[Krux]

a fellow reefer on another board posted a call for help, and after reading his thread i am truly stumped, and i was hoping that some of you here might be able to make some sort of suggestions on what might be going on in his tank. basically he has one of the worst outbreaks of hair algae i have ever seen, and his water perameters seem to be unable to support this bloom, so i was left wondering where all the algae is coming from. i will paste in his first post in the thread, in subsequent posts he answerd questions including yes, he did remove the dead fish and snails, and also that he has only ever used ro water in his tank.

any ideas folks?

his post below
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Hello
First off I would like to say thank you all for your help in the other entire posting I have submitted. This recent issue of mine could be the end of my saltwater hobby. I am at wit’s end and don’t know what else to try. This alga has taken over my tank for the last month and every thing I have tried dose not help. When this algae first showed up I tried to combat it with turbo snail I add other 10 to my already 70. I also purchased an emerald crab and a lawn mower blenny. With in a week all my snails the crab and the lawn mower where deceased. Since then I have add no algae eating animals. I reduced my light timer down to 10 hours scrubbed the rocks with saltwater and increased my water changes to 5 gallons twice a week. I removed all my bio balls and sponges and turned my skimmer to full power. I have been changing my carbon once a week. Recently I add 4 turbo and a red lip blenny. I felt like maybe the issue cleared up but today the blenny is very thin and the snail have not moved in two days. Can some one please help me before I give up on this hobby and pursue a different one? I love this hobby but I can’t continue like this.
Specs
72 Gallon Bow front
AMiracle sump
3 penguin 1140 power heads
Mag 750 return
AMiracle Skimmer driven by a Rio 2100
130pound LR
50 Pound LS
Refuge 8-pound LR Miracle Mud and Grow Light.
110 PC
40 W Actinic
Water Specs
PH 8.3
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
Cal 410
Phosphates 0
1.025

 

[Krux]

excellent suggestions. i will pass them along to him. thanks much for the assistance.

 

[Krux]

he said he has been using walmart ro water, but someone pointed out that in some places walmart water can contain phosphates.

his immediate course of action based on feedback is going to be to cut his lighting to about 6 hours a day, and he will be cutting back his feedings to every other day to try to limit nitruents entering his tank.

i resommended he take some water in to his lfs to get tested, and am hoping he has the ability to do that.

i hadnt thought about other additives in the water. i assumed ro processes took care of that, but that could definately be a source of problems for his livestock. one thing i find curious is that the rest of his fish arent seemingly effected by the outbreak, it was just the algae eating types.

a massive water chance is a good idea, i think he has been doing like 10% changes each week, but he should definately step up and do some larger changes i agree.

thanks again for all the help. hopefully he will be able to tame this lawn he is growing in his tank shortly.