[VIC]

I am hoping someone can give me a "heads-up" on this problem. I recently got sucked into taking care of my dentists reef tank. It is a 48 gallon with live rock and a 5 gallon sump, protein skimmer and a chiller.
There are 3 fish in it. A clown, a six line wrasse anf a watchman goby. Plenty of snails and crabs and a hawaian blue starfish. The sand bed is only about an inch deep with no plenum.
There is a tremendous amount of hair algae as well as nitrates. I have tried massive water changes as well as putting nitrate removal pads to help. All to no avail. The hair algae grows back as fast as I take it off! There is hair algae growing on the sand!
I am not in a position to rip the tank apart and my guess is that do to the non-existant sand bed there is no way for the tank to complete the process. I need some help. I was thinking of possible installing a trickle filter as the sump is an old trickle filter box and I would just have to install the bio balls. Or mechanical removal is always a way to go.
Any help my compadres could offer would be really appreciated. This dentist is stuck and this tank as the focal point of his waiting room is really hurting! Thanks
Vic

[FishTechie]

here are a few questions that might help after answered...

first off,

how old are the lights?
have they ever been replaced?
what are they feeding and how much?
how many filter pads are in the tank?
have they been cleaned regularly?


with those three questions answered we may get on the right track, also you may want to try ripping out as much algae by hand and adding an emerald crab....

[VIC]

The lights are at least a year old. (I don't know if they were ever changed). The fish are fed about 3x a week, flake food as far as I know. There are 2 filter pads in the overflow box and they are cleaned once a week. I hope this helps and I appreciate any advice you can give.
Vic

[FishTechie]

feedings look ok, unless they are feeding huge amounts, can you see any left over food either floating, on the sand, or stuck in the filter pads??? I would also replace the bulbs to be on the safe side.

[VIC]

Thanks, I will do that and no there is no food left over. I think that I need to add something to convert the nitrate. Would you suggest a trickle filter?
Let me know what you would suggest.
Vic

[FishTechie]

No trickle filter? what is the overflow box going to?? are all the ornaments fake? and my last guess is that there is no sand bed, only a thin layer of crushed coral?

[Steve]

Trickle filters with bio balls are nitrate factories unless the bio balls are submerged. I don't think that would help. If there is room in the sump, a layer of sand and gravel with some caulerpa and a light would help. The caulerpa uses the nitrates and phosphates to grow. The light could be left on all the time.

[VIC]

The overflow box is connected to a 10 gallon sump which used to have a tricle filter in it. It is small as room is tight. The tank has no fake ornaments, only live rock and about a 1/2 inch of sand on the bottom. My guess is that I need something to complete the cycle and convert nitrate to gas. The calerpa is a good idea bit I do not have the room. Wkat aout a hang on refugium?
Vic

[FishTechie]

can you make that 1/2" of sand a 4-5 inch sandbed? also what type of water are they using for topoff??

[VIC]

I can probably squeeze in a 4 inch bed but how without stripping the tank down and killing the fish? Do I add a little sand at a time?
Thanks
Vic

[FishTechie]

yes, rinse the sand outside of the tank and add it with a small container slowly, clouding will still occur even is sand is rinsed...so dont worry too much about it..

[VIC]

Should I use live sand or pink samoa? How often should I add it.
1" amonth or so?
Thanks for the help.
Vic

[Biomanjcs72]

^^ I second Fish teckie's comments, add a little sand at the time, clouding will occur, but will disappear as well. Only add about .5-1" a week, much more and you kill most of the fauna living in the substrate. Once you get the 4-5" in, I'd say get a seeding kit from IPSF or the like, that will kick in the DSB (af course you have to feed it).

JMO HTH..

[Neal359]

or for $50.00 you could add a denitrator to the tank takes about 7 weeks to start a lot less work then a deep sand bed and will bring the nitrates down to around 5ppm their are also other tings that cancause hair alge like phosphates

[reefhead]

I would add some sand to the sump, w/ macro algea, as many species of caulerpa as you can find.

also, smell the water, if it stinks like rotten eggs you got an issue with the LR.

what kind of test kit are you using?

As for the hair algea, you need to remove it from the system, dont leave it floating around after scraping.

good luck,
Joe

[Steve]

If there is just live rock and a half inch of sand on the bottom of the sump, why not just through the caulerpa in with the rock and sand and add a light? Shouldn't the live rock have a little light anyway? You might be able to kill two birds with one stone.

[SPasse]

VIC,

There are three nutrients that accumulate in our systems that are the primary nuisance alge fuels... Nitrates, Phosphates Sulfates.

1 Nitrates are efficiently dealt with by Deep fine sand beds, and algae filtration by comparison typically, by itself does not bring down nitrates to “near zero” levels.

2 Phosphates are not really processed by deep sand beds and algae filtration is an efficient export mechanism for this nutrient.

3 Sulfates (Same as number 2)

Using a combination of a deep sand and algae filtration will keep the primary algae fuels down to a level where nuisance algae should not be an issue, especially with the addition of a modest cleanup crew.

Regards,

Scott Passe

[Reefland]

Adding the sand slowly is a sure method, but if you could take the tank down for a few days and add it at once, you may find it to be less work. I know there is one member here who done just that in the past day or two.

Either way you go, adding more sand is going to take some work and even more work after adding it. If you leave the rock in the tank, you will probably need to clean the sand off that settles on it, and doing this is time consuming and causes more clouding. If you take the tank down, this gives you the opportunity to add the sand at once, scrub the hair off the LR and do a considerable water change in one shot.

Just another option.
Scott