WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!?!

by **durrkdurrk** » Fri Jan 30, 2015 3:39 pm

I have a 10 gallon, saltwater tank. It's my first saltwater tank, out of 6 tanks total. I have the cheap walmart brand LED lights in it. An Aqueon Queitflow 10, a 10 gallon submersible heater, a live rock, and crushed coral substrate.
For some reason I have this brownish, reddish, and even white in some spots algae (?). Today I looked closer at it and it looks like mold! Idk what exactly it is. The guy at the LFS told me to just let it go, and it would take care of itself. Well, I got up this morning and one clownfish was dead, and then after I fed the live one, he died as well.
I am feeding them API Marine Flakes.
I checked the parameters on the tank this morning, and they are as follows:
Salinity: 34
Specific Gravity: 1.025
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 10 ppm
Temperature: 76
I have NO CLUE what I am doing wrong. I have been doing weekly water changes every week, every Sunday. These are the 4th fish that I have lost for no apparent reason. I use Instant Ocean Sea Salt.

Any advice whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. I attached about 7 photos as well, hopefully they upload, and hopefully they will help me with some kind of diagnosis.

by **adandlcrz** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 12:29 am

Well, idk if my advise counts for anything cause i dont have a saltwater tank yet, but from my point of view that looks like algae bro, which is supposed to be a diatom, anyways im sure you know what brown algae so more to the point, in my experience that to me has only happened from,
A. wrong type of lights being used,
B. lights being left on too long
C. not doing the right amount of water change(meaning not often enough or too little)
or D. a combination of the above
its also pretty prevalent in newly established tanks, if you think it could be one of those I'd start with one and go from there, like process of elimination

by **twilight mmj** » Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:04 am

I am using twilight dolphin led reef lights

by **stevie aqua** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 6:02 pm

hey man!

You got yourself some badluck in this beauthiful hobby. How long is your tank running?

Some other questions:
Flowrate?
Phosphate/silicate?(algae producer:))
Live rock inserted?

You got any other animals in ur tank?

Regards,
Stevie

by **durrkdurrk** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 3:33 pm

I've had this tank running for about 2 months now.
I'm using the Aqueon Quietflow 10.
I just have the basic lighting in my tank that came with the "starter kit", but switched the lights out with the Walmart Aquarium LED lights.
I have a live rock in there. I think it's about 2 pounds.
I did have clownfish in there, but they died. I left them in there for a little while after they died to get some ammonia in the tank.
I was doing 2 gallon water changes (10 gallon tank) every Sunday. I figured that would be enough. Idk. The tank is still empty of life forms ever since I posted this. Thinking about just transferring back to a freshwater tank. I may go out and buy maybe some danios one last time to see if I have any luck.

by **stevie aqua** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 4:58 pm

Hey man,

What I would do first is a 100% water change, 10 gallons isnt that much. Btw starting up with a nano the first time is quite hard since the system is instable and does not have allot of redundancy.

Before putting any fish inside, i would recommend some snails/hermitcrabs to startup. put a soft coral in (when all water parameters are right).

Add phosphate remover.

If ur system is stable you can consider putting a fish inside.

by **chytownprincess** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 7:37 am

Looks like diatoms to me..fairly common in newly set up systems. Diatoms are not algae and usually are self limiting. Google saltwater algae. You will find everything you meed to know.

by **aliasger789** » Sat Dec 09, 2017 7:53 am

Hi,

Has your problem solved ?

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!?!

8 posts