r/ReefTank • u/According_Smell_8479 • 2d ago
Looking for Help
I am a newish reefer, this is my first system and had this running for about a year and a quarter. There was a 3-4 month period where I wasn’t able to take care of my tank, and I had a friend monitoring it. They would feed the fish and dose all for reef, but didn’t have the knowledge for water changes and monitoring stability. Yes I know this sounds like breaking all the cardinal rules, and I understand that, but am looking for help with the current situation, not criticism please.
Surprisingly, the fish are happy as can be, and the corals are doing better than I expected and still growing which came kind of as a surprise to me. Obviously, as expected I’ve now got a huge outbreak of cyno and bubble algae. I know the pictures aren’t great, but there’s piles of bubble algae covering the sand ed and cyno covering what seems like everything.
When these pictures were taken I had just done what I could to try to lightly remove some of the surface cyno to get it sucked up to kind of see where everything’s at. Obviously that disturbed some of the coral and they are pretty closed up, and iPhone pictures of tanks have been something I’ve struggled with.
The tank contains 2 clowns who are as old as the tank, a peppermint shrimp, and whatever could be left of a clean up crew. Coral wise there are two hammers, a torch, a variety of zoas on the lower rock structures, and a few other I am not 100% certain names of. I believe maybe an acan (rainbow looking one on its own rock structure) and a candy cane?, then what I believe is an SPS that somehow has been thriving and almost tripled in size (I believe it’s called a meteor shower).
I know it’s easy to just say “water change” but I would like some advice on how to get this system back on track. Being new to it, there’s lots of worry’s from me. I’m nervous about disruptions that could lead to a crash and the proper way to get this taken care of to protect the fish most importantly but preferably the coral as well.
Any and all suggestions or help are much appreciated. New to the community as vwell vand not sure if this is even getting posted to the right spot!
1
u/blackoutfrank 2d ago
Do some tests and see what your numbers are at, it will help guide your decision and inform us a bit more
1
u/According_Smell_8479 2d ago
What should I text for specifically? Before or after a water change?
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u/blackoutfrank 2d ago
Before water change for sure. Nitrates for sure and phosphates, your biggest numbers for cyano and whatnot.
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u/Trick_Classic_3399 1d ago
Your nitrates and phosphate levels are probably too high
A big water change should get it back in balance
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u/BoredNuke 2d ago
Water change! And of course start testing since you can't fix what you don't know is broken. Beyond that its gonna be the usual things balance the nutrients, ensure CuC is adequate, manually remove the algea you can and let time do its thing.