BIG TROUBLE!! Need advice please.

[dc4]

Originally Posted by doch

What do you see in that picture that I don't? Everything was super happy before the crash. Are you talking about the hair algae? That wouldn't crash a tank would it? Phosphates were a little high (0.2 for a short while), nitrates have always been low (I just checked with my elos kit... clear as can be). At the time of the crash, the phosphates were at about 0.10. The before picture of the display was probably 2 months ago or so... things got WAY better after that, and then BOOM!!

I had a little hair algae before and found out the problem with testing for phostphate/nitrates with a tank full of hair algae is that they would absorb it all and then your tests would be all skewed. I had tests showing 0 ph and 0 nitrates but having hair algae in the tank would mean that the tests are giving a false negative. Having that much hair algae in your tank and having the tests still showing phosphates would mean that there is too much even for the hair algae to feed on. I was over feeding my tank and probably still am but I have added gfo and algae grazers to prevent another outbreak in my new tank.