Hello Everyone...
It's been a long time since I've been on the boards due to life, but I found a Columbus Facebook page that led me back here to the boards... I've been a member since back when it was Westrn Ohio Reef Club... And since it's been awhile I thought I'd post a story and some pictures of my current setup...
I've had a salt water tank of some sorts since early 2000's when we started with a 60g Hex. It was a great tank to start with and lasted us awhile until one day it sprung a seam leak a few inches from the bottom in our living room... Thankfully my wife was home for lunch and we able to save all the inhabitants, but the tank and much of our living room was ruined.. lol So we were at a crossroad; sell it all off and be done or start over again. Since we had invested so much in the rocks and such we decided to start fresh with a standard shape this time. We were really limited space wise in our living room so we went with the AGA 65g, which was not your standard size. It's only 36" wide so that was perfect. We got it all back up and running and after a few months to a year i suffered a losing battle with some bad algae... It was a battle that I threw in the towel on and basically the tank ran for another few months really just growing algae b/c I was at a loss until my neighbor setup his 1st salt water tank and it really revitalized my passion for how beautiful the tank could be. So we decided it was time for a reboot...
Since there really wasn't anything living in the tank anymore besides the algae pulled the rock, drained the tank, and did the Muriatic acid wash on everything... And then let that dry and cleaned it back out with freshwater for another couple months. Then started the rebuild, new canopy, new led lights, new substrate, new saltwater, out with the old CPR sump and in with new 20g sump, old rocks with the addition of a few seed rocks to get it all kicked off. So all filled back up we were up and running. Let it cycle another 1-2 months with just the rock and lights. And we finally added our first fish back in; a hawk, a cardinal, and something else i can't remember now it's been too long... lol So there it was looking all great in the living room, but the problem that knocked me down started to rear it's head again and the algae was back... I curbed it from time to time by leaving the lights off for a few days and that seemed to work for awhile, but eventually i let it beat me again...
And out went the lights... I just didn't get it. I was only running my lights for ~4 hours a day hoping that would curtail it, but it didn't seem to help; my skimmer didn't seem to really be pulling anything from the water even when the fish were in there, so i just didn't get why i was having such a struggle with algae...
So that brings us back to where we are today. I talked to a lot of the people around the area at the different stores and I think the bottom line is that i needed to do less water changes more frequently. I was basically doing a large 25ish gallon change every 4-5 weeks. So sounded reasonable... So in December i started the new regiment. I got the lights on a new schedule that allows us to now enjoy the tank as the lights are on longer. Bought a new smaller 7 gallon trash can to do more frequent water changes with and did one final big change and we were off on the new routine. The algae was still there , but i knew it would be awhile before the chemicals balanced themselves out inside the tank so i just bared with the schedule; 6-7 gallons every 7-10 days. I also put a phosphate "pad" in my sump to help pull some of the phospates out; changed my feed pump of my Phosban reactor running GFO to feed water from the return chamber as I think it was gumming up with tank "stuff" that was in the sump and not yet filtered out which was causing the bottom filter of the phosban to gum up and not distribute the air properly. I'm not sure if that helped, but over the the next month or so it started to look a little better. I think i was ready for the next addidition, something to watch in the tank again. So off we went to invest in a large cleanup crew that could hopefully take a bite out of the remaining algae. And since I took my littlest daughter with me we couldn't resist can came home with a few "cheaper" fish in case the tank was still cycling again. So we came home with tons of snails, some hermits, 3 damsels(which I really didn't want but they are good cycle fish), a fire fish, and a red cardinal. Fast forward today and most of the algae on the rocks is gone, some still on the koralias, but not as bad, and still get that film on the glass that i knock out with the magnet and the snails every day or so. The cardinal and fire fish are doing good. The damsels "sorted" themselves out, which was a hard thing for my daughter, but unfortunately onr dominant one picked the fins off of one and the other just "disappeared"?? lol But things are looking good.
I haven't put my skimmer back on quite yet. The one store person said i should leave the skimmer off for a bit just to let the tank "build up" I guess? I'm not sure, but that's what I've done. I think with my next change I'll do a little more water to compensate for adding the skimmer back into the system and see how it does.
What's next for the tank? Well I'm hoping to get some softies back in the tank here soon as well as a new flamehawk as that's my wifes favorite fish... But in due time.. Just trying to keep it looking nice and ahead of the algae curve...
Glad to be back on the boards and seeing some of the names i dealt with long ago still here as well!!
Mark