Anybody have no algae, SPS tank with fish?

[craftyfish]

34G Solana, tunze 9002, carbon, mp10w
I have 2 fish, 1 peppermint, 1 cleaner, 2 nass snails...
I want to basically grow SPS in my tank and I'm thinking too much bioload?
cuz I have algae and it's not easy to control...
feeding is the main culprit, I'm guessing....
I feed once every other day...rogger's reef food in a mesh clip, .5x.5 squares.

if you have SPS tank and no algae, do u have fish?
what kind of feeding regimen do you have?
how much do you feed, and how often?

 

[MedicBMC]

I've got 7 fish in my 75g soon to be 9. I feed every day...one day pellets, the next either Rod's, Mysis or Reef munchies and only enough for them to eat in a couple minutes.

What kind of fish do you have?

 

[JCRomero]

I have a ton of sps and about thirteen fish, basic filter sump with a Warner skimmer and alot of caulerpa that I trim every month. Snails help out, bare rock for the most part wher mushrooms are not growing. I feed my fish every day for as much as they can eat in a few minutes

 

[JOSE CASAS]

Basically your nutrient load is determined by bio load and import and export of nutrients put in the tank. So is you don't have have a efficient export then bio load should be low. If you have a efficient export of nutrients then you can have a large bio load hth.

 

[suvuong7]

I have a about 12 fish in my 60 gal. feed it every day...but alternating pellets with mysis and prime shrimp......I have a tone of cleaning crew though so it helps if I'm over feeding my tank.....I don't have a fancy sump like the pros. on here....just a hang on CPR skimmer and hang on filter....I have nice growth on my SPS and softies with very little algae....what works for me is cleaning my equipment once every two weeks and I also have a bag of the phos pro bag that I place in my hang on filter....

 

[craftyfish]

I have a pair of sebae clown fish...one male, one female

I don't have any chaeto, or macro algae....trying to get some though

I don't have sump...I just use the back of solana, built in chambers...skimmer, some carbon, filter floss, and Im going to put chaeto, if I can find some

 

[craftyfish]

btw, is caulerpa as good as chaeto? they're both macro algae right?
I was wondering if caulerpa could be put in display tank area...

 

[ryancmatchett]

What kind of lighting do you have in the Solana?
We have about 18 fish in a 120gal with SPS, and just getting over an algae issue. We reduced our feedings to what they can eat in a couple of min, pellets one day and mysis/homemade wet food mix the next day....Ours was a filtration issue, the skimmer was not good enough. We also just switched from MH lighting to T5s, and the SPS is doing very well.

 

[JOSE CASAS]

btw, is caulerpa as good as chaeto? they're both macro algae right?
I was wondering if caulerpa could be put in display tank area...

Caulerpa is better than cheato but illegal in the state of California. It grows out of control. Find some cheato and use that.
http://www.ridnis.ucdavis.edu/Caulerpataxifolia.html

 

[Clockwork John]

Great link, Jose!

 

[Rukis]

Basically your nutrient load is determined by bio load and import and export of nutrients put in the tank. So is you don't have have a efficient export then bio load should be low. If you have a efficient export of nutrients then you can have a large bio load hth.

+1 jose!
I have a 420g tank with 1lt. Ecobak and a Hugh skimmer so I NEED a lot of fish to keep my LPS happy in a SPS dominated tank. I have about 30 fish and feed daily if not twice a day, but like jose said, it really depends on ur nutrient export to bioload ratio. The more bioload, the more nutrients u need to remove, just make sure your filtration can filter your bioload...

 

[mikedege]

My old tank was a 34G Solana, I had many SPS (20+) without algae. My setup used a 250MH Sunpod. But I think what helped me have no algae was, I ran Chaeto in the back, used a two little fishies GFO reactor, and had a nice euroreef skimmer that worked great. = no algae.

btw, I had 2 clowns, 1 mystery wrasse, 1 yellowed tailed damsel. And fed once a day. Also did weekly 10 gallon water changes, and topped off with ro/di with 0ppm that I made myself.

hope this helps.
-Mike

 

[bullitr]

I had lots of fish before 60+ and feed 40- 80 cc of homemade food 2 -3 times a day
And I can't grow macroalgae or Xenia but I had this a huge skimmer

And now that I have no fish, I have hair algae because of Herbtana treatment that I did before but is slowly dying off !

 

[DEC6]

Caulerpa is better than cheato but illegal in the state of California. It grows out of control. Find some cheato and use that.
http://www.ridnis.ucdavis.edu/Caulerpataxifolia.html

It has been a while since I read up on this but my understanding is that only taxifolia is illeagal because it grows so fast and can handle colder temperatures. There are many different types of caulerpa that are not a problem. Which is not to say you should dump them in the ocean either.

 

[craftyfish]

I use the 150w MH disco ball...
use tunze 9002 skimmer - I think it works great

I do need to get chaeto - I want to put it under the tunze 9002, and put some carbon in mesh bag in center chamber, with filter floss on top

I think using frozen food was displacing too much nutrient that wasn't getting eaten...
I will try diff feeding regimen, smaller pieces of rogger's reef food, each day

Rukis - let me know when I can come down to pick up the coral, I want to pick it up during the day to avoid traffic

 

[JOSE CASAS]

Crafty rinse the frozen food then feed it to your fish and corals. Rogers is good but has more unwanted nutrients in the tank as it blended together and cant rinse.

 

[craftyfish]

Crafty rinse the frozen food then feed it to your fish and corals. Rogers is good but has more unwanted nutrients in the tank as it blended together and cant rinse.

so use smaller portions per feeding? since they stay together, its more to fill them up than using paper thin flake food...
I often notice frozen food have chitin shells of shrimps they dont eat...
my fish aren't big enough to just swallow most of the chunks as a whole, they usually take bites at them and carry it away somewhere...then they let go and floats away...I need anemone i think...

Rogger's reef food is supposed to have food for fish, and coral reef food blended together...so I guess its too much of good stuff??

 

[JOSE CASAS]

Yes use smaller portions and maybe depending on your fish feed pallets also and alternate what you feed. Basically yes too much of any thing good can be too much.

 

[craftyfish]

any pellets u recommend?

I just scraped all algae, and did 5 gal water change 15% or so....for 34g...
It looks beautiful without algae, and I want to keep it that way!!

 

[MedicBMC]

I like spectrum pellets and hikari marine-s.