New to hobby and needing help!

jroberts412

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jroberts412New Member
So I'm kinda new to having an aquarium. This is my first tank, set it up March 2016. I have a hard time keeping corals bright and colorful. Had a handful of fish die. I'd like to try and figure out everything I'm doing wrong so I can make the proper changes the have the tank I dream of!

I test my water every other weekend with water changes every 2-3 weeks. I use tap water with a concentrated conditioner. I'd like to get an RO DI system, which will be my next big purchase towards the tank.

I have a small 2 section sump with bio balls on 1 side and a in tank sump with my return pump on the other side (which I feel creates lots of bubbles to the main display).

I have a recent problem with red algae that started a month or 2 ago. Also, about a month ago I have 3 fish die in a 2 week span (a foxface, kohl tang, and a flame angel)

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. I know I'm new and everything has been a work in progress, but feel I might be doing some things wrong and not even aware of it.

Thanks for the help!

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JaimeAdams

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Bio balls and tap water has the ability to lead to high levels of Nitrate. Bio balls are good at converting Ammonia to Nitrite, but don't break down the nitrogen cycle any further. Tap water generally has higher levels of nitrite and nitrate that you are adding to your tank every time you do a water change.

You said that you test your water every two weeks. What are you testing for and what levels do you find on your tests?

An rodi unit will go along way to improving your water quality. I would then remove the bio-balls and rely on the live rock for your biological filtration. If you feel that you need more biological filtration then just the live rock, you could add a bio media such as marine pure blocks to you sump area. Once the bio-balls are gone I would either add a filter sock or filter felt to act as a mechanical filter and you could move your skimmer to the first section to get rid of the bubbles being sucked up by your pump which appears to be sitting right by the outlet of your skimmer.

As far as your fish dieing it is hard to say without more information.
 

Maritimer

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Welcome aboard, JRoberts!

You've come to the right place to find folks willing to help you find the answers you need . . . It will help them to know exactly what the readings on those tests you're running are - and it may help you, too, to write them down. Keep a log of the parameters, and observe your water over time.

Gotta agree about RO/DI and the bio-balls. Adding the one and losing the other (maybe a few bio-balls at a time, to let the bacteria in other parts of the aquarium pick up the slack...) should help quite a bit. Once the bio-balls are outta there, I'd be tempted to run a refugium in that part of the sump, allowing macro-algae to help clear out nitrate and phosphate . . .

~Bruce
 

melypr1985

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Welcome to R2R!

Gotta agree about RO/DI and the bio-balls. Adding the one and losing the other (maybe a few bio-balls at a time, to let the bacteria in other parts of the aquarium pick up the slack...) should help quite a bit. Once the bio-balls are outta there, I'd be tempted to run a refugium in that part of the sump, allowing macro-algae to help clear out nitrate and phosphate . . .

I agree 100% with this to start with^^

I'd also suggest you QT your current fish and any new additions. We could attempt to help you figure out what killed your fish that all died so quickly, but it would take some time and lots of questions which would be best served in a new thread in the disease forum. You might take a look at the stickies in this section of the forum : Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis and start a thread with any questions they leave you with.
 
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