Save my tank!

[Slyguy00]

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

[gregzz4]

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

[Reef Pilot]

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).

[jason604]

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

[Masonjames]

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...

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[jason604]

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?

[Masonjames]

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.