Need some advice... Tank not doing well.
 

Long story short, I have been out of town working all winter and have had someone else looking after my tank for me.

After returning home my tank is in horrible shape..
Over the winter I had several losses including a mandarin goby, sixline wrasse and a pseudochromis that jumped to his death.

As far as corals I have lost a toadstool, and all of my zoos and mushrooms are in horrible shape.

Everything has a layer of green algae over everything and the sandbed looks like crap with spots of cyano.

I have performed 2 large water changes over the last week of 45 gallons each and have hand harvested as much of the crap i can get out, by constantly blowing it around and catching what I can with a net.

There is a fair bit of hair algae built up and the rocks still have all of they're coraline algae covered with green algae.

Any ideas where to start on this?
Ill be adding water parameters shortly and have another 45 gals mixed up in the basement. Going to be bringing carbon and phosphate remover online tomorrow.

Am I going in the right direction here or am I already too late?

i would def add carbon straight away... is it just a hair algae? if so you could also throw in a sea hare to help get rid of that, i would also check to see if your skimmer is working as well... you can also turkey baste your corals to try and get the algae off, i would also throw on a filter sock or filter floss over your drain to your sump(if you have a sump) so its catching all the crap instead of being recycled through the tank

i had bad hair algae when i wasnt using RO water... are you using straight tap? if you dont have a RO unit just swing into safeway and get the culligan bottles its a B*#&$ to lug them back and forth but its worked for me i have NO hair algae

my only other thinking is that the hair algae may be sucking the air out of the water suffocating the fish and corals? it wouldnt hurt you to add a air stone for a day or two....

can anyone else chime in?

Hi Cathy,
While I was away the tank was topped up with tap water, Since arriving home I have installed a ro/di system and have been topping it up with ro/di water. The two water changes were done with RO/DI.

Depending on how bad it is, I personally would rip it down and rebuild. Sometimes the uphill battle to get back to the former glory is actually just a losing battle. Pull it all out into rubbermaids, pitch the substrate, scrub down the tank, rinse. Repeat. While all of your rock is in the tubs you can scrub the s*** out of them an demolish as much algae as possible without worrying about it spreading in your tank. Rinse Bam! Half the battle is done right there.

Put it all back together and get back on the track of good husbandry. Sometimes the reset button is the best option.

yeah with the snow melting and everything else its just not a good idea to use tap water (for me anyways) so stick with the RO add some phospholoc and carbon and other than scraping it off by hand (i used a travel toothbrush haha) and add an airstone that should help with the fish at least... what are your parameters? when i had bad algae my phosphate was at 0, dont bother buying the hair algae treatments they never worked for me you just have to ride it out... if by chance you cant find any filter socks its not a longterm fix but just get a tube sock and put it over the drain to the sump it will catch the big chunks your scraping off...

Part of me was worried about hearing that while another part is relieved.
With recent changes to my job, I will be around town and be able to maintain the tank on my own as intended.

I have a dream of upgrading to a 6 foot shallow tank and have already started entertaining the idea.

But If I can save this setup and possibly trade it or sell it I would rather go that route then tear it down?

Im waiting on a test kit to arrive from a friend and am continuing to scrub tonight.
I do admit I have made some huge progress in teh overall look of the tank but it still does not look good. I am fairly certain it is not at risk of further livestock loss atm though.
Just is overwhelmed with algae.

Think of it more as a re-scape than a complete rebuild. No need to completely rip apart the system. Just clean the problem areas and put it back together. This will save the system!

Got pics? Scale of the problem would be good to see. I understand exactly where you're coming from as I was in the same situation this winter, but I left my tank to a professional maintenance company. My tank is also in what I consider poor shape, but it sounds much, much milder than your issues. My first plan of attack while doing a 15% waterchange was to use a turkey baster to blast any detritus off the rocks and use gravel vacuum to clean the sand. I have a shallow sandbed...you can't just vacuum a deep sandbed out of nowhere like that. A couple days later I replaced the carbon with fresh stuff. A couple days after that I replaced the GFO with fresh stuff. A few days after that the tank was ready for its weekly 10% waterchange where I thoroughly cleaned the sand and rocks again. My tank perked up in a couple weeks.

http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/031.jpg

http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/030.jpg

http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/028.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/032.jpg

Former glory

http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...l/DSCF0171.jpg

Really bummed about the whole thing.

Everything was going so well before I left.

For sure get carbon going and if possible some RowaPhos ( I have some you could have cheap as well as a TLF 150 if needed) to help eliminate any phos, a lawnmower blenny would help with the hair algea as well ( i know of a nice healthy one for sale I could have here Saturday if interested). You might also need to change out your light bulbs.

Just putting it out there PM me if need be.

Sounds good, I will get the carbon and rowaphos going asap.

The blenny would probably be a great idea:) Ill send you a pm griz.

I have read in other situations where covering the tank with garbage bags and leaving it without light for a week will help with certain algae problems?

Is that at all relevant here?

It would not hurt, if I had a UV still I would have lent it to you as it sure helped me when I first started my tanks.

I did this for cyano. Worked great! Only 3 days though .

I have had that kind of HA, just not quite that severe.
I am very close to no HA now.
What I did/ used, were: GFO, RO water for top-off and changes, water parameters watched and dosed closely to optimal ranges, about 10 MEXICAN Turbo snails/130 gal (don't get any other kind, they don't work for HA), and a seahare.

Then practice patience. One day you will look at your tank and goes, wow, there is the end in sight! I now have sold all of my Mex snails, except for three. And the tank still looks great.
HTH. Lenny.

Thanks for the encouragement, I will keep plugging away at it today.

I have not seen any of my clean up crew around and fear they may have been a casualty as well.

Today I will scrub as much of the rocks as possible then begin another 45 gal water change.

After which I will bring carbon and Rowaphos online.

Hopefully things will turn the corner and start going in the other direction sooner rather than later.

toothburshes and also a baby bottle cleaner will work... i used the bottle cleaner to get between the rocks... also good luck

I wouldn't do that in this case, with that much algea all dying at once all the absorbed nutrients will be released back into your system...

Best bet is to do as suggested, remove and scrub rocks with a brush, mexican turbo snails, lawnmower blenny, tangs if your system is large enough. Regular water changes, gfo and things should clear up in a few weeks.

Oh one more thing. Fire the guy who was doing the maintence :lol:

Alrighty, if you're up for the fight then give'r hell! You will need to be patient and give the system time to recover. First things first, manually remove as much algae as possible and make sure that the system is stable (ie. no paramter fluctuations). Get a seahare and a clean up crew in there to start doing some damage to the general funkyness.

Next, you gotta starve out the algae and cyano. If you are feeling brave, I'd recommend VSV dosing with MB7 and skim the hell out of the tank. Take it easy if you go this route. 20% water change every week. Pull out all the guns!

i fought hair algae for months finally tore the tank down scrubbed the crap outta the rocks and started again
i should have done that right away instead of wasting so much time and energy trying to win the battle

The recovery,
I took a toothbrush and spent about 6 hours scrubbing the rocks, glass etc.
The process released massive amounts of crap into the water
My strategy at first was to stir a bunch of the larger particles up and catch them with a net. This worked well at first as the entire tank was literally covered in hair algae and patches of cyano.
Eventually I came up with an idea to try taking a sock and tying it on the end of a powerhead with an elastic band. (I didn't have any filter socks when I came up with it lol.)
To my surprise this worked beautifully.
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/009.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/015.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/016.jpg

I spent several more hours scrubbing rocks and blowing detrius into the mini vacuum.
25 gal water change and a fresh batch of rowaphos and carbon.
I have another 25 gals being made up atm and will do another change on sunday.
Here are some pics of where I am at now.
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/018.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/011.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/017.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj392/t2kewl/014.jpg


Sry pics are from iphone.
Appreciate everyone's suggestions and help.
A blenny and some turbos are my next step.
Ill update with my progress in about a week.

Use a sharp razor blade on the glass, works way better then scrubbing & comes off in bigger chunks making it easier to pull out.

You bet:) Thankfully I have the glass all cleaned up, for the most part.
Now it's just a matter of getting the water quality back to good and some more cleanup.