# anaerobes vs.



## garwood (Oct 27, 2012)

HI all. So, I mostly lurk for the “buy and sell” on here but I thought I might share my experience. I think I have found a way to a more successful reef tank. Like so many threads about people’s algae problems that I have read, my first tank was a disaster. I was able to grow every alga under the sun. I had all the equipment (protein skimmer, carbon/gfo reactors, refugium). I tried C dosing, WC, everything. Treated with fluconazole for bryopsis and GHA and that was when the fun started. DINOS! Anyway, I do believe the algae had to do with the dry PUKANI I used. It does seem that people who use true live rock are much more successful than those that start with dry rock. So, everyone was right, it seems to have a more successful tank you need, firstly PATIENCE. This patience starts with the nitrogen cycle. When you finally get to the nitrates you have been waiting for, you are only half way there. This is where the anaerobes come in. This is also why starting with true live rock seems more successful. There is a lot of competition for those nitrates and the anaerobes are slow to populate. This is an important time as the algae will move in and steal all that nitrate, starving out the anaerobes. This might cause the tank to never fully cycle. You need things to feed on this alga before it can get a foot hold. Concentrating on starting the food web from the bottom up seems to be the trick. For my new tank I started with some rock from my first tank after being recooked of course and two small pieces of live rock. I ran the tank for a month with no lights till I got my nitrates, and zero everything else. Once this happened I poured in a bottle of live rotifers and copepods. I fed them a couple of mls of dead Phyto every couple of days with still no lights. After a month and a half of this, I bought lights for the tank and started adding the corals I wanted from my other tank along with 2 small clowns. My tank is now 6 months old and I have pink and florescent green Coraline growing on all the rocks for the first time in my reefing career. This 20-gallon tank is being run with only an AC110 with a little carbon and gfo (when needed) in bags and floss which is changed every 3 days or so. That’s it! I truly believe the copepods/ rotifers feed on the algae keeping it in check, so the anaerobes had time to populate. I recently added a few snails just to keep the rocks polished. The funny thing too is that, No B.S., I have not had to clean the glass once since this tank started 6 months ago… Well, hope my experience helps anyone starting in this crazy hobby cuz we all know how frustrating it can get.


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*tank*

good for u sir , glad to see things have turned around &#8230; look forward to seeing some pics even if u are a lurker . patience is the key .


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## garwood (Oct 27, 2012)

thanx tom. thought mayb some would chime in with there exp w/ successful tanks and what worked for them. here are pics, most from the start but a couple recent ones


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*tank*

the site has dropped off &#8230; what happned to your big tank I remember it was quite a bit bigger .
my tank has been doing pretty good . no changes I got rid of my nems 
gave me some more room in tank to try some other corals , I do miss them loved the flow . 
I have tonnes of copepods , I feed the tank pretty good mixture of food , phyto 
reef roids , larrys reef , new spectrum pellets and flake food &#8230;
I try to keep hands out of tank

thanks for the update and pics


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## garwood (Oct 27, 2012)

Glad to hear u r still up and running. I don't have any of your nems either. They were impossible to get off my rock so they went with it along with some other corals. I do have one of your colt corals that had a little toadstool on its side. Honestly, my bigger tank just became to much work and expensive. especially battling algae and finally dinos the whole time. Always making F and SW. All the equipment, additives and such. Decided to start from scratch and figured the 20 I had would be a lot easier and take up less space. Also decided to take a whole new approach and just go basic as possible (cheap). The setup reminds me of a beginner FW tank really. Got a deal on a brand new marine orbit IC led light which even tho seems much less powerful than my last light is doin a much better job and it came with a 660g/h wavepump to boot. So far I am beyond pleased with the outcome. The corals nvr seemed happier. I do a weekly water change. Other than feeding I spend 15 min a week maintenance. Just hoping I can keep it this way. To bad about this site too, it does seem to be all buy and sell now, always have RC


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## loonie (Mar 29, 2008)

Garwood, thanks for sharing, I wish more people will share their experience.

I did redo one of my tanks and took sometime to add corals etc. But now I seem to be getting hairy algae which I never had before. I know if I introduce a tang fish, it might do the job, am still thinking.


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## garwood (Oct 27, 2012)

i hope you beat it. I spent more time trying to get rid of algae than I want to think about.


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