just about out of patience (long)

jimberta

New member
i've about had it with my tank and am very close to giving up. unless of course somebody here can come up with something that will work....

the problem....hair algae and lack of coralline growth...i have to admit that about 1 1/2 years ago, i fell behind in the water changes and the tank developed an explosion of hair algae. since then, i had my lfs guy come in and scrub the rock with a brush, which was back around Christmas.

the tank is 100 gallon and has been set up for about 4 years. i have been running carbon (changed weekly) thru an emperor 400, i have a red sea berlin hang-on skimmer, lighting is 3 x 175 metal halide (6500k) and 2 x 96 pc actinic, about 100lbs of rock and a sand bottom.

inhabitants are 2 clownfish (percs), 1 foxface, 2 pajama cardinals, 1 six line wrasse, 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 condy anemone, some polyps and some mushrooms, some hermits, astrea snails, a sand sifting star and unfortunately some aptasia. for the past several months i have been doing 25 gallon water changes using seachem reef salt every week, i also add a daily dose of b-ionic calc/alk buffer. i feed the fish only every few days with mysis/spirulina brine mix and some krill once a week for the condy. all inhabitants are healthy and have been in the tank for at least a couple of years. although i cannot seem to keep any NEW inhabitants more than a month or two....some less....

i bought the metal halide set up to replace my 4 x 65 pc back around october. almost wish i would have stayed with the pc's

the water always tests fine by my lfs....correct ph, 0 ammonia/trites, low trates, salt is occasionally a little high, 0 phosphates, calc/alk ok.....etc...sorry, i dont have the exact values for all of these

i am going to the lfs this weekend to pick up 2 new actinic pc's and am also going to replace 2 of the 6500k metals with 10000k.

i'd sure like to see good coralline growth and my polyps and mushrooms to return to their health and vigor of yesteryear. i'd also like to add a few more fish and a clam, but, until i see improvement, there is no way i'm adding anything to this tank

i'd really like to not try to sell the tank. in the past, when it looked good (lots of purple and healthy shrooms and polyps), it truly was something to look at, we even made a sitting room out of the room where the tank is, but......if i cant make it work, i really dont need the aggrevation....

HELP!!!!!!!
 
What water are you using? RODI, tap, LFS water. I would get a tds reading of whatever you doing you water changes with.
 
Hi Jimberta

You definitely have more experience at reefkeeping than I do....and I know that it won't resolve the problem of the hair algae growth....but you could always get a Sea Hare to keep the algae under control. We had a TERRIBLE hair algae problem when we first set up our 120. It was awful. We put Mr. Sea Hare in there and he mowed through it in about 2 weeks. It hasn't grown back....so we supplement him with Nori and Algae wafers. But if you have continual growth...he'll always have food, no?

Not sure about the Coralline....we don't have much either....but I've heard the "Purple Up" works good.

M
 
Figure out the exact water parameters and buy test kits. I agree with willjs on the water question- that is a issue. The 10k bulbs will help some too. I would suspect low alk and possibly ph as well. Also if you are using the emporer carbon sleeve things- odds are that is a phosphorus washed carbon and thus a problem. I would throw in a couple chemi pures and stop changing carbon so often. And as always stop dosing until you get test kits of your own. I can`t help but have a suspicion about your LFS if this has been going on this long and they have even been to your house- sounds like another of those "I`ll go in the back room to test your water" situations.
 
sorry, i thought i got all the info in that would be needed....

i do buy the water from the lfs.... have been the whole time

and

he does test the water at the front counter...


he suggested maybe a refugium with some caulerpa....never needed it before, why would i need one now?!?!?!?!?!??!


the tank truly used to be spectacular.....i just cant figure out whats wrong....and it's kinda of driving me nuts....

i'm about ready to drag the old 40 gallon out of the closet and go buy a bunch of neons.......hey, i gotta have an aquarium of some kind.....:D

getting the new light bulbs will be my last ditch effort, unless you guys can come up with something that i'm missing.......
 
Just because you didn't need it before does not mean you don't need it now. You are dealing with a living thing, as time goes on things change. This isnt an inanimate piece of plastic or steel.

Stop relying so much on the LFS and learn to start maintaining the tank on your own so that you know exactly what to do when you have an issue.
 
First, buy an RO/DI and some test kit: PH, alk, calcium, nitrate. Get Salifert or Elos.

6500K must be horrible to look at... 10-14000K would be good.

Get a refractometre to test for salinity.

You say the salt get high, you use saltwater for top of or tap?
 
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yes, they are not very aesthically pleasing

i bought this fixture used, and being new to metal halide i didnt realize they were gonna be yellow....YUK!!!! so, i'm replacing with 10000k

got a good ro/di unit to get? it WOULD be nice to not have to go to the lfs every time i need water.....

i do top off with fresh ro/di from the lfs


willjs7 suggested a tds reading, is there a test kit for that?
 
think about 14k. it is much better looking than 10k and since you don't have sps it won't matter for growth. Coraline will grow under good pc's as long as your calcium is in the 400 range.
 
I agree that you shouldn't depend on LFS. I suggest getting your own test kits, especially nitrates and phosphates, and test regularly. Maybe your substrate (what kind?) has turned into a nitrate sink, or maybe you have high silicates in your water. I hate to say it, but check TDS on the local fish store water, and find out what they use as a RO/DI. Sounds like you have a nutrient problem, and you need to find the source. Find the source, and the hair will slow down / stop.

good luck, but don't give up. I've been frustrated, too. Sometimes just walking away for a short while lets you look at the problem from a different direction. Currently I have a slime problem in my 'fuge and I think i need to change the substrate in there.
 
Old, poor quality bulbs can be a source of algae growth, as the light wavelengths stimulate the algae like no tomorrow.
When you get the new bulbs, before subjecting the tank to them, try keeping the lights totally off for three days. Don't feed the fish or anything. Follow this with a healthy water change (check out the RO/DI units from the vendors listed in the sponsors forum) and then try the new lights. You may also need to boost your cleaning guys a bit, try a mollie or two or the sea hare mentioned above, anything to try and mow down the grass to a manageable level.

Good luck, but if all else fails, PM me with your pricing and shipping if you take down the tank ;)
 
I had a problem with hair algae and I did almost all of this. It slowed its growth but I still had a problem. I bought a urchin and used a friends urchin for a while. Now I only have one very small piece of hair algae and the urchin hasn't touched any corals or the coraline algae. you might want to try that. Mine cost like $10. Mine is pink so it looks allot better then a sea hare.


As far as the coraline algae do you ever use lime water? As soon as I started refilling with that. (couple times a week) my coraline went crazy.
 
i'd sort of suspect your skimmer isn't pulling its load. when's the last time you thoroughly cleaned it and/or the pump feeding it?

i don't know much about red sea skimmers, i'm assuming you're running sumpless and this is a hang-on? an upgrade here may be the best way to spend your money. i ran an aqua-c remora on my old tank for years, that's a hang-on skimmer, inexpensive, and it did a great job pulling the gunk out.
 
The suggestion of a refugium using calurpa is circa 1986 info- and helps confirm the suspicians. I owned a retail pet shop for years and when people would have problems I would occasionally test the water they were buying elsewhere. You would be suprised how many shops sell water worse than tap- but it happens often. I never sold water either- I sold RO/DI units. Whether they test in front of you or not- we havent heard the hard figures we need to help you- if you were in charge of the tank we would be able to help easier.
 
WOW,

thanks gang for all your help!!!

some great suggestions here, especially the thoughts about taking a more active role in my own aquarium.

my skimmer is a hang on, i dont have a sump and i also didnt mention that i have 5 power heads (maxi-jet 1200). i have two on each side firing alternately and one firing constantly across the back behind the rock.

i guess i'll also be off in search of a good test kit this weekend too....looks like an expensive weekend.....:eek:

it will be interesting to see if i come up with the same water data as my lfs.....

i clean the skimmer and the pump weekly, more if i notice it not bubbling properly.....
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9775158#post9775158 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jhuggins

As far as the coraline algae do you ever use lime water? As soon as I started refilling with that. (couple times a week) my coraline went crazy.

What is lime water, and where can I get some?
 
Hair algae is tough, especially when it's well established. There have been several threads recently that have indicated a 3 day blackout in the tank does wonders on their algae problems. My refugium will often not see light for several days when I start seeing signs of hair algae.

The only thing I would recommend is some sort of refuge where you can grow out macro algae to compete with the micro algae. It's not a short-term fix but it will improve the health of the system greatly by feeding a lot of unwanted nutrients to the macro.

Short term fix - 3 day blackout and continued scrubbing and filtering. Do a THOROUGH scrub of the: sump, rocks, overflow, everything. Run your filter with some clean polyester floss and toss it in 24 hours (the algae trapped in the floss can become a medium to re-seed the tank). Do that twice a week and keep the lights out for the first 3 days.

In the meantime, consider getting a refugium... be it a hang on back if you don't want to go through the trouble of plumbing a separate tank, although it would be a fun project :)

One other thing - some may disagree but I think 7watts/gallon is a fairly high amount of lighting - especially when you are having such bad algae problems. Coralline algae does very well in dim light - the intense light may be actually stunting it's growth - although you would probably have to do some research to confirm that. Algae is a struggle - but once you get it in control and have something to compete with it it will start to get easier to control...
 
I'm definitely not an expert, but that does seem like a lot of light at a frequency generally not recommended on marine tanks.

Good luck, man...that must suck. :(
 
I was having the same problem. Once I got my fuge up and going with LOTS of macroalgae and doing all the things you have been doing, plus shutting down the lights for shorter times and not having the MH on for 3 days at a time, I finally have gotten the hair algae under control. I now have 2 engineer gobies - they keep the sand so well stirred and cleaned, there can't possibly be any food left over. I have gotten 2 queen conch, 2 sand stirring stars, sally lightfoot crab, as well as several red leg and blue leg crabs.

Keep going. Add as many different kinds of macroalgae as you can get your hands on.

Good luck. J
 
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