Is this normal? I think no...

JustinReef

New member
I have a heavily planted display tank. Lots of different Caulpera and Halimeda that has usually needed to be pruned back every two or three days. It has really grown out of control...in a good way. Thats the look I was going for.

The other day though I noticed that large areas of the Caulpera and some of the Halimeda seemed to be dying. The Caulpera is going clear and the Halimeda white. It does not seem to be going sexual but just dying. Nothing has changed in the tank as far as water params although my PH has been a little on the high side at 8.64. The only other thing I did was add a Phosban reactor. This all started happening a few days after that. Could this have taken too much phosphate out of the water??? It seems so unlikely though.

Any ideas? It does not seem to be hurting the tank at all but its starting to look very ugly, just when the tank was starting to fill in and look amazing!

Please help.
 
The reactor could be pulling too much P04 out of the water.
What is Your nitrate reading?Do You dose Fe(iron)?
 
10ppm,well..I don't see a problem there.It may be that Your reactor is pulling out to much phosphate.Is this tank a stand alone planted tank,or is it plumbed inline with a reef?

You could try some iron at 1/2 dose,thats what I do when the greens start looking peaked.I use Kents super chleated iron.As I understand it you need a UV to make the chleated iron bioavailable. ;)
 
This is a stand alone planted tank, not plumbed to a reef. So are you saying that to dose some iron, I need to have a UV running? I have no UV on the tank. How is iron usually introduced to a tank? Just water changes?
 
Oh,OK.There is alot more to concider when it's part of a larger system,and I was going to suggest slowing the flow to the reactor down.But if this a tank by itself,I would think the reactor is counter to Your goal of a lush system.

Iron doesn't last very long in sea water,it either precipitates out or is used up by algae.So they use a chealetor to help keep it in the water longer.UV breaks down the chealetor releasing the iron.But I wouldn't go buy one just for this reason alone though.You will get some UV from the lights on the tank.
Here is a couple of threads on iron. here andhere.
A good article on dosing
iron .
 
Thanks! I read those and have started dosing iron. I have removed the phosban reactor because I do think it must have been the cause of some die off. Everything was just growing too well and when I added the reactor, it suddenly started going backwards.

I may end up adding a UV to the system anyways. I was going to a few months ago anyways but with everything I run on this tank including a very big skimmer, ozone, ect. I thought it might be overkill.

Its kind of funny because I use to keep an sps reef and would have killed for water parameters like I have now but since I only have some softies and mostly algae, I want more nutrients! I have to set this tank up a little different I guess. Its still more of a sps reef set up.

Thanks for the help so far though! Hopefully this will save what algae I have left. I find it hard to believe it could all die off anyways...macro seems pretty tough. Would your recommend pulling out the clear stuff? My guess is that it is harmless. I also figure it will not grow back.
 
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