Save my tank!
 

Up until last week my tank been battling long hair algae and most my sps lost color and turned semi brown but my LPS and zoas were thriving. Till the first day of the semi crash I saw most of my sps frags totally dead overnight with its skin peeled off but doesn't look like RTN. Some of my largest colonies are having STN. None of my zoas of diff types are opened and LPS are opened a lol smaller than usual but still looks healthy. I did a large 40g water change for my 75g system and it seem to have help stopped the sps wipeout so far but colonies still STN. The first night that I notice my sps dying I did a water test and saw my KH was around 9. I always keep my KH around 7 and I normally always have a problem with it dropped but I don't now how it raised. I use a auto doser and the amt I dose is always the same. My cal and mag is the same as it's always been ca 330 an mag mid 1300s. I rly need help I am lost in what to from
Here and any tip will help. Or even if someone is nice enough to come over and see my system to see what I am doing wrong or can improve on.

CA should be higher than 330. At least 380, preferably 400ish. Alk of 9 is fine.

I keep my alk at 9-10, ca at 450 and mag at 1400. Don't think those are your problems though. Id be testing phosphates and nitrates asap.

Also check for aefw if you haven't yet may not be root cause but one of many

My phosphate an nitrate always shows 0 but I'm pretty sure it's there ur to all my long hair algae and tons of Ditris I hVe on my rocks n bottom of sump. Phosphate I use salifert and nitrate is seachem. My sea hair I got last week back split and died today. I had a fish die last week I'm not sure it if was natural cause or not cuz all my other fishes r rly healthy. My shrimps n crabs ate the dead fish n by the time I notice there was only the head spine and tail fin left. I'm goin to do another 40g water change tomorrow.

What do they look like

very very hard to see. tiny little flat worms on your acros. I think that is unlikely though.

Coral was colourful and started to turn brown, most of the time it mean's Phosphate and build up of Organics.

This is what I would do. Pull any GFO and GAC and go get some Seachem Purigen and couple of the Seachem " The Bag " put it your sump or better would be Canister or a AquaClear Hang on. This stuff removes Organics quickly and you should see things get better and your Phosphates should drop also.
The other thing is make sure your skimmer is working at 100% clean the neck and make sure there is no blockage of the Air supply.
Do not dose or add any 2 part solution if that's what you use for now as it also adds Trace Elements that could feed the Algae.
Good Luck!

Mike

What have you done/changed over the last 2 or 3 months ?

I know with my tank I've run into problems that caused some hair algae.
From there, my corals started to suffer as I didn't address my higher-than-normal PO4 and I not only got some browning corals, but I also ended up with a fully blown out GHA issue. It was everywhere and out of control

I lost a couple SPS during the battle. Some due to GHA, and some due to my over-zealous hydrogen peroxide dosing ... my whole tank went into shock after I decided to kill every last living spot of GHA I could see.
It worked for a couple weeks, and my corals are coming back, but I'd not do it again so aggressively

I ended up doing a lot of small carbon changes to try to remove whatever happened to my tank as I still have no idea what happened.
Near as I can tell I killed a bunch of bacteria ..
Regardless, if your corals are upset, carbon is your friend :wink:

My softies survived all this just fine, as they will mostly do

Hi PO4 can upset SPS, and so can fluctuations in salinity and Alk

As Brad stated, your Ca is a bit low, and IMHO your Alk could be a tad higher.
I like to try my best to hit 7-8 Alk, 410-420 Ca and 1350 Mag

Keeping your Alk just a tad higher (7.5) gives you the wiggle room if your corals start to use more. Keeping it @ 7 is OK, but if they use more than normal, it can dip too low before you know it

The best thing you can do is keep it stable for now and, as I'm doing, ride it out and see if things turn around

Good luck dude :smile:

So here's what changed. About 2-3 months ago my tank was beautiful no algae in sight and my sps were super vibrant n just pops. Till one day I saw some hair algae n just left it alone. Next thing u no it my tank was had a full blown long hair algae outbreak. It began to smother zoas n sps etc but the colours were still vibrant none he less. I bought more larger sps and had no room to place it so I have to put it at the end of my tank but I'm only running 1 16" led fixture on a 4' tank so I decided to raise my lights about 5-6" higher to make sure my new colonies had light shine on them. The very next day most of my sps all browned out right away due to the shock of light I'm sure. I lowered it a few days later back to the original height but my vibrant sps colours didn't rly come back and I was stuck with an ugly brown tank filled with long hair algae. So after seeking for advice here I tried getting a reactor n filled it with about 2" of rowaphos. Then few weeks later is when I had my semi tank sps crash. I'm thinking there's something in my rocks. I did purchase a bunch of base rock and bleach/ muriatic acid bath and put my tank water in it so it will cycle faster. I'm planning to swap all the rocks in my tank with my new rocks when it's done cycling. I'm not sure if using my old tank water is a good idea to cycle the new rocks or not but so far I only did it once and didn't change the water yet. I'm planning to drain the water and fill it with my tank water again tomorrow when I change the water or should I just make new clean saltwater for my new rocks?

Sounds like you have several issues. First you need more light if you want sps. Secondly your phosphates were high you added rowa and pulled it out to fast and that is very hard on sps. And as far as algae goes I would think it was due to your high phosphates. If you wonna fix your algae problem there's only one effective way to do that. And that would be black out your tank. It amazes. Me people still go to all these great lengths to get rid of it when all you have to do is give your Tank 3 or 4 days of complete darkness. After that I bet money 95% of your algae is gone. I would also remove some rowa out of your reactor. That's just my opinion but that's what I would do. Not sure how much flow you have in your tank but increasing that would also prevent algae and detrius. Good luck

I did a 4-day blackout and it weakened, but didn't eradicate, my GHA

I'd use new water for cycling your new rock. Your tank water will likely add stuff you are trying to remove

I know SPS don't like change, esp any kind of rapid change. Earlier this year, my P04 got a little higher, from near zero (hanna digital checker) to about 0.10, and noticed some of my SPS lose color and grow slower. I also disconnected my bio pellet reactor, and my N03 crept up to 30 ppm. I am sure that didn't help either. And GHA took off with a vengeance, too.

Then this summer, I had a problem where my KH doser line plugged, and my KH fell to 5 before I figured that out (was away a lot). Once I fixed that, I upped it to about 9 (miscalculated and did it too fast). After that, I noticed real problems,... white burnt tips on some of my SPS, and big loss in color as well as some STN on some SPS.

Took me a while to get everything stabilized, and meanwhile some of the STN turned into RTN, and lost some of my prized SPS. It took about a month or more after my tank was stabilized before my SPS started to turn around.

Good news, though, is that everything now is looking much better, and growth and color is returning (although still a ways to go from what I had before). I think it just needs more time now, and have to keep everything very constant and stable, esp that KH. My GHA has pretty well disappeared too (needed consistent zero P04 and zero N03 before that let up).

Last time I tried a 3 day blackout I couldn't find my total pitch black sheets n just used a bunch if bed sheets lol. A bit of lights still went through. When I finish the 3 days I did notice a bit of algae gone but my sps looked worse and had some RTN. Since my tank is very delicate right now is it a good idea to do another blackout or wait till it heals? K I'll make new water for my new rocks instead of tank water

Debris removal. Nuff said. When this is lacking, all we do is throw a mess of "solutions" at the system trying to correct it throwing things out of balance, waisting time, money, media, equipment, livestock, chemicals, etc. when this becomes the main focus of husbandry practice, many of these "solutions" become irrelevant. Granted allot of these solutions can work fantastic and each can have a successful benefit when used correctly but every action has a reaction and once we start adding in the potential for human error well...

The most valuable and effective piece of equipment a hobbyist can have at there disposal costs next to nothing, is available almost anywhere, comes in a variety of colors, sizes, and can be customized at any length, can be upgraded with unique attachments all suited for an individuals needs, and can ward off so many problems we constantly encounter. Of coarse assuming all parameters are kept in check through equal diligence.

Yea I agree about Derris removal. Tons and tons of Derris comes out of my rocks when I turkey blast it but not enough is going down my hang on back overflow to be picked up in my skimmer in time b4 it sets back into the rocks. I have tons of 1 lbs rocks in my tank so Derris get traps so easily this is why I bought all new rocks so I can change my aquascape to allow a lot of flow around rocks. Ok I do have one of those hang on back aquaclear filters but what should i put in it since I'm already running carbon in my reactor?

If you can't get the debris out through the overflow you gotta get it out through siphon. If you have a sump and filter sock just run siphon from display into sock placed in sump. You can siphon all day long like that if you want. Promptly remove sock after finished. Make that part of your regular maintenance schedule, new rocks or not.

I don't think there's anything in your rocks. Nutrients have to be incredibly low to inhibit the growth of some kinds of "hair" algae, much lower than most people can or want to run their tanks at. It's why it's an invasive species in large parts of the world to which it has been introduced by humans.

In nature, it's not low nutrients that keep it in check (thought that can help), but a massive cohort of herbivores that suppress it enough to favour stony corals.

Hair algae, like most things in the ocean that need to compete for limited substrate, wage chemical war on their competition. They emit all sorts of nasty alellopathic chemicals that range from halting the growth of corals, to outright killing them.

If I were a betting man, I'd say you introduced spores of a particularly nasty kind of hair algae on a coral or frag, conditions were favourable for it, you don't have anything that eats it, and now it's killing your coral. Yes, you should keep nutrients within the range of the reef you're trying to keep - something that is hard to measure with rampant growth of a problem algae as it will mask your inputs while being a better competitor for nutrients than your gfo reactor - but you also need to kill that algae.

When weeds start growing in your garden, it doesn't necessarily mean there is something wrong with your soil. It means weed seeds have made it in to the garden. You wouldn't try to leach the soil of all nitrogen and phosphorous to get them out - you'd weed it.

My suggestion is to find some AlgaefixMarine, and nuke the heck out of that algae. Nutrients aside, I bet your surviving corals will see near instant improvement once the majority of that algae is dead. Even if you do have a nutrient 'problem', you're never going to be able to properly diagnose it, or put in a system that's better at competing for them with a lush growth of hair algae in the tank. It's always the tanks with the worst algae problems that measure '0' nitrate and phosphate, which, for the record means there's not a whole of anything for GFO to suck out of the water column.

Okay? Seems like backwards thinking to me. I again will say, go after the root cause. You've said already you have an issue with debris buildup. It's very simple. Get it out. And work to keep it out. If you want to keep poo as a pet then by all means, invest in all the livestock, all the equipment and medias and chemicals, all the frustration, to properly house this pet. We have some very ingenious practices to successful house these poo pets in our system so this may in deed be your best approach if you wish to keep them. But keeping these poo pets has led you to the place you are today. So ask yourself if keeping poo is part of the practices you wish to continue to engage in.

Again, there are allot of great means to help you control nutrients within your system and I myself would encourage you to run gfo and you may in fact want to include some livestock to help you control it. But you have to remember these approaches are all a day late to the party. They do not address the root cause. Get the crap out before it even becomes an issue.

I'd agree with this, but not because I think the detritus itself is causing nutrient issues. If the detritus is building up, it means the export systems aren't working very well and that there's dead spots. By the time you see it as 'detritus', it's pretty much inert refractory organic matter, most of which is produced as a byproduct bacterial metabolism and is as decomposed as it's ever going to get. Vacuuming up the detritus is like vacuuming up a pot plat that's been knocked over on to your carpet - the dirt's already spilled, so to speak.

The stuff you should care about, uneaten food and fish poo, gets scavenged and eaten by critters and bacteria very quickly. Yes, detritus is the eventual end result, but if you've got detritus accumulating it means you probably don't have enough flow in enough places to get the stuff you should care about to your skimmer/filter socks before it breaks down. Vacuuming up the mess is pointless. preventing the mess from accumulating in the first place is important. Perhaps we're arguing the same point.

However, I still stand by the premise that the "root cause" of many problem algaes is no more complicated than the presence of that algae in the first place. Just like the root cause of dandelions in my back yard is the dandelions growing in the alley behind it. A great many (most?) of the corals we keep come from waters with enough nutrients in them to support verdant growth of macro and micro algae. Reefs dying under a choking chemical assault from lush fields of simple 'hair' type algae is a well known consequence of humans fishing out all the herbivores on a reef.

The OP has already stated that his PO4 readings are undetectable, because the algae is sucking it up as fast as it's produced. GFO is great at lowering PO4 when it's present in detectable quantities, that's been shown in test after test. But he doesn't have any PO4 in his water to lower. The algae already sucked it all up. And what's a better competitor for new P as it's added: A bed of algae in the same box where all the P is added, with an absorbable surface area probably measured in square kms, receiving 100% of the flow of the system across it every few minutes, or a teeny tiny reactor in the sump that gets the equivalent of 100% of the tank's water through it every few hours? On top of that the algae is producing a slew of tannins and noxious chemicals designed over hundreds of millions of years specifically to kill the competition.

Step one should be removing the algae. Step two should be adding flow and rearranging the rocks. Step three, once the algae is dead and gone, should be diagnosing whether a nutrient problem actually exists or not. If the OP removes all the algae and phosphate and nitrate levels climb to unacceptable levels, then there's things that can be done. But they might not, and anything you do to try and control nutrients while the algae is in there is going to be like trying to roll a boulder uphill.

There is a simple, safe, and effective treatment for almost all kinds of hair algae. Thousands of people (including myself) have used it, and other than a few anecdotal cases of some shrimp or some coral reacting negatively, most people (including myself) see an immediate improvement in the vigour and colour of their corals once the hair algae starts to die.

Agreed. I had hair algae from detritus, and fueled by nutrients in the new rock. I corrected flow, turkey basted the crap out of the rock and changed lots of water as required. Today I have no algae in my tank, and I didn't use any magic bullet to get there. Get the crap out of the water, algae will have nothing to use as food.

Where ca n I can this algae fix marine and can it be used with rowaphos same time? During yesterday's large water change I was able to get mybe 60-70% of my debris out in my display and sump. Took me about 5 hrs!!!! Some of my more damaged sps didn't look so good after most likely to that they were above the water for a extended time. I did splash water on them every so often during the clean. If I want to add another led fixture should I wait and let my sps heal first or just do it since some of my sps at the end of my tank is slowly dying due to lack of light. And when I want to change out all my live rocks do I have to do it really slowly 10lbs or so at a time so it won't shock and crash my tank further or is there a better way? Experts share your knowledge =)

I'm not sure who sells it locally. I haven't used it a couple of years, I think I bought mine off eBay when I had trouble finding it in Canada.

I had a plague of hair algae in my tank that was probably a normal part of it's first year of life, but I was also running heaps of GFO, biopellets, and was feeding very little in a tank with a massive amount of flow. All my sps were pale, looked like crap, not growing, and anywhere the hair algae encroached on their bases, tissue receded.

The algae fix marine took out all the hair algae in about 2 weeks. Corals that had been in suspended animation for months started plating out and growing like mad, and everything changed colour in a drastic way. At no point did I ever measure detectable levels of N or P.

About a year later it started growing in my overflows again, but I have a doliatus rabbit in the display now so I think any that grows in there gets immediately eaten.

You can order Algaefix from Amazon.ca

Some algae is so toxic nothing can eat it, and it can out survive your corals at the nutrient game. If you havn't dealt with a real nasty strain of hair algae you might think it's easy to get rid of. Some pests are a real PITA!

BTW +1 to this! Having dealt with "toxic hair algae" in a bare bottom tank, with lots of flow and no detritus build up, and nutrients always undetectable, this is the approach I'd recommend as well.

Thx I'll check it out. My yellow tang does munch out every so often at it if it is short like half inch. But most are 2-4 inches. The best is for sure the sea hare but first one I got that instantly went for the 4" algae patch n cleaned it up instantly as it went in my tank died horrible by my brain coral that night. He was being devoured alive. My second sea hare last a week but I never saw him eat the green hair but instead went for the film algae which I think is useless. He went to half his size and back split open and stiffen n died. Don't y he died but I did see my shrimps pick at him all the time. I have 4 aggressive shrimps so I'm not sure if I should go buy another sea hare.

Is this the one u guys used with success? http://www.amazon.ca/API-Fishcare-Al...gae+fix+marine

That's the one. The bottle will say Algaefix (freshwater) but it's the same stuff.

Another BTW:

Be careful! If you have algae as toxic as the strain I had, the dying algae will will nuke your tank. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. 2 weeks before I used the Algaefix I scrubbed off all the algae with a tooth brush, and caught it in a filter sock, it was everywhere anyhow. The next morning almost all my corals were bleached, and some had almost completely RTNed.

How I avoid that

Remove as much algae as you can by plucking with your fingers or hemostats, dipping them in a fresh water container after each pluck. If you scrub, only do a small section as a test first. Algae as toxic as the strain I had would seem to be very rare.

Jason, I'm not sure what kind of hair algae you have but when I went on vacation for 4 weeks and came back my tank was covered in green hair algae .

I bought a yellow foxface and within the next couple of days all my algae was gone again. However I also did do some large W/C as well.

Try using your hands and manually removing as much as you can. If it's just on a few pieces of rock, remove the rocks and treat or care for them outside your aquarium to avoid harming all your corals.

I agree the op has an issue to correct. And there are many tools at his disposal to do so. Debris (poop/food) removal at this point may not be enough. So I support any sound advice that is offered to aid him in doing so.

I do find it amusing however that far to often we side step such simple and basic ideals and practices. We do a find job of offering up corrective measures but dispute such simple practices as picking up a siphon hose and removing debris. Debris is crap, uneaten foods, all the junk of the system. Who cares what stage it is in or the correct terminology of the word. If it's gotten to the point of becoming inert then maybe it's time to question why we're allowing it to remain in our systems long enough for it to get to that point.

No op, debris (poop/food) is not your problem. Don't blame yourself because you didn't clean up your pets s**t and by doing so created an environment you did not wish for.

We've learned in our civilized way of life we cannot keep our own crap, or uneaten foods around for very long. We have learned we must flush the toilet, tend to uneaten foods, pick up our dog crap etc. Why do we bother though? Nature has a way of processing crap and spoiled foods. I mean there are flys, and bugs and all types of critters and scavengers after all that can process that for us in nature. If a bear craps in the woods I'm sure no one will notice or care. If my dog craps in my yard. I'm going to clean it up. Why, because we have learned we cannot keep these things around. Despite what nature does.

So why do we justify keeping it in our tanks?

Do what you have to do to correct this issue your facing. You may in fact need an arsenal of corrective measures to do so at this point. But I hope all you take from anything I've said is a slightly different look at your husbandry practises going forward. Keeping poo as a pet in your home aquarium is by far the most expensive, challenging and frustrating creature you can keep. A quick and regular siphon can take minutes and your tank will be the better for your diligence and you can keep more money in your pocket and more time to invest in the things you really want to keep. Your fishes and coral.

+1 for sure

If you have fish waste accumulating in your tank you need more flow to keep it in suspension so it can be removed by your skimmer.

Am I seriously the only one who siphons? Lol. I feel like I'm doing something taboo...

I have massive amounts of flow. Yet I still get settling and debris accumulating. I still need to siphon. Id bet my money you yourself have debris accumulating someplace.

Sure I siphon once in a while. It's more for aesthetics, I like to keep my bare bottom clean :redface: Otherwise basting occasionally to blow detritus out of the inevitable dead spots.

I vacuum my sand on each water change to get as much debris that falls down as I can but I really think it's my noob rock work that causes so much Ditris to accumulate and cause a giant algae bloom. Here's a pic of my tank in its prime but it also shows u novice rock work and why I really want to change my rocks. It's 3 boulders on the bottom that supports 1 large plate piece from 1 end of my tank to other and a ton of small fist size pieces with corals on top. So all the garbage gets trap under the small pieces and sits on top of the large plate. Flow can't get to it.

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...ps49kdb2gp.jpg

This layout also does not allow my sps to grow and I can't fit much. What I want to do now is build 2 or 3 towers with a bridge. That way there's ton of space for things to grow and fishes to swim.

That tank looks fantastic! It's a bummer your having some issues at the moment but it sounds like your on a good track to sort it out! Will be great to see an update once you get the new scape up and things settled in : )

Thx! I'm scared to show a pic of what it looks like now lol. Also before I changed my tank water yesterday I tested my new salt water which I never do and saw kh at 10 which is good but cal is 350 and mag at 1100. This is why my I can't get my cal n mag up to proper lvls. Mix is instant ocean

My green hulk colony is still lush green as ever. Things a tank