What is going on with my tank?

[nazgul1979]

So I posted a couple of weeks ago about some rust colored algae growing around my live rock in a 1 1/2 year old tank. I reduced the on time of the lights but still no improvement. Now I have a green mushroom that's still alive but shriveled a bit (other mushrooms in tank doing fine), and my green explosion palys are alive and thriving.... and turned blue about 4 days ago. Any idea what's going on? Ammonia = 0, Nitrite + Nitrate = 0, Calcium 350, Magnesium 1000 (I know cal and mag are low.... that'll be another post soon if I can't bring them up), and alk is 150 ppm. Tested night before last. Lights are about 6 months old ATI coral plus, purple plus, and 2x blue plus.

 

[Lauracooks]

phosphate?

 

[sirrealism]

Do you have GFO on this tank. Make sure GFO is not leaking out of your reactor. It makes a big mess

 

[nazgul1979]

phosphate is 0.02 (time to change GFO). I'm positive nothing is leaking out of the reactor. Would that cause the paly's to turn blue instead of the normal green?

 

[Webmanny]

Your calcium is also a bit on the low side. How is your Alk?

 

[pugcrush]

You making your own water? I'd be weary of the RODI unit's efficiency and/or the filters being changed. When was your last WC? Type of salt?

For me, pictures can sometimes explain a lot in addition to a FTS. Any before/after's of the impacted corals? Sounds like GFO has already been ruled out. Even after a clean rinsing, I've had ill effects from GFO in the past. Someone mentioned it, but double check that it isn't grinding.

There could be a ton of possibilities really, but that's a start.

 

[nazgul1979]

Apologies for taking so long to post pictures and replies. Wife gave birth to second child a couple of weeks ago and things have been busy around here.

The palys are pretty angry. One of the things I had to do prior to taking photos is clean the glass. Thus water quality is a little hazy and the palys are mostly closed. Hopefully, you'll be able to tell their blue color (green explosions/implosions or whatever they're called) by the ones that are open in the picture.

The mushroom is a green giant cup mushroom (I believe). It had one cap when I purchased it about a year ago, then split to two. Now the first cap seems shriveled and laid over to the left. Not sure if it's splitting or not but it does appear to have a split down the middle so maybe that's what's going on with that.

2 days ago my favorite clownfish (we even named him.... R.I.P. Quagmire) died, providing a delicious meal for my CUC.

There has been this brown algae (assumed diatoms) growing all over for the past week.

One last thing to note to the discussion: I remember reading something about bad carbon causing problems. Don't remember the specifics but I DID start using a new batch of carbon (purchased from ebay... hey I was broke with new kid, wife out of work, etc.) on 07/13. Could that be causing problems?
Levels are all still at 0 or normal except a low mag and cal.

 

[Andyf30]

How old is the tank? If you have diatoms, and you are well past the cycling point, i would take a look at the RO/DI system as mentioned above. Silicates have to come from somewhere and it usually is from the top off in an established tank

 

[sirrealism]

Also have you brought the mag up? When My mag was down to 900 I had massive die offs. This does not explain the clown but very well could have a lot to do with your corals.

 

[Webmanny]

I'll be honest here and hopefully this is not what happened in your case, but my brother had a tank where almost everything started to die out of the blue, the parameters started doing weird things, some fish died, etc.

He got tired of the whole problem and decided to take it down and quit the hobby. When we were taking the tank down, we noticed two things that may have been causing the problems.

1- Juice residue down the back glass
Later we discovered that his 3 year old son was dosing Orange Juice almost daily because he "wanted to be like dad"

2- Very large rust residue behind an old cheap pump he had bought on eBay from China.
The magnet had somehow broken and the metal exposed or some crap like that.

We'll never know for sure what caused the death of the tank, but these two are very strong candidates.

I would do a full inspection of all the equipment, a large water change and put a Web-Cam if any of your kids can walk or reach the tank. Just saying!

 

[rogergolf66]

To be honest I didn't read this whole thread but just looks like diatoms. Newish tank? Under 6 months old this is normal. Use a turkey blaster and blow it off the rocks so the filter sock can take it out. Or syphon it out with water changes when blow it off the rocks even better.

Check water source also

 

[zachfishman]

1- Juice residue down the back glass
Later we discovered that his 3 year old son was dosing Orange Juice almost daily because he "wanted to be like dad"

That's up there with "putting a slice of bologna in the blu-Ray player"!