Sps tank crashing, bleaching, algae

[johnacharles93]

Thanks everyone for the help, it has been very frustrating.

Here is all the specs of the tank.
46gallon bow front
Aqua clear 70 hob filter with 2 sponge filters no carbon.
Hob skimmer
Just switched from t5's to a single AI Vega color at 90 percent during the day and 1 percent of uv at night.
Apex Jr.
Mp10 at 50 percent.

The tank has been running for almost 2 years now. New sand bed about 6 months ago about half an inch think.

2 clowns
1 coral beauty (dwarf angel)
1 bangi cardinal
1 blue damsel
1 cleaner shrimp
1 serpant star
2 emerald crabs
Unknown amount of hermits and crabs.

2 colonies of some kind of leather
1 large frog spawn
3 different sps none of which I know the name of.
1 colon colony of zooanthids
1 colony of cabbage
1 eleagance
Various mushrooms
1 colony of green star polyps
Recently added was a RBTA.

I typically change about 5 gallons a week.

I feed them mysis shrimp 2-3 times a week.

If there's any questions I didn't answer let me know and I'll try my best to answer them. I'm going to add some pictures in about 5 minutes.

Thanks

 

[johnacharles93]

Sorry for the bad quality my cell phone won't focus on it.

 

[johnacharles93]

Here are some more

 

[tektite]

Do you rinse the mysis before feeding?
How long have you had your sps?
Why run any sponges in the aquaclear? How often do you clean them thoroughly? If they're not cleaned often, most likely the only contribution they're making to the tank is adding nitrates.
Sorry if I missed it, but do you run carbon? Leather corals can release toxins that are very rough on sps, I would say you have enough leathers to give this possibility some good consideration.

 

[johnacharles93]

No I do not rinse them they are frozen. I got my first sps about 2 months ago merilina I think and some stag as well some kind of claw. Sorry I don't know the names. I rinse the sponges every other week.
I do not run carbon, Should I?

 

[tektite]

The first pic you posted was a birdsnest, if you post pics of the other SPS I'm sure we can ID them for you.

Rinsing the mysis before feeding would be a good idea, that's just adding nutrients to the tank. Other than the softies a little and your 10% waterchanges, you really don't have anything that will remove added nutrients, all that goes to fuel the nuisance algae. If you think about it, a 10% waterchange only removes 10% of nutrients in the tank, so for example if you have nitrates of 5 and phosphates of 0.1, a 10% waterchange only takes that down to 4.5 and 0.09, and then mysis being fed 2-3 times before the next waterchange...more than enough to replace the nutrients you eliminated. As the sponges in the aquaclear don't really serve much purpose (your rock/sand has more than enough bacteria to handle your bioload), maybe consider making this a small fuge for macroalgae? Not sure how big it is though, unfamiliar with it.

If I had leathers in my SPS tank, I would definitely run carbon.

 

[johnacharles93]

I'm going today to get carbon media.
Wednesday I'll be doing a 20 gallon change.

How would I go about making that on a refugium?

It's a aqua clear 70.

I'll post pics here.

 

[Alabamareef]

Johnacharles93 I'll tell you my story. Let me start by showing you one of the last photos of my 180 gallon reef. This tank had been going for 3 years. It's got all the bells and whistles, Vertex Illumina LED lighting, big skimmer, sump with fuge, carbon, gfo, biopellets, ATO,MP40s, Tunze 6105s, Ca reacter, Kalk stirrer, heater with a backup, apex...... you get the idea lots of $$$$$$$$$$$$$. I has a lot of SPS, sticks, and was very pleased , great growth and fish looked healthy, several tangs, clowns, chromes, 6 line, flame angle...... A good bio load. I was at a point where I felt comfortable buying some high dollar corals. Have a great SPS buddy and we continued to brag on each others tank and he was great and instrumental at helping me get my tank to the level in the photo.

ent point.

I was at a point where the only thing I worried about was the coral color. I feed a lot of food daily but all reading stayed at a great range, Nitrates 0, P04 0.03, Ca, and Alk were at target range. Then for some reason I started loosing my SPS. The tissue started coming off from the base up. I noticed lots of algae on the glass every day, despite all levels remained constant. Had several people well rooted in the SPS community look over my tank, all levels good, no bugs, nothing stood out as an issue. Changed my lighting cycle....... Tried everything. I was making a lot of changes to fast. I was dosing iron to help color. When dosing iron it says if you see hair algae to stop then make some water changes. Then next thing I knew hair algae started to take over. I fragged several corals and farmed out to friends and started the battle. I did everything I could think of, changed out all my media, blacked out the tank, cranked up the skimmer..... I was doing weekly cleanings and water changes. I got to a point I was ready to give up. I then called in a maintenance person to help. He did a good cleaning. Two days later hair algae, again. I got flustered and pulled out all the rock, scrubbed it and did a big water change. A few days later hair algae, blacked out the tank, looked a little better, feeding was almost at 0 and I bought every hair algae eating animal I could find but it was still winning although getting a little better. My maintenance guy came back out and opened up my aqua scape and I started a weekly cleaning and water change. I bumped up my GFO to 1 cup of high capacity and was changing it out weekly to bi weekly along with the carbon. Bio pellet reactor got cranked up and on full blast. Finally I can say I've kicked the hair algae. It was about a 2-3 month battle. I've since started a better cleaning schedule. I think I was complacent. Through this process I've changed out all my RO/DI media, taken everything from under my tank and cleaned it...... I've had to start over. I'm still walking on egg shells but I'm putting back in my SPS and so far all is good. To this day I can't point to any one thing and say that's the cause but I will say that to many nutrients in and not enough out was the main cause and a few other things exacerbated my issue. Just don't forget good husbandry and don't get frustrated. I hope you don't have a tank failure but the hair algae issue can be won.

 

[johnacharles93]

Thanks a lot Alabamareef! That really helped motivate me! Im new to this and it's starting to get a bit overwhelming. Thanks for the support! I'll post pics on the continuation of this battle.