ninjamyst Posted August 18, 2014 Share Posted August 18, 2014 Your last FTS from April looks awesome man. Don't give up. I think you are facing the same issue I had before. Tank was running great then all of a sudden, massive algae, things start to loose color, and then I went out of town and came back to half my corals dead / dying. But now everything's fine again. I think it's just something all tanks go through at some point. Hang in there and things will get better. I say just do more water changes and don't tinker too much. Just let things ride. Link to comment
skyscraper2290 Posted August 18, 2014 Share Posted August 18, 2014 Sorry to hear that the tank isn't doing great, just keep trying though because it was looking great before. I'm sure you have already done this but I would do some big wc's and maybe just focus on those and slowing adding chemical filtration again one item at a time. Maybe just keeping it as simple as possible for a bit will help get things back on track Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 Well the tank is still a big disappointment and it has been for the past few months. It is around 10 months old and it looks worse than it did when it was 3 months old. I am still too embarrass to even put a picture up. ALL of my coral looks worse now then it did in the April FTS. Now sure how that is possible... I have been doing 2 20% water changes every week for the past 14 weeks and I still cannot get things to look any better. I have switched to only feeding every other day, but my phosphates and algae continue to give me problems. I am even running a little more GFO to try and combat it, but it does nothing but mess with my alkalinity. I have checked my RODI water and it reads 0 TDS, so I know that is not the problem. There has to be something I am doing wrong... I am going to start cutting stuff out I guess and try to figure this out. Probably the first thing I am going to do is get rid of the Kalkwasser in the ATO (it seems like when I started using this was when my coral started to look worse). I need to study under someone or something, because there has to be something I am inherently doing wrong. This is my 2nd saltwater tank and I actually am having more problems with this one than I did with my 1st one (and that one I did not know even half the stuff I know now). This tank is a source of frustration and disappointment instead of happiness. In a side note, not 2 weeks after I got a couple of peppermint shrimp I lost my Favia and 3 of my Acans. So that was fun... Never put these things in your tank, they do nothing but steal food from the coral and #### stuff up... Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 during my 6 months mark, my tank had an algae explosion. SPS were turning brown or STN. Lost a bunch of LPS. No idea what was going on. Started dosing alk and calcium. Started running lots of phosguard. Stopped feeding. Water changes 2x a week. Things just got worst. Went out of town for a week and came home to lots of dead and dying corals. I was about to give up and take it down. But members on this forum were very encouraging so I just threw out stuff that were dead, stopped dosing stuff, did two 50% water change in a week, and just let it ride. Surprising, things started to recover the less I mess with the tank. Hang in there. Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 Well in attempt to sort out my problems, I have drastically cut my kalkwasser (75%) dosing and order replacement filters for my RODI unit...Looks like I need to change my filters more than once a year... Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 how are things doing now? Link to comment
DaveFason Posted November 26, 2014 Share Posted November 26, 2014 They say every six months is a good ratio as well. -Dave Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted November 28, 2014 Author Share Posted November 28, 2014 No change yet, but I have only done 2 water changes with the new filters. I am doing another one this afternoon, so maybe next week will start to see a difference... Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Well still fighting this stupid algae problem.... I am running GFO and Carbon now if my media reactor for about a week now and still see no change.... I have literally changed/tried everything with this stupid tank... I am posting up my first picture in a while in hopes that someone can give me some insight... Here is a small glispe of what my whole tank has looked like for the past 4-5 months... Link to comment
skyscraper2290 Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 You had all vidarock correct? Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Yeah all Vidarock.... Don't tell me someone has found out that this stuff is defective.... Here is another picture with a wider shot Excuse the crappy quality photo. I am planning on taking some decent photos next week to try to get to the bottom of this problem Link to comment
skyscraper2290 Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 I haven't heard anything wrong with it, I was just making sure you didn't have anything that could leach PO4. Have you tried using peroxide on any spots yet? Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 what's your water change schedule? Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 No, I have not ventured to try the peroxide. Honestly, I have no interest in taking the rocks out of the tank to dip them. I guess I need to do some research on it to see if you can treat the whole tank. I am in the middle of trying to test my chemicals now... Everything seems fine so far (no nitrates, etc) but my Alk is a little low (due to GFO) and I am about to try to test my Phosphates again (I get a different reading every time I try it) EDIT: I forgot to mention that my pH runs a little high (8.5) due to Kalkwasser... what's your water change schedule? 4 Gallons (20%) Twice a week... EVERY week... so 40% every week Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Have you tried mexican turbo snails on that algae? Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Have you tried mexican turbo snails on that algae? I just sent a request over to ReefCleaners to re-stock my CUC. So I might have some of those guys coming here soon. The algae is the biggest thing I am trying to tackle right now, but also my coral does not look no where near as good as it did before I started having the algae problem. I am hoping that the 2 are related and when I find the root cause of 1 issue, it will fix both. EDIT: Phosphate is around 0.04 ppm Link to comment
skyscraper2290 Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 I attempted to do some peroxide dosing in my tank for a couple days a while ago and stopped really fast as it was having negative affects on the whole tank. You could possibly try to dip a toothbrush or something in peroxide then scrubbing the algae and that might do something. I definitely wouldn't try to dose the tank with peroxide though, but just my 2 cents, I could have done something wrong but I was using very small amounts. What's your light schedule look like? Have you tried like a 72 hour blackout yet? Also your nitrate test may be a bit misleading as the algae could be consuming a good amount of it. Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 How low is your alk? My alk was pretty low for awhile. It drops a lot on a daily basis. I think it got down to 5.5 or something. Problem is I use Reef Crystals salt and new water alk is 11+. So I am shocking the crap out of my corals when I am doing a water change. I been dosing daily to get my alk back up to 8 and keeping it constant. That helps a lot. And when you get your alk higher, you can do big water changes, like 50%, without worrying about shocking the corals too much. Link to comment
DCUEVAS74 Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 Last time this happened to me, my lfs ordered an extra small sea hare for me and cleaned the whole tank up in 2 days. They let me return it for a charge of course but was worth it. Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted February 2, 2015 Author Share Posted February 2, 2015 How low is your alk? My alk was pretty low for awhile. It drops a lot on a daily basis. I think it got down to 5.5 or something. Problem is I use Reef Crystals salt and new water alk is 11+. So I am shocking the crap out of my corals when I am doing a water change. I been dosing daily to get my alk back up to 8 and keeping it constant. That helps a lot. And when you get your alk higher, you can do big water changes, like 50%, without worrying about shocking the corals too much. I just tested my Alk and realized that my reagent expired back in October. I am not sure how much this has been affecting the readings, but I just ordered some more today. Anyway, my Alk was about 6.8 and I like to keep it close to 8 as well. I have been regularly adding Baking Soda when I see it get low, but nothing consistent. Now I realize that may have been an issue because of my expired Alk test. I am going to do a waterchange today and test the Alk of newly made water and see what that comes out to be. How are you dosing for Alk? --------------- Just an update, I got a new CUC from ReefCleaners (including a Emerald Crab) and put them into the tank. Immediately the Peppermint shrimp went to town on some of the snails (just like my Cleaner Shrimp did) and just like my Cleaner Shrimp, he died the next day. Not sure why these Shrimp eat the snails and then end up dying. I was actually tired of the Peppermint Shrimp anyway to be honest.... Link to comment
sebastian.costin Posted February 2, 2015 Share Posted February 2, 2015 Not sure but I guess that you have a problem in RO water. Have you a silicate test kit? Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted February 2, 2015 Author Share Posted February 2, 2015 Not sure but I guess that you have a problem in RO water. Have you a silicate test kit? TDS reads 0 and I have no Chloramine in the local water and new filters on RO/DI are just a few months old. Why do I need to test for silicates? Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted February 4, 2015 Author Share Posted February 4, 2015 Just a quick update, the Algae actually looks worse this week... I mean it is in some spots that it has never been before... Anyway, I just test the ALK of a newly mixed bucket of Saltwater and it is measuring 13dKH and my tank is at around 6 so no wonder nothing looks happy (now remember this is with an expired test kit). Apparently I am shocking the crap out of everything every time I do a water change. Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Just a quick update, the Algae actually looks worse this week... I mean it is in some spots that it has never been before... Anyway, I just test the ALK of a newly mixed bucket of Saltwater and it is measuring 13dKH and my tank is at around 6 so no wonder nothing looks happy (now remember this is with an expired test kit). Apparently I am shocking the crap out of everything every time I do a water change. yup, same thing here. things got a lot better when I started dosing alk to bring it to 8. i am just using Seachem Fusion Part II for dosing. Link to comment
aviator300 Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 I used to have stringy algae that looked a lot like yours growing everywhere in my 17.1 gal tank. I tried everything i could think of and did most of what you have done to no avail. This went on in 2 of my tanks for months AND THEN.. Someone suggested Mexican turbo snails and i said "I dont want those bulldozers in my tanks." Well, i put 2 in the 17.1 gal tank and 2 in my 7 gal tank and after about 2 weeks i could not find any algae at all even if i looked hard. I admit, they did overturn some frags that weren't glued down but they are not the bulldozers everyone makes them out to be. They would crawl right over my Zoas and Palys and left them algae free. I now have no more algae and my Turbos love cruising around keeping it that way. I don't know if they will work for you or not, but what's to lose.. Link to comment
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