# crushed coral anomaly



## Time4Chillie (May 18, 2003)

my crushed coral is going from white to brown, does anyone know what happeneing to it? is it diatoms? what should i do? is it algea should i get come crabs or other crustaceans that will eat this off?anyone?


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

Some details on the historywater conditions of your tank would help.


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## -=BOB=- (Mar 6, 2003)

Maybe you can vacuum it with some sort of siphon and stir it , put it it under, its algae issue and its going to die if its berried but new is going to show on surfice, course of the high phosphate level... If this is what i think it is yes, its called diatom bloom. Try to google for it. 
You have a newly established tank, and thats what I keep on talking to you guys, 
when set sw tank depending on equipment and stock needs 3-6 months to mature. 
In this period you can expect all sort of new tank issues, such as algae breakouts and so.. but once mature these problems will be gone.. It is wise that you don't use tap but RO water for your sw for this reason.

hope it helps,

Mario


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## Time4Chillie (May 18, 2003)

how should i get rid of this? is it going to affect my live rock? can i get some inverts to clean up the crushed coral?


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## sweet lu (Oct 3, 2003)

are the problems in the 3-6 monthes seriouse ones?


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## Andrew (Mar 3, 2003)

In my opinion, I would just remove the crushed coral from the tank, and replace it with a 1/2" of fine sand. Sugar sized. When you do a water change try to siphon up any debris laying on the sand, you may remove a little sand in the process, but you can easily replace it.
I recommend Este's reef sand, it won't float or cause a dust storm. It is a little pricey though.

The CC will constantly trap detritus and cause problems. Alot of people will tell you that you need the CC to buffer your pH. That is BS, I have a bare bottom tank with a pH of 8.2.


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## -=BOB=- (Mar 6, 2003)

>and replace it with a 1/2" of fine sand..

out of topic, but whats your experience with DSB? At first I wanted to put it for biological filtration (as Shimek suggests) but after I read all controversy about it I decided to stay away from it..


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## Time4Chillie (May 18, 2003)

well form what i have read so far on diatoms and this so called (gold-brown algea) it supposedly goes away. I have also heard good and bad things about sand for the tank. i have already chose the crushed coral and i will stick with it. Also i am sure that this diatom bloom is not because i have crushed coral. again from what i have read it seems to happen in all different tanks. but still can i get some inverts or do any other measures to get rid of it asap? and "will it affect my live rock"?


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## Raptor (Jan 3, 2003)

When the diatoms eat all the phosphate in the tank it will die off or ateast be very managable. Queen conchs are very good at eating diatoms. I use 1 for every 10 gallons, And they eat every piece of brown guck that appears. Also get some turbo , And astrea snails. They will eat it also. 
I bought some blue leg hermits to help not realizing when they get big enough one day they will start killing my snails (all the hermit species do) So keep that in mind. Now i have to wait, and capture one at a time, and throw em in my sump.


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## -=BOB=- (Mar 6, 2003)

>will it affect my live rock?

As I saying I'm greenhorn but I don't think so. I mean what is the worst think that can happen? Rocks covered with algae, but if you made good system with sump/refugium, skimm. and good circulation this stuff with some time must get to some ok level... I guess, much more important is not to stock the tank with some sensitive organisms at this time than to worry about the rocks.. Its going to look ugly for some time but we expect it to be gone.

I think that Andrew have also point in his reply and for both of the reasons I decided to start without the gravel for first 4-6 months.. something like this (not mine tank)

As for the cleaning crew for this kind of pests I dunno and need to do some reading myself too. What I know from my own experience is that Algae blennie is great hair algae cleaner and also cool fish to watch.. Unfortunately mine ended in powerhead..







R.I.P.

Lu, I think you need to do some readings too as the rest of us, and great place to start is here newbie section


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## Andrew (Mar 3, 2003)

-=BOB=- said:


> >and replace it with a 1/2" of fine sand..
> 
> out of topic, but whats your experience with DSB? At first I wanted to put it for biological filtration (as Shimek suggests) but after I read all controversy about it I decided to stay away from it..


I will never do a DSB ever again for as long as I live.

I garuntee I would still have my beautiful 125g reef if I didn't have a DSB in it.

It was a combination of alot of things that led my DSB to cause a major hair algae outbreak. But the bottom line is, if I didn't have the thing in the first place, the problems would not have happened.

I do believe they work, because mine did for quite a while, and other people have had success with them. In my opinion it is all about sand grain size and maintaining the microfauna in the sand bed itself. Even to this day though, I don't think anyone knows the exact receipe to innocullate your sand bed with. Just going with live sand is not enough, you must add certain "critters" that are going to do the work to keep your sand bed processing poop/waste.

My 10g is bare bottom, I siphon out the debris every week. Every week I just can't believe how much detritus I siphon out. The tank is lightly fed and only has two fish the size of a dime in it. Quite a bit of it is Astrea snail poop, I have about 10 of those in my tank. But poop is poop, and it should not be left in the tank.

Time4Chillie:
I never said the CC caused the brown algae, I was just pointing out what CC can do in regards to trapping detritus.

I don't know if your tank is cycled or not. If it is, definitely get a clean up crew.

Over the years, I have determined the best clean up crew for my needs. It consists of :
1 Astrea snail per gallon (some will fall on their back and die)
1 cerith snail per 4 gallons 
1 Nassarius snail per 2 gallons
1 emerald crab (once you water quality gets perfect you will grow Valonia, emeralds will eat it most of the time)
1 small brittle star (the type that sifts sand) many type to choose from
1 pair of peppermint shrimp (they will mate and spew eggs all over your tank for the fish and coral to eat, as well as scavenge up food)
If you bought live rock, you will automatically get the bristle worms and copepods.

I don't like hermit crabs, they pick at stuff too much and kill all of the snails for their shells. It doesn' matter if you provide them with various empty shells, they will still kill the snails for their shells.


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## -=BOB=- (Mar 6, 2003)

I'm sorry to hear about your disaster







. On the other hand it came to me as another encouragement to get away from it. Most of the people I spoke in person said to me Don't do it! Old tank syndrome etc. I mean can it really be functional after couple of years when all this sh*t piles up in the sand? And also some question friend of mine brought to my attention: How do you reduce nutrients by heavy feeding to support DSB?

However, when my upcoming system finally gets stable I'd like to put some gravel at the bottom, it looks nice and its going to provide home for some scavengers, make fish buzzy looking for food and so and tridacnas look better in some sediment. What do you think about taking 4-5 Tridacna Clams to increase filtration?

I don't know if you are familiar with ZEOvit system ? It relatively new thing developed by Thomas in Germany and it looks SPS promising for small investment. I thinking of investing couple of bucks in it... not to begin with but step over after I'm done with basic thinks.

I got this heavy duty skimmer I wrote about (H&S) together with calcium reactor









skimm.

Protein Skimmer-Type 200-2X F2001 € 655,00 GBP 439,34
Inside the filtration tank 
pump: 2 x Aqua Bee 2001/38W 
height: 590 mm 
surface: 410 mm x 230 mm 
skimmer body: 200 mm 
output pipe: 40 mm 
min.water level: 100 mm 
max. size of the tank: 1500 Liters

reactor

Calcium Reactor 200-F3000IA € 539,00
pump: Eheim 1260 
height: 600 mm 
height including sonde: 650 mm 
surface: 280 mm x 390 mm 
max. size of the tank: 2000 liters

I scored both of them together for 500$ and I think it was one of better investments I did lately.. In my small 120 they have to kick some serious ass..


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## Andrew (Mar 3, 2003)

Thats a very good deal.
H&S are called Euro-Reef skimmers here in the U.S.A.
Same design and parts, just built here.
Excellent skimmers. I use a Euro-Reef.
Your skimmer should definitely kick ass.

Not familiar ZEOvit


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