1yr/old tank looking blah....

[joeleigh]

We have a 26 gallon reef tank with an eheim canister filter, good lights and lots of live rock, like 75 lbs. A monster leather that was an impulse buy that has done great but now is just blah. only 5 fish, good CUC, thick LSB, we are not the best at dosing the tank with supplements. has been a great tank and still is, everything grows. We have just noticed flat worms :sad:
Would a skimmer be the next logical step?
We do 10% WC every 2 weeks...the water parameters are pretty constant.
Do we even need a skimmer or refuge system?

 

[hnguyen]

Joeleigh;640430 wrote: We have a 26 gallon reef tank with an eheim canister filter, good lights and lots of live rock, like 75 lbs. A monster leather that was an impulse buy that has done great but now is just blah. only 5 fish, good CUC, thick LSB, we are not the best at dosing the tank with supplements. has been a great tank and still is, everything grows. We have just noticed flat worms :sad:
Would a skimmer be the next logical step?
We do 10% WC every 2 weeks...the water parameters are pretty constant.
Do we even need a skimmer or refuge system?

IMO a skimmer is a most have for all marine tanks. 10% WC every 2 weeks IMO is very little with your bio load. 5 fish and how many corals? I run a skimmer rated for twice my water volume and also a fuge that is 10% of my water volume. I also do 15% WC every week.

What test kit are you using to test for? If you don't have a quality test kit then your readings may be off and give you false readings. That may explain why some of your corals aren't doing to well. Also, how often do you clean out your filter?

Edit: Forgot to say, get a few wrasse and put them in your tank, most wrasse will take care of your worm problems.

 

[joeleigh]

The test kit is the basic salt water kit u see everywhere....In other words I have thrown away the insert with the company name. and we have about 15 corals....didn't seem like much till I counted them. And BTW just noticed that it looks like something is eating on the base of the leather. Really? I have never seen this before....it looks like ground beef. What could be doing this and how do I fix it?

 

[joeleigh]

And we clean out the filter every two weeks.

 

[hnguyen]

I can only think of two things that's causing your leather to look like that. Either you have a flat worm or fire worm, since those are known to sting your coral and cause extreme pain, or your water params are bad and the leather isn't happy. I recommend that you do your WC more often and clean out your filter more often as well and also invest in better test kit. Try bring a water sample to a LFS that uses good test kits and have them check it for you. Most of the LFS will do it for free. Good luck

 

[joeleigh]

Thanks for the info, I'll do that. This will now give me the excuse I have been waiting on to buy the red sea test kits I saw yesterday.... Unless there are better suggestions? We have had this kit for almost a year anyway.

 

[hnguyen]

Check to see when your test kit expires. Which they do. I use the elos test kit which I like very much. Their one of the best IMO.

 

[gas7057]

Personally I use Salifert for Ca, Mg, and dKH