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cyano

If it's not one thing it's another

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by
cyano
, 09-18-2013 at 02:51 PM (5803 Views)
Well it has been quite a while since I have posted anything so I will give a quick rundown of how things have been going.

First off sadly I have been a little busy caught in life to really take great care of my tank (second child born, in-laws in town, oldest back to school, etc.) so it has been running on autopilot for a while. I am fighting a fairly large hair algae problem currently and I think it stems from me not adding any live rock when I did the tank restart at the beginning of the year. I am considering adding a little live rock to help seed the dry marco rock that I added to begin with. I also have added some filters to help me try and collect small particulates that I am hoping will help out. I also have a Hanna Phosphate checker on the way so I can accurately read my source water, RO-DI water, and also make sure I am getting no phosphates added from my salt.

I had a bit of a tragedy with the tank recently that is also contributing to my algae woes. I added some more biopellets to my reactor and noticed a small drip on the inlet side of the reactor. I tightened up the clamp on it and the leak stopped and I went to work. I can home from work that night, went to bed, and awoke the next morning to find the drip had become a light spray and it had drained my sump to empty in the return. Well it ended up shattering my heater, luckily it didn't seem to do too much damage there, but it also caused my return pump to run dry, all of my top off water to dump into my tank, and a breaker in my house to pop right as I walked into the fishroom.

I have since replaced the heater, not trusting the old power strip that was hooked up at the same time I have also changed it out. I had to make emergency tank water so needless to say it was just dechlorinated faucet water. Yes it has been interesting. I don't seem to have had any actual loss but I have contacted Coral Vue for a replacement for my barbed elbow that actually cracked in 6 places! Once my replacement part arrives I get to start up the whole bio pellet process from scratch again while in the meantime fighting what will undoubtedly become a worse algae problem before it gets better.

I have not had any noticeable loss from this catastrophe yet but my montipora cap has lightened it's color and is no longer a deep orange as it was before all this happened.

On the bright side my son's 10 gallon freshwater tank finally finished it's cycle and we added fish to it this week! ha ha

Once I get my tester in later this week I will have a better idea of how to potentially tackle this algae problem until then I am not even going to speculate.

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Tags: disaster, update
Categories
‎ Tank Entry , ‎ Random Thoughts , ‎ Tank - Full Summary , ‎ Electrical , ‎ Plumbing

Comments

  1. B1N4RY's Avatar
    Do you have more specific information about your aquarium and the equipment you have that I can review?
  2. melev's Avatar
    Sorry to hear about the series of issues you've encountered.

    In regards to your algae woes, it will come to down to phosphate, light bulb age, removal of detritus in the rockwork, and how many snails are in the tank.

    I'd immediately run fresh (well-rinsed) carbon, and add Seachem's Prime to the tank. That will lock up ammonia, chlorine and chloramines, especially since you used tap water in the emergency.

    If PO4 is up as you suspect, use Phosphate Rx to get that back under control. http://melevsreef.biz/catalog/blue-l...a-phosphate-rx

    Get a bunch of new hungry snails. Pull out all the nuisance algae you can by hand. When did you last replace your light bulbs?
  3. cyano's Avatar
    I have a 75 gallon tank.

    Equipment:

    Reef Octopus skimmer and biopellet reactor when I get the replacement part in (they sent the wrong part to me, apologized and did not charge me and have another one on the way)

    48 3watt cree LEDs running over my tank from Rapid LED

    Reefkeeper elite

    30 gallon sump with refugium full of chaeto that I prune frequently

    I did a tank restart in january and so all the rock and sand that is in it has been in there since then (50lbs of marco rock and probably 75lbs of reef flake sand it's about a 2 1/2" sand bed.

    My PO4 is currently reading 0 with all the drop test kits that I have but I imagine that the hair algae is sucking it all up and distorting my reading. They were back ordered on my hanna checker so it may not be here until next week but in the meantime I have started dosing very small amounts of vodka nightly and it seems to be having a positive effect on the algae while improving the growth and color of my 3 corals that are alive.

    On Monday I got an alarm that my tank temperature had exceeded 83 degrees which was weird since it wasn't that hot outside even. so I turned down my allowed temperature on my reefkeeper, turned down the thermostat temperature on my heater and went to hook up my chiller that I acquired by trading my old T5 light setup for. Well long story short one of the feed line fittings broke so I also am waiting for one of those in the mail as well.

    If I use any tap water what so ever I will use seachem's prime. Melev do you just rinse your carbon off in RO water or do you have another recomendation?

    With the phosphate Rx how does it remove the phosphate IE is it something that ends up getting skimmed out or is it mostly biological?

    since adding the additional filtration to the tank though I am starting to notice a difference and I will purchase another filter this weekend sometime so I can rotate and thoroughly clean the one currently in the sump. For any type of filter sock what can I use to clean it effectively without damaging the material itself or adding anything harmful to the tank?
  4. melev's Avatar
    I rinse GAC with RO water. Several times. That way I clean it off, but don't "waste" it with the stuff tap water contains.

    Phosphate Rx turns the phosphate into a solid, to be trapped in a fine micron filter sock or exported via protein skimmer.

    Public aquariums blast their filter socks with a garden hose. Hobbyists sometimes soak them in 10:1 bleachwater solution, then rinse them well in dechlorinator and air them out to dry.
  5. B1N4RY's Avatar
    I used Marco Rocks in the past and in my personal experience I always had hair algae issues. In my opinion its takes forever to cycle properly and become full live rock. What about your clean up crew? Any snails or maybe a sea hair they do wonders for hair algae.
  6. cyano's Avatar
    I have a lawnmower blenny and a ton of snails but they won't touch the stuff for me if it is more than a short thread of HA. I pulled out a gallon worth of HA yesterday mostly off the sand bed and then I tested my PO4 again and still didn't get any kind of reading on it at all. I was using the Elos test kit and then I realized that I should be getting some color just to read zero for marine water. I checked the back of the box and found that the test had expired.....and it had been expired since I first ordered it online so this entire time when I thought my PO4 was good I actually have had no idea. I am hoping that my new checker shows up next week and in the meantime I am still dosing vodka and I also have some Phosphate Rx on the way.

    I purchased my second filter sock today, changed it out, hosed it off, and currently have it soaking in a bleach water solution. I also cleaned and removed all the detritus from my sump so and put in some saltwater that I had been making since yesterday to replace that water. I also cleaned and emptied my skimmer cup for the second time this week and added new, well rinsed carbon to the sump as well. I will be taking my vortechs apart between today and tomorrow to clean them up and I am going to relocate my MP40w slightly to try and get a little better random flow I feel that my MP10w is fine where it is currently located for now.