A little help is needed.

Ok so here is my problem. I have a 55 gallon salt water tank ( newport ) same as jebo tanks ( made by jebo) with hood and built in filters. I find my self having nothing but problems with it. I started out with a 24 gallon aquapod and had a little trouble when i 1st started it up. but once i had added a canister filter all my problems went away. now i own a 55 gallon, canister filter, 2 X 55watt 50/50 pc lighting. also have a sunsun vibration pump. I also have i would say about 60/70 lbs of live rock, 3/4 inch of live sand, but i am always having a algae with a little bit of ride slime. but all my chems are showing right on, taken water to the LFS and had it tested, same as my testing. i only have 6 small fish, a few hermit crabs and a star fish. so i have been thinking it is time to down size to smaller tank since i do not have that many fish and was still a newbi when i got the 55 gallon. didnt know much about lighting or anything else. but i am still a newbi at this and would like some help from everyone about the two tanks i am looking at. or some help to get this tank to where i would love to be at. i would love to be able to put corals and sps . one of my problems is i dont have alot of room in a small condo. so i have been looking at two smaller set up's. can you please help me with pro's and cons of these tanks.
1st one is a Red Sea Max Complete Coral Reef Systems ( http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_tanks_red_sea_max_complete-ap.html) and the other is a JBJ 28 Gallon Nano Cube HQI Aquarium ( http://www.marinedepot.com/JBJ_28_Gallon_Nano_Cube_HQI_Aquarium_with_FREE_Stand_(MTS_60)_Tank_with_Stand-JBJ_Lighting-JB7235-FIAQNCTS-vi.html ). so any help would be very greatfull as i know bigger is always much better but not for me right now. thank you veryone

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ok first off, the cannister filter might be providing some of the problem, second how lon was the tank set up before adding all of the livestock, 3rd your sandbed is really shallow and will NOT help with filtration, and 5th what is a vibration pump (never heard of one before and do not use one) are you meaning air pump? if so dont bother but i can tell you add some powerheads for waterflow and make sure the top of the water is rippling (the rippling aids in aeration of teh water)

Q:what is a vibration pump?
A: its the same as a powerhead. sunsun just calls it vibration pump dont know why but they do. the canister only has one layer of media to it and filled up with live rock. I let the tank cycle for about a month, then added in a blue damsle. i used 30 gallons of catlina water and 20 gallons of salt mix water. there is alot of top water moving around. far as the sand bed i was told 3/4 of inch is all i would need. I am only housing 6 fix at the moment and thinking about getting the nano jbj cause due to the fact that i dont have alot of room. if you look at the links for the pictures you can see the tank. thank you for the info. do you know of any of the pros or cons to the nano jbj or red sea max??

other than they will require more attention because they do not leave much room for error. larger tanks are more forgiving than smaller ones. however, both of the ones you are looking at are good as far as small tanks go. i prefer T5HO over MH lighting but that is me, if i want a shimmer effect i can get a couple of lights just to get a shimmer effect and have my normal t5's

yea you def need more sand, my bed is 3 inches in places(pistol shrimp does a hell of job) how are your parameters? id say keep the big one.. your tank is goingto grow so you will need the space

Juvy,

When i test the water everything is always good. just no clue why i have algae that is bright green always growing on my glass along with like a red slime less than 2 days after i clean it. also i only have 2 watts per gallon for my tank. i have been looking at the jbj nano cube with a chiller,and a stand. like i said i dont have a lot of room for it as well. i use API algaefix marine it does not seem to work well on my 55 gallon. when i had my 24 gallon it worked wonderful. I do a 5 gallon water change every week with catlina water that i get from the LFS. that is what i have been told to change from a few LFS.

could it be because my light is on for a long part of the day?

yea that will do it also..old bulbs, heavy feeding without enough cleaners, the "red slime" likes low flow also so if you increase your water movement in that area it should help, dont feed for like 4 days (the fish will be fine) decrease your lights ( do not run them no more then 10-12 hrs a day) do a nice water change because it it is blooming you have alot of nutrients in the water

are you using power compacts? i had a similar issue in my 55 (i upgraded to a 90) but i tired everything and it turned out that it was my power compact lighting. i noticed that i started having issues and when i replaced my bulbs the red slime algae started going away. now to maybe help you get a jump on correction, is the tank close to a window where light shines directly opn it? if so cover the window (that could cause a green algae growth spurt), also if you do not have any corals that require alot of lighting or if you think they can are hardy enough to do without light for a few days try turning off the light so that it is dark for 2 to 3 days ( algae cannot grow without light).


red slime can be caused by overfeeding also just as juice said, the red slimy stuff is not actually an algae but a red bacterial slime.


since you have a 55 currently i would suggest at least a koralia 3 and a koralia 2 or 4 powerhead, these do not provide direct flow like most powerheads and instead disperse it out in a wide pattern, also they are better if you plan on keeping nems in the future as your nems will be less likely to end up dead in teh powerhead intake.

i run my lighting in a cycle, my actinics come on 30 to 60 minutes before my daylight bulbs and go off 30 to 60 minutes after my daylight bulbs go out, then my fuge lights are on when my main tank lights are off. keep us informed, i am sure between juice and myself we can help you get everything good

I do have 55watt PC 50/50 lighting. my tank is near a window but i always do keep the blinds closed. if they are open it is no longer than 5 mins to keep a eye on my son while i am out side. only thing in my tank is 5 fish, hermint crabs, and a star fish. about 60-70 lbs of live rock, and just being told i do need to add more sand. my tank has a built in power head/filter , with a canister filter, and a sunsun power head (= to koralia).. canister and built in power head moves all the top water, and sun sun moves water around on the bottom since their was no water movement. i went with the sunsun over koralia due to the facts the couple of LFS i went to said the sunsun the same, not any better not any worse. so far i am happy with the sunsun. i will leave the lights off for the next 3 days and see what happens. thank you for all of your help.
Miller09

i will try to get some pictures posted of the tank today so that everyone can see what it is that i am working with.

the last picture is when i 1st had it set up after two weeks.
the top 3 was taken yesterday

ok so the tank has only been set up 2 weeks??? if that is the case then dont worry about anything as your tank is still going through its cycle, also put some water in it (the water level looks a tad low )

the tank has been set up for about 7/8 months now. I am going to do a water change today. about 10 gallons is what i am looking to change out. i always do a 5 gallon change out on it every other week. i took the one picture when the tank was only 2 weeks into the set up time.

i hardly ever did a waterchange in my 55 and my nitrates were always 40 ppm (i could never get them any lower for some reason), anyway, when i do a waterchange i always do a 10%, try doing a 10 gallon wc instead of a 5, also dust off teh bacterial slime and sccop as much out as you can with a fine net BEFORE doing tehr waterchange. another thing you might consider is getting some emerald crabs (reef safe and they do graze on some algae), also turbo grazer and margarita snails the snails should be added like 1 snail per gallon of water (i currently only have 1 turbo grazer in a 90 LOL), but they will graze constantly and help.

how often should PC be changed? i have 2 55 watts 50/50 ( white/blue ) ? light have been in use for only 7/8 months

i changed mine out once a year

no problem, if you are having a red slime bloom, you can try so algae remover, its is only a temp fix though, you have to eliminate the root of the problem, high phosphates and nutrient rich water

I have did use algae remover, ended up doing a 15 gallon water change, but not by choice, my mix was way off and my salt levels was way too high after the water change so i ended having to change out 8 gallons of water for fresh water. I am going to leave the lights off for another 2 days and not feed either to see if that helps the problem. I also used added stuff in for my phosphates as well. it came highly recommed to me from my LFS.

have you tried red slime remover? to get it to work better use a net to scoop out as much as possible then use the red slime remover making sure to leave your skimmer UNPLUGGED while you are using it otherwise your skimmer will pull out the red slime remover. turning the lights out for a few days will help get rid of the algae (as well as some critters like emerald crabs, tangs, lawnmower blennies , etc will graze upon it)

No i have used it in the past when i 1st got into salt water and it had never worked that well. it was only growing on my glass and if and when it did get on the sand i would clean it out right away. today is day 2 with no lights or food.

Also I do not have a skimmer on the tank. just canister filter, built in filter/ power head ( just cermic rings in it ) power head at the bottom of tank, built in hood lighting, i will have to take a picture of the top of the tank and get some feed back because i do want to put a skimmer on it but not too sure how to do it just yet.

a skimmer is nice for pulling out organic wastes.