Need advices while setting up my new 2.5ft marine tank

can u show me some pictures of your mud sump???

Originally Posted by Dirtbiker

can u show me some pictures of your mud sump???

MUD? very ex

[QUOTE=Madison;4686889]

Originally Posted by yan

is it so hard to believe that a girl can like this hobbie?

YES! Salute to you,girl!

should i upgrade my DIY cooling fan to a chiller???
i have a friend selling his resun 650 at $230 (1 year old and good working condition)... should i take his offer or better buy a new set with that kind of price?


should i upgrade my T4 light to a T5 or MH...
this friend of mine also selling his Jebo T5 2.5ft lighting set (4 tubes type)
+ 2 new high power blue tubes and 1 new white tube for $20...

Should i take all his offer??? or it is unnecessary...

Originally Posted by Dirtbiker

mud...?
what kind of mud...?
and what's micro's...???
can u kindly pls show me some pictures of your sump tank?

Miracle Mud...that's the brand name...quite expensive...it's man made "dirt" it contains all the trace elements in the ocean...just as the name implies...it keep my ph as stable as wood and my microalgea grows like weeds.

Goggle "caulerpa"...I am sure you will be a believer after the research! there's a huge debate here in the US about the use of caulerpa (micro's) some believe that the plants will go sexual (release the toxins back into the water and cause your tank to crash)

If you do your research throughly enough yo will learn that the caulerpas doesn't die/go sexual over night...if there's not enough food (ammonia, nitrate, light) it will start turning white at the tips.

One must provide enough bioload...sounds funny huh? to produce enough "dirty" water for the plants to grow and keep a PC light on for the plants 24/7 in the sump...that also stablizes the PH in your tank.

Make sure you harvest your caulerpa once a month or so...you can feed the plants back into your display tank for your tangs...they love it!...once the balance is establish between your bioload and the amount of your caulerpas...you will have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate....you will have to top off to compensate for evaporations...and maybe a water change every 2 to 3 months.

update my water chemistry

ph 8.4
kh 5
po4 0ppm
no2 0.02ppm
no3 <1ppm
nh4 0ppm
tempreture 28.2 degree C
salinity 1.022

may i know anything went wrong that caused those brown algae???

i notice my alkalinity is low, may i know is this the root cause???

[KaLiB]

should i upgrade my T4 light to a T5 or MH...
this friend of mine also selling his Jebo T5 2.5ft lighting set (4 tubes type)
+ 2 new high power blue tubes and 1 new white tube for $20...

Should i take all his offer??? or it is unnecessary...

Is the set high output T5s or normal output T5s? If its normal T5s, I don't think its necessary to change if your current light setup is fine. Guess at 2.5ft, a high output T5 bulb would be rated at 24W.

Going for MH would mean you definitely need to make a jump to having a chiller. Using fans would cause large amounts of daily evaporation just to maintain the water temperature so i feel its better to get a chiller.

Don't think its necessary for MH but an upgrade to high output T5s would be good if your going into corals. However, if your going into those more demanding corals like SPS, an upgrade into MH would be worth looking at.

It seems your water parameters are quite ok and shouldn't promote too much algae growth. Its possible that the brown algae you have are feeding off the silicates present in the tank or feeding off the undetected phosphates in the tank. Most aquarium testkits do not detect organic phosphates.

Quote from the article, Phosphate and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes Farley in the reefkeeping.net online magazine, " A final point is that organic phosphates are not detected by most test kits designed for hobbyists. "

You can try leaving it alone for awhile and see how's things go, sometimes the algae would just die off on its own. I doubt that the alkalinity is behind all this, but its important to raise it as a low kH could result in an unstable pH. Swinging pH values cause stress to fish.

k... what do u recommend to use to balance my KH...

[KaLiB]

I ever used food grade baking soda to raise kH. Cheap and works but I do not know about long term effects, like possibility of impurities. Have stopped using this for a long time.

Do check your calcium, chances are it is also low as kH and calcium work hand in hand. You may need to raise both.

Normally, I would raise them seperately(by dosing the calcium and kH additives at different timings, sometimes kiasu abit even 1 day difference) but don't raise either value by too much. I would check after i add calcium/kH additive so as to make sure I don't overshoot.

Any off the shelf additives should do the trick, I have the Salifert kH buffer. I have used the Calcium additive from Aquaz. No complain yet.

This is the calcium additive I have used. This is the kH additive that I have used.

Thanks for the info and helps...
i really appreciate it...