far. I will take a picture of the Clown when he comes out of hiding (I cleaned his castel and put it back, so that's where he's staying for now..


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## MightyMouse (May 15, 2007)

So, after reading up on it I can assume the diatom bloom was caused by my protein skimmer being disconnected and part of my filter being knocked out also. It seems to have not come back at all today. 
My clown fish's tail looks like it's back to normal now that he has his home/castle back.. I guess he was a little stressed from the ordeal yesterday.
Thanks for the help.


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