My start with a 40 gallon breeder.

[Beaux]

I am starting this process blindly, so any input would be most welcomed.

I purchased the tank used, so I am now starting the process of checking for leaks.

I would have rather gone with a wooden style stand but they are not in my budget range. I figured I could get creative with some drapery if I feel the need to. Seeing all the undertank equipment dose not bother me. This one will be in my bedroom, how ever my bedroom is small, so after I am done with the leak check I will figure out placement later on.

I do want to have the bottom drilled for the sump tank, but again after leak checking and placement.

So far my first purchase was lighting. Fluval sea 25000k, 46 watt. It is their 2.0 version, although the new 3.0 version is just being released. I am aware it is not an actual true "wi-fi" set up like it clams to be. But I have no problems doing the adjustments by hand instead of an unstable app. I upgraded the same to my 20 long and see the tremendous changes with the newer lighting.

I am going with the black Hawaiian substrate . I like the way it looks vs the white substrate.

As I posted in the mentor section, I would like a mentor for this set up, as well as ask for help with the glass cutting, unless someone knows of a company that would be able to do it for me. If anyone has the equipment that could help, I would be more than happy to compensate you for your time for the drilling and helping with advice on setting up a 20 gallon sump tank.

 

 

[Beaux]

Looking for a little help with this. Once the cycle was 100% complete, I started out with a few pieces of live rock, and everything seemed fine. I added 3 fish, which kinda resembled the spanish hogfish, but the weren't. The had a squareish marking on the main body. 1 relentlessly picked on the other 2 untill they died.

Then I introduced 3 blue chromis. Inturn they picked off the original fish which i never could find. Maybe my clean up crew did the job.

Next I started having a sever brown string algea out break.
I doubled down on my snails, even with some Mexican turbos, nether of which could keep it under control.
I scoured over every inch on my live rock every morning, and the very next morning it was back stronger than before.

Next I started doseing (i could be wrong here) with phosphate bead bags in my over rated HOB, as well as Dolabella Sea Hare. Took a sump tank sock and cut it to fit into my HOB, as well as a looser grade treated mesh material and put that in the HOB as well.

Now the long hair brown algea is partly gone, but still has places on the liverock that returns in mass, and the glass is completely covered again after cleaning and scrubbing.

This has been a nightmare and I am almost at the point of scraping the entire tank.

Has anyone else had to deal with this for 6 to 7 months as I have? Should I continue with my current routine and just have hope that one day this will go away?

I am just so frustrated having to spend all my time and money on this issue instead of being able to invest in more liverock and stocking it.

I have done the 3 day blackouts three separate times. Did not phase it.

My numbers have always been great. When I test I go to RCA to double check.

The last test was showing my amonia on the rise, but it has never tested high before now.

Ph 8.2
Ammonia. 25
Cal 440
Kh 143.2
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Phosphate 0
Sal 1.25

I have 2 blue chromis, the slug and snails, hammerhead, 4 different types and a torch that are all thriving.

The lighting was an issue so I moved all corals to mid range so they are at a much better par reading.

The one photo of the stringy stuff is on the glass, one is the liverock, hard to see the growth there, and the last is of the substrate. I have not vacuumed it up this morning yet.

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[jolt]

The first picture looks like it might be dinoflagellates, not algae.  I don't know of any snails or other clean up crew that eats it.  Dinos love a tank with low nutrients (you report 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate).  If it is dinos it will be stringy and bubbly and can be easily blown off by a turkey baster.  I beat dinos in my tank by adding more fish, adding copepods, feeding heavier and making sure nitrates and phosphates are never 0.  It's hard to tell from the pictures though, and it is entirely possible it's some other kind of algae that I don't recognize.

[Beaux]

Yes you are probably right about that. I want to add more fish but I do not have near enough liverock. I have been over feeding, before that ghost feeding. I was also told that using a biological booster would help.

I am afraid of adding more liverock at this point might make it worse. I already have active thriving corals, and currently working on a deal with getting more liverock.

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[jolt]

I should add, the other thing I did when I was fighting dinos was to siphon it out, not just blow it off the rocks.  I would turn off all the pumps, and use semi-rigid hose like you find on RODI units to siphon right off the rocks.  The type of dinos that I had would also clump up and float to the top of the water if they were blown off with a turkey baster while the pumps were off.  I would then use a plastic cup to just kind of skim the clumps off the surface.   I would blast the rocks with the baster and wait maybe 5 minute for the dinos to start clumping at the top.  I had to do this two or three times over the course of a couple of weeks while raising the nutrients in the system.  If you raise nutrients too high or too fast then you can easily transition to cyano or hair algae though.