Tank is back up - Going down.

[Anonymous]

Well, the tank is back up and running (sort of)

Paramters:
Alk 11 DKH
CA 370
PH 8.2
Temp 79
Sal 1.025

Here is a pic. I need to learn how to take pics becuse my camera makes it too blue.
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Rehab information

 

[Anonymous]

Better pic
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recession definition

 

[Unarce]

Congrats, Rob! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you this time around :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Looks like a great (re)start. Fingers crossed here also.

 

[Anonymous]

Cool. Good luck this time

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

Well, its been a week.

I am thinking it might be some diatoms but not sure. I wil lget a pic later. Most of the starboard bottom is covered with this.

I added some turbo's trochus, and some astreas at the end of last week, but they do not seem to tough this stuff.
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Mercedes Benz 350

 

[Len]

I'm getting a lot of diatoms right now too, but it should pass with time. A comb-mouthed (bristle-toothed) fish like a Ctenochaetus genus tang or various blennies (like Atrosalarias fuscus) does good work on diatoms IME.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I got home and I think it is over. Almost every rock has hair algae all over them. A yellow acro is about dead.

I tested for PO4 adn Nitrate and both read 0 as usual. The snails I added to the tank are on the glass or the bottom and not on the rock.

So cooking apparently does not cure/clean the rocks all the time. Or my 0 TDS that tests 0 for PO4, Silicates and nitrates. I should have gotten new LR.

I will think about htis tonight but I think its tome to get out of reefing.
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Hip Problems Forum

 

[Anonymous]

Hate to hear that Rob.

 

[ChrisRD]

From Monday AM to Monday PM you went from some diatom growth to all your rocks being covered with hair algae? Can you post a pic?

 

[Anonymous]

I though it was diatoms when I got home Sunday night when I saw just the film on the glass. The lights were out in the tank but it looked like just diatoms on the glass and the starboard.

Last night with the lights on I saw that all the glass was covered as well as most of the LR. I immediately tested the water and got 0 readings. The skimmer is skimming a little but there is skimmate. Temp is 79. I dont know what would make the algae grow that fast unless the rock is really loaded and the cooking, recuring, rock in the dark trick didn't help.

Am I missing something totally that I dont get? I use RO/DI/DI and I just changed the DI a few weeks ago. I tested the RO water for 0 TDS, PO4, Nitrates, Silicates.

The tank had very minimal algae when there was no LR at al in the tank. There was some film algae on the glass but thats about it.

I understand that along the course of the tank maturing I WILL get algae at one point but in a week that totally covers the whole tank?

I will post a pic tonight.
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Opiate Rehab Forum

 

[Anonymous]

Rob, sorry to hear about your algae issue. Your experience just puzzles me beyond explaination.

The algae does grow very fast, and they do cover a large area of rock in short time. However, what amaze me is how it can established after all the trouble you went thru.

I don't know what to tell you. What type of TDS meter do you use? Did you calibrate it? Where the live rock come from (some do leach nitrate out for months esp. if something is dead inside)?

Is it possible for you to move the live rock to the sump and just keep the corals on bare bottom? :?

 

[Anonymous]

Its a Hanna handheld TDS meter. I have not claibrated it in the past 2 months. Regardless running a High-S RO membrane (60 GPD) and 2 DI cartridges I should have very clean water.

Is there somewhere I can send a piece of the LR and some water to get tested to see what the problem is?

Or should I just get new LR and start over AGAIN?
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Cooking forum

 

[melas]

that really blows! so you used the same rock and you "cooked" it?? i think you definitely need to start with new rock. . . i'm building a house this summer and have already started consolidating my tanks. this has left me with an "extra" 40 lbs that i have in a 30 gallon (i'm just keeping it wet and under lights). hair algae has never touched this rock in the 3 years that i've had it. . . its yours if you can come pick it up. . . i'm in south central PA (harrisburg). i've been trying to convince some of my friends to start small reefs so that i can give it away. . . no one's biting. . . seriously its yours if you want it.

here's a pic of one of my tanks so you can see this rock isn't crap

***and no. . . its not from the tank that i've been having the protozoan problems in. . .

 

[Anonymous]

http://img463.imageshack.us/my.php?image=algae13ja.jpg
http://img370.imageshack.us/my.php?image=algae35qo.jpg
http://img370.imageshack.us/my.php?image=algae25yh.jpg
http://img370.imageshack.us/my.php?image=algae43wf.jpg
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deep chunk strawberry cough

 

[Len]

Sorry to hear the algae has reappeared. I know some people still don't like my recommendation (i.e. some folks in #reefs ) but I think starting with new rock is the most viable solution.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry to hear about this algae problem, again.

I don't know if this has any meaning or not, but when I broke down my 75 and started my 300, I did not re-use a lot of the rock from the 75G. It wasn't because of algae, but because the rocks were covered in mushrooms and polyps and what not. Most of it was traded to the LFS, but some was just tossed outside next to my house. I have looked at some of those rocks now and they have turned completely white. Except that some of them have some serious rust stains that have now bled through. The rust stains are long and in a straight line as if a rail road spike (or some other long piece of metal) were buried within. It's weird.

I wonder if your rocks are somehow contaminated in some way that you can not detect with your test kit and is somehow leaching something into your water. My 75G tank really declined in it final year. Some of this was due to inattention on my part, but I wonder if those tainted rocks had some hand in it?

So I agree with Len. Start over with new rocks.

Don't quit the hobby. You wouldn't have hung in here this far if you weren't passionate about the hobby.

Sorry that it has been such a rough road for you this far.

Louey

 

[LA-Lawman]

I am amazed on what has happened here. I would venture to think you have a bio-diversity problem... the LR is now colonized with the algae bacteria rather than nitro-bacter and somonos.. why not pick up a couple of jugs of that live water stuff and see if you can swing the tide. my buddy had a brown algae problem he could not get rid of. he did a water change with this stuff and has never seen it again....

just a thought...

I have never seen hair algae wih an attitude before 8O

 

[Anonymous]

I'm amazed in a bad way. I feel your pain. Before my tank crashed I was in the same boat. Have you considered just drying out the roack and letting it go base? That is what I did. Well not on purpose, just cause I retrieved my tank in Sept and have yet to set it back up. It would ensure that every thing on and in the rock was dead.

 

[Ben1]

I recently cooked some rock for 4-6 weeks and it came out of the bucket bright white with no coralline or anything of any color on it all all.

The idea is to get it bacterail driven. The HA has to feed on something, it just need nutrients so unless you have some major overfeeding problem this is beyond me. Sorry if I convinced you to cook your rock and it wanst a help. But some of your rock still has coralline on it. Did it come out of the recure with some coralline still on it or was it all white base looking rock when you pulled it out?

So cooking apparently does not cure/clean the rocks all the time.

The idea is that after the rock becomes bacterial all the detritus and bound P04/N03 has become used up and the rock has nothing left on it at all except for the bacteria you need. So it wont leach or cause a new algae problem.

How much do you feed and how do you skim?

I recently read over a thread on the other board in Calfos forum from before he left the board. I found his simple advice on how to properly setup a protien skimmer to be a lot of help.

He basically recommends that you pull a thin laer from your weir and skim as directly from your overflow water as possible as the water in your tank isnt homogeneous and the surface layer will contain the most protein for you to skim. If you set up your skimmer to pull from this layer you will skim much more effectively.

I run a Euroreef ES5-2 on my 58. This skimmer is a bit too small for my system and when just sitting in my open sump was pulling very little from my tank. Once I set it up to pull from a small area of all overflow water I can fill the cup in two days.

This may help you some I hope.

Sorry to post a link to the other place but this was a very good thread that many aquarist can get some good info from.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... genumber=1