:( sad day

M

mixedreef89

New member
Hey everyone figured I would update you. I'm tearing my tank down. I've been fighting an algea out break for awhile now and can't get it under control. Now my parameters are all over the place and won't stay constant so the fish are going into a holding tub. Everything else will be restarted. I'm tearing the refugium apart and not putting it back in. The rock will go through a 3 month cycle along with the tank. Any input would be nice. This is going to be a sad day if I loose anybody.
 
did you just start your tank in June? seems like a bit early to toss in the towel?

and if you are not dosing random stuff, I don't know how your parameters can be so out of whack.. just keep up the water changes.

what is your parameter anyways
 
Isn't an algae outbreak pretty normal for a new tank, too? What types of algae and what kind of cleanup crew do you have?

When you say your parameters were all over the place what do you mean...?

I'm pretty new to saltwater, just started my first tank, but this seems pretty drastic...
 
Mixture of green hair and cyano it then moved to the fuge and before I could wipe the glass (figure of speach) my whole tank was a mix of hair and red... I came home today to my clowns resting on the bottom and barely swimming. There in QT now and seem to be doing better. My ph monday night was 8.2 and this morning it was 5.6. My nitrates Monday night was 5.0 now is 20.

I water change every other week roughly 35 gallons. I'm not tossing in the towel just restarting. I've torn the refugium out and scraped all the glass and stired the tank up and am running socks right now to collect the crap. I'll change the socks every 12 hours. And Monday I will do a 40 gallon water change.
 
Have you run GFO? Phosban, in a reactor? A few months of that usually gets rid of it. You have to change the medium every month at first, in a really bad case, but I've seen solid green 6" algae mats give way to bare rock with this stuff in play.
 
I know freshwater, not saltwater, but it seems to me that 1) if you don't know the cause and can't figure out how to control it, you will probably wind up with the same issue again and 2) there has to be a better way than nuking the tank and restarting. I know it's really frustrating, but I think with patience you can beat this... and see 1 above, you need to identify what's wrong before restarting or you risk being in the same situation a year from now.

What kinds of cleanup crew did you try...?
 
I'm trying my last method. The sump is now completely clean.nothing is in it but my skimmer and two heaters and return pump. It looks like I just bought the sump :) I scraped the main tank and filtered most of the crap out with the net.

I'm letting the socks do work now and the skimmer is turned up.

I've got 46 snails in total. And an emerald crab plus one blue leg hermit. And a sand sifting star fish. 9 of my snails are nasrius (sp)

I had a reactor (a phosban one) but the top nipple broke. I'm picking up a new reactor when I goto Charlotte this weekend.
 
Hair algae is fairly common. Run gfo, a bigger cuc and maybe an algae eater fish. Natural way + chemicals. It will be gone.

Cyano is easy. Brush it off, do a water change,then lights out for 3 days. Do this once a month and continue for a few months. Sk8r had a great cyano treatment thread

Your raising nitrate is a problem. use Prime asap if it's too high. It could be from all the detritus in your tank that you stirred up while cleaning the tank.
 
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I'v had my tank for 10 months now.. gone thru just about everything.. hair algae, green, red algae, diatom, cyano.. and now bubble algae.. if you stay on top of it, things will get better slowly. There's no instant cure. it's all part of the cycle. In fact, many older members here don't consider their "cycle" complete until these algae and cyano stages pass. Starting over the tank will just start the cycle all over again.

also, I really like the idea of having an algae eating fish.. it's natural and it works. I have a foxface in my 100gal.. I wish there's more algae for him to eat... he's a pig in disguise.. does your blenny eat the algae?

BUTTTTTT if you do restart, you can play with new rockscaping.. I think that's the funnest part. Building and laying out rocks & corals.. staring at the end result all day is boring.

btw I think there's a test error for PH. I had a thread earlier about ph dropping to 6. ended up being equipment issue. that low of PH, your rocks/sand will start bubbling
 
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Update: I lost my yellow tang yesterday morning :(. My blenny is depressed I think. Him and the tang were always with each other swimming around and riding the current and now he just sits on his rock. The tank has stabilized for now though...I did a 35 gallon water change and took more of the algea out and changed the socks.
 
I would get the PH checked with a meter. I would think if your PH dropped like that everything would be dead. A 1 unit ph change is an H ion concentration change of a factor of 10.
 
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My new go to solve for algae is the 3 days no lights. You would be amazed how much better things will look. I would recommend that while skimming pretty wet. I read most of the thread but are you using ro water? Also a couple of mexican turbos will mow down an entire tank in no time. Also let you sump grow algae, it is natural and there is no way to avoid it completely(not saying an overrun tank is normal though) I have a fuge that is just macro and hair algae to keep algae down in my DT.
 
Mine was about 3-3.5 inches. Yes I'm useing rodi water I make at home. I'm ordering a apex system next month and just ordered red sea ph test kit along with several others.
 
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