Tank is still nice. Is that a Squarespot in the last photo? Do you still have the Kole Tang and if so has it changed in color?

Leah, I sold the Kole Tang a long time ago. I can't remember why...he either started picking on corals or he was picking on another fish. Last I heard he was normal Kole coloring again. Yes, that's a Squarespot Anthias...he's cool he eats out of my fingers.

The brink of death...
 

Wow, I haven't updated this thread in over a year... :o

I guess the short story is I was working in Alberta from October 2012 to April 2013. My tank had a rough winter in the hands of the tank sitter with massive hair algae growth. I lost my large Snappy's Rainbow Stylo due to the hair algae. :( I replaced the Stylo with a new mini colony of the same lovely piece (thanks to my frag sharing). I lost several smaller pieces too including most of my Birdnests. The hair algae has been very tough to get out of the large Austera and I was afraid to lose it as well. Since the hair algae was sucking the nutrients out of the water in such efficiency, the SPS were all very pale and thin skinned from essentially "zero" nutrients in the water column. My D-D Merck phosphate kit showed no color change and neither did the API nitrate kit.

In order to save the corals, I had to feed the water column in the evenings for the benefit of the corals. In the mornings I turkey basted the hair algae to blow the detritus out, and twice per week I used long tweezers to pull as much hair algae out as possible.

In June of this year I decided to give biopellets a go after I've been watching everyone's experiences with them over the last few years. I was very nervous about this, but the hair algae was at such a density that it was very difficult to eradicate - especially when having to balance algae removal with coral feedings. That's a tough balance.

I bought a Reef Dynamics BPR 135 biopellet reactor and some Vertex biopellets. To avoid cyano outbreak, I started with a meager 50 mL of biopellets on June 8th. I know it takes 3 weeks to establish bacteria in the reactor, so around that time I increased my evening coral feedings. I started to see a bit of a difference around 3 1/2 weeks. At 4 1/2 weeks, on July 10th, I added another 50 mL of biopellets. The reactor has been running this way since and I have continued my evening feedings.

The hair algae was officially gone mid-August though I am still working on increasing SPS coloring. While at MACNA I lost a large fish that wasn't removed from the tank (I just found bones), so when I came back from MACNA there was a return of the hair algae in the large Austera. I'm really not sure why the fish died as it was in great condition and had been in the tank for 6 months.

Water parameters:

Calcium 420 ppm (Elos)
Alkalinity 7.5 to 8.0 (Hanna Checker)
Magnesium 1350-1400 ppm (Salifert)
Potassium 380-420 ppm (Elos)
pH 8.1 morning, 8.3 evening
Phosphate 0.008 ppm (Merck)
Nitrate undetectable (API)
Salinity 35 ppt (1.0264)

Here is a photo journal.

It looked fine on July 15th 2012 (I added a couple rocks - the white ones)...
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...July152012.jpg

It looked pretty bad on December 22nd...
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...ps9894bb32.jpg

It looked really bad in April (no pics), although a bit better by May after working on it for 6 weeks even though it was a bit bare from coral loss...
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...May2320133.jpg

And now today it's finally starting to look pretty good again...
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...Sept820132.jpg

Looking great. I'm also battling some pale coloration and apparently not doing as well as you.

looking good!

I understand your pain on the hair algae when I had my small tank up and running I had a battle to keep it under control while it never killed any coral it did promote a lot of algae growth making the tank look ugly.

Hopefully things continue to go better for you also I found out from a friend that he keeps 3 electric blue hermits in his tank 2 of them eat the hair algae like there is no tomorrow while the third sifts the sandbed might be an option worth looking at.

Are you running LED's over this tank now?

wow, great turn around and recovery Mindy! Many people would have either thrown in the towel or done way too much too quickly to try to "fix" their tank resulting in a much more worser tank. Your course corrections were much more precise and methodical. Like a BOSS :biggrin:

Tank is looking good Mindy.

i always have something go south when im on vacation also....

i lost my purple tang while at macna....

tank looks good now! :)
keep up the pics!

Those stags look great Mindy! I hope I can get mine into a similar state down the road :)

Thank you, it looks like it is on the mend now. I did forget to mention that I add 10 Mexican Turbo snails in May, and about a month ago I removed all my small snails (Cerith, Astraea, Ring Cowries) and added 8 Scarlet Hermits. The hermits won't bother the Turbos, but they will eat smaller snails. I think I'm going to add another 8 Scarlet Hermits. However, I was impressed that the Tang that died was completely cleaned up when I got from MACNA, so the clean up crew is efficient indeed!

Thank you!

Thanks Brett. How are you trying to improve color?

No. The lights are still 2x250w SE Phoenix and 2x54w KZ Super Blue.

Thanks Kien! It is a long road when it is so far gone.

Thanks Mark!

Thanks! Yes, it was a Tang I lost too. It always makes you wonder what the heck happened.

Thanks Scott. I'm sure yours will look great. It just takes time. :)