I'm at a loss... SOS

Ripley224 · Apr 15, 2020

Ok so I I'll try to make this short... My girlfriend has a 45G tank with a 20G sump thats about 1.5 years old. Her ex-husband set it up for her and then promptly left without passing on any information on the tank or how to care for it. I have literally never had a fish tank so this is all new to me and I'm trying to learn as much as possible but I'm behind the 8 ball. The tank is overrun with green hair algae and we've done a lot to get it under control but it keeps coming back. We've also had some odd deaths that occurred and I have no idea why, they were a lawn mower blenny, turbo snails, sea urchin, and a sea hare. The sea hare we got the other day he ate the **** out of some algae and then was dead this afternoon the others were just randomly.

I don't want anything else to die but I don't really know how to make that happen.

2x Clowns
1x File fish
2x Gobis
3x Peppermint shrimp
1x Anemone thing

Crabs and snails

Water changes every 10 days
Tank parameters
Salinity: 1.023
pH: 8.2
Nitrates: 0
Nitrite
Ammonia: 0

Rick.45cal · Apr 15, 2020

#reefsquad @Lasse he needs a crash course in reefkeeping! Help will be here soon @Ripley224

Hemmdog · Apr 15, 2020

Is it a reef tank with coral or just a saltwater fish tank?

Ripley224 · Apr 15, 2020

Hemmdog said:
Is it a reef tank with coral or just a saltwater fish tank?

Oh yeah duh I should of said that

Auquanut · Apr 15, 2020

#1 rule: Don't panic. Give us some details. Inhabitants, corals etc... Be as explicit as possible. Between us, we can bring this around. Don't make any huge changes until we can get a handle on what your dealing with.

Oh. And welcome to R2R! You've absolutely come to the right place.

Mikeltee · Apr 15, 2020

A sea hare will take care of the hair algae in 3 days. The problem is he will die afterwards. Try to find one at a LFS, buy it, and tell them you would like to donate back to them when his work is done. This is the humane thing to do and will allow him to work someone else's tank over.

Lots of things cause death. My guess is that it was an ammonia spike from something dying. 40gal doesnt give too much buffer. It appears it's under control now. Good job.

Jaebster · Apr 15, 2020

In the meantime, watch 52 weeks of reefing by BRS (Bulk Reef Supply) on YouTube. It's an excellent guide to reef tanks.

Ripley224 · Apr 15, 2020

Auquanut said:
#1 rule: Don't panic. Give us some details. Inhabitants, corals etc... Be as explicit as possible. Between us, we can bring this around. Don't make any huge changes until we can get a handle on what your dealing with.

Oh. And welcome to R2R! You've absolutely come to the right place.

So there's xenia's, some pillar thing, button polyp coral, and something else idk what though.

Ripley224 · Apr 15, 2020

Mikeltee said:
A sea hare will take care of the hair algae in 3 days. The problem is he will die afterwards. Try to find one at a LFS, buy it, and tell them you would like to donate back to them when his work is done. This is the humane thing to do and will allow him to work someone else's tank over.

Lots of things cause death. My guess is that it was an ammonia spike from something dying. 40gal doesnt give too much buffer. It appears it's under control now. Good job.

That's what I was going to do but he unfortunately died after one day. I checked all the levels before I put him in and drip acclimated him for like 3 hours.

Ripley224 · Apr 15, 2020

Jaebster said:
In the meantime, watch 52 weeks of reefing by BRS (Bulk Reef Supply) on YouTube. It's an excellent guide to reef tanks.

I did watch it and it was insanely helpful. I think I know the basics it teaches but now I've got a problem that I can't figure out.

Jaebster · Apr 15, 2020

Ripley224 said:
I did watch it and it was insanely helpful. I think I know the basics it teaches but now I've got a problem that I can't figure out.

Ahhh, sorry thought you were completely new to it.

Mikeltee · Apr 15, 2020

Ripley224 said:
That's what I was going to do but he unfortunately died after one day. I checked all the levels before I put him in and drip acclimated him for like 3 hours.

3hr drip will lower the temp too much. He probably didnt recover from that of being shipped. He may have been hungry at the LFS too. You dont come across too much hair algae in stores. Some say they eat blanched lettuce but I highly doubt it. Find a reputable CUC distributor. He is the only answer to your problem.

Flippers4pups · Apr 16, 2020

@Ripley224,

drawing-dolphins-hand-painted-dolphin-cartoon-image-and-fish-images (1).jpg

Sorry this came at you so fast! Big respect to you for stepping up to learn in such a short time to help your girlfriend out.

I will need some more information to help.

Source water, a RO/DI water, Tap water, buying water?

Mixing saltwater or buying made saltwater?

Lights, what kind and how long are they on?

Here's some reading for you:

The Supreme Guide To Setting Up A Saltwater Reef Aquarium

The Supreme Guide To Setting Up A Saltwater Reef Aquarium Introduction The marine environment is one of the most complex systems on the planet. The aquarium you are about to set up is only a tiny sliver of the vast ocean, but it is nowhere near simple. This task is going to take patience, a...

www.reef2reef.com

Lasse · Apr 16, 2020

Could it be possible to get a picture of your algae?

From your first post

Ripley224 said:
We've also had some odd deaths that occurred and I have no idea why, they were a lawn mower blenny, turbo snails, sea urchin, and a sea hare.

All of these critters is algae eaters.....

Sincerely Lasse

Ripley224 · Apr 16, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
@Ripley224,

Sorry this came at you so fast! Big respect to you for stepping up to learn in such a short time to help your girlfriend out.

I will need some more information to help.

Source water, a RO/DI water, Tap water, buying water?

Mixing saltwater or buying made saltwater?

Lights, what kind and how long are they on?

Here's some reading for you:

The Supreme Guide To Setting Up A Saltwater Reef Aquarium

The Supreme Guide To Setting Up A Saltwater Reef Aquarium Introduction The marine environment is one of the most complex systems on the planet. The aquarium you are about to set up is only a tiny sliver of the vast ocean, but it is nowhere near simple. This task is going to take patience, a...

www.reef2reef.com

I'm using RO/DI with Instant ocean salt

Current USA LED Orbit lights, they're on for 7 hours and start dimming at 6 hours I think its like
B 100 % White 50% Red 0% Green 22% I haven't touched the lights it was set to whatever he ex had.

Ripley224 · Apr 16, 2020

Lasse said:
Could it be possible to get a picture of your algae?

From your first post

All of these critters is algae eaters.....

Sincerely Lasse

JoshO · Apr 16, 2020

Ripley224 said:
Oh yeah duh I should of said that

So which one is it ?
In terms of your parameters, they're likely to read 0 because your GHA is up taking them! I'd definitely watch some videos about feeding, lighting and nutrient export. Vibrant is a good method of removal but in this case it will take about 10 weeks or more. You'll have to increase water changes to once a week and possibly about 20-25% to make sure you're exporting the nutrients that are no longer being used.
You need to address the route source of the nutrients that are being used too however!

artieg1 · Apr 16, 2020

Seriously, you've clearly learned a lot in a short amount of time! If inverts are dying as well as fish, then ammonia or a contaminant sound like the most likely culprits. I'd do a sizable water change and observe. Don't worry about the algae for now (although if you get bored, manual removal is an important component of addressing that, so pick away at it).

myinvalidname · Apr 16, 2020

At this point you’ll want to want to start with lots of manual intervention. Scrub as much algae off the rocks and back glass, while siphoning it out. Do a large water change.

Also check to see if you have a skimmer and if it’s working properly.

It looks like you mostly have soft corals, so you can do a black out for a few days. Algae is photosynthetic, you can use dark to kill more of it, you’ll need to do another big water change after that; all the dead algae will create a spike in nutrients, which will drive the growth of more algae.

Lasse · Apr 16, 2020

Ripley224 said:

From the pictures i can´t rule out that this is not a cyanobacteria. It for sure looks like something from the cyanobacteria world - Calothrix, Lyngbya or similar genus. This can also explain why your algae eaters pass away - many genus, species or strains of cyanobacteria are toxic. The way to defeat these photosynthetic bacteria is IMO to mechanical remove as much as possible and rise the NO3 up to around 2 - 4 ppm - PO4 should be around 0.05 - 0.1 ppm. You maybe need to mechanical clean many times because this is a hard struggle. As you see - my advises contradict the others in this thread and are based on that it is indeed a cyanobacteria - not an algae. Try to establish if it is an algae or a cyanobacteria. I do not think it is a GHA but I can be wrong - it has happens before.

During the struggle - go down in light intensity for a while

Sincerely Lasse