What would you do??

[jeff415finest]

First of all, my tank has purely crushed coral about a good 1inch maybe a little more in my 55gallon. I have about 60lbs of live rock. I finally upgraded my lighting about 3 weeks ago and it has now done wonders to the whole tank. Red algae are starting to form on the rocks and copepods are forming on the side of the glass. I am only running a skimmer and a fluval 305, which i took every media piece out in switch for live rocks inside. I'm considering adding a refugium sump somehow, taking out that fluval, and changing to live sand. My question is should i just keep some of the crushed coral and add some bigger grain live sand so i can keep my fluval running? because my tank doest have any holes and would need to make some minor adjustment with the stand. Also, i dont want to destroy the cycle going on. Any suggestions because i am stuck between the cross roads at this point. Thanks to those that reply to my newbie questions.

[Lance]

Whats the tank size?
Whats used for water movement?

[jeff415finest]

55 gallon.
(2) Hydor Koralia 4 Circulation Pump/Powerhead UL 1200 gph

[Lance]

Dont understand. You use 2 K4's?

[jeff415finest]

yea is that bad?

[Lance]

Depends on how they are placed but this could be a little much. Are they independent or on a wave maker?
Whats your water source?
It could be from the lighting upgrade. Whene upgrading your lights its best to reduce the main light time and bring up slowly to reduce algea out breaks and coral stress and bacteria stress.

[jeff415finest]

independent on opposite sides.
Not sure what you asking when you say water source

[Lance]

DO you use strait tap water or a filtered water or a RO/DI unit?

[jeff415finest]

naw i buy it from the local LFS. .79/gallon

[Lance]

Red algea is a phosphate and nitrate problem. Could be from LR placement or amount of stock or feeding habits or from your water source. You need to get some good water test kits and see whats going on in there. This hobby is all about control and the water source is number one.

[weez1959]

By red algae, do you mean coraline algae or red slime algae, If it's coraline, you have nothing to worry about.

[Samper]

Jeff I don't believe you have "too much". This is all relative to your demands. I have a 75 gallon with two Koralia 4's and two MJ 1200's with the sure flow mods. At one time I had six powerheads and a mag 18 pushing water around. Once I upgraded two of the MJ powerheads I was able to remove a few.

About the CC. I'd remove it all slowly but you can leave a few pieces to help hold the sandbed in place.

[My2heartboys]

Good question weez. When I read it, I understood it to be coraline, but it could be that nasty red stuff as well.

Anne
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By red algae, do you mean coraline algae or red slime algae, If it's coraline, you have nothing to worry about.

[Ninong]

First of all, my tank has purely crushed coral about a good 1inch maybe a little more in my 55gallon. I have about 60lbs of live rock. I finally upgraded my lighting about 3 weeks ago and it has now done wonders to the whole tank.

You will definitely want to remove all of that crushed coral before you go any further with adding stuff to your tank.

Red algae are starting to form on the rocks...

Run a search on the board using "cyanobacteria" as the search word. We have discussed this topic to death over the past eight years.

I am only running a skimmer and a fluval 305, which i took every media piece out in switch for live rocks inside.

The protein skimmer, live rock and an nice sand bed are all you really need for filtration. You could use the Fluval 305 for carbon or for any other media (iron oxide phosphate sponge) that you might have a need to run from time to time.

My question is should i just keep some of the crushed coral and add some bigger grain live sand so i can keep my fluval running?

You really don't need the Fluval. It's not going to make much difference one way or the other. You could turn it off now. You should remove ALL of the crushed coral. There's really no good reason for keeping any of it.

Also, i dont want to destroy the cycle going on.

You won't have a problem. You don't have anything in the tank to really harm and your live rock is already taking care of the cycle. Removing the crushed coral will have no effect, especially since it was just recently set up.

Any suggestions because i am stuck between the cross roads at this point. Thanks to those that reply to my newbie questions.

Remove all of the crushed coral and replace it with sand. The particle size and the depth of the sand bed are topics that have a variety of correct answers, depending on what you want. This is another topic that has been discussed hundreds of times previously.

[Lance]

Good question on algea. Is it hard and incrusting or is it soft and ugly?

[jeff415finest]

Thanks everyone for there response.

I am in the process of installing a 30 gallon sump with live rocks. I took out all the crushed coral and posted it on craigslist for free and someone responded and supposedly gonna meet me tomorrow. I have about 5 gallons worth of live sand from local owner who needed to dispose of his because he was gonna go with a bare bottom to do a sps tank. My sump is gonna be ready by sunday and will post up pics soon.

[FireEater]

Is the live sand in a bucket? How long has it sat in the bucket?

IMO, I would take the sand, rinse and clean it real good and then use it. How long did he use the sand? A good cleaning will not hurt it and it will get all the life it needs from your LR anyway.

I just wouldn't put someones else's sand in my system without cleaning it. A cup or two just for the life from someone else's sand bed is good, but a whole 5 gallon bucket would not be.

[jeff415finest]

besides giving the sand a few rinses what is another method?