It's all over....

[Cheech]

No sure if you read the other "wierd algae" thread, but my tank crashed on Friday....


Everything's dead. The only thing I was able to save was the Unicorn Tang, which I brought to the pet shop...

That slimy mucus disgusting stuff just kept on multiplying. Covering all my rocks, glass... It started becoming harder too. It clogged all the insides and out of the tubes from my filter, infested all the powerheads, protien skimmer..

As I was trying to clean everything in time, my fish sterted dying, one by one. I was able to put my Unicorn tang in a bucket with saltwater, but it was too late for the others. Polyps, leathers, mushrooms, caulerpa, hermits, snails, feather dusters, starfish, cucumbers, everything's gone...

Then it came time for the cleaning.. Seeing how it was already 1 AM, I decided to clean the tank the next morning. I woke up to this disgusting stench, Smelled like sewage. Just horrible. The tank was very clowdy and ugly. There were hundreds of bristleworms, all over the glass rocks and sand. I saw a few of them at 8 inches. Anyway, it took me the whole day to place everything into buckets... I'm not taking any chances, so I'll be bleaching all of my live rock and live sand, and in a few weeks, (or months) when I decide to set everything up, I'll reseed the tank with some lr/ls.

All that hard work, (and money) down the drain.

And last thing, no more chemicals for my tank!!!... I'll run it all natural, and take it from there....

[kreblak]

Good grief! Any suspicions as to what caused such a crash? That sounds like one heck of a strange algae. Do you think you may have had some sort of "red tide" in your tank? I know that on the east coast, there is an algae that causes red tides that is highly toxic to marine life.

[g. mcclean]

Chech-- I am so sory to hear of your misfortune. As a newbie the mysteries of this hobby are at times daunting! Hopefully you will not give up. So much of the expense is in the hardware. Good luck with any future endeavors.

[Guy W]

that sucks a$$ cheech. I'm really sorry to hear about your crash. If you ever figure out what that algea was do tell. Any idea's on what caused the outbreak. I know you said no more chemicals in your tank, what did you mean by that?

[Cearbhaill]

It sounds very terrible and traumatic.
I'm thinking that I'd take a bit of the substance somewhere to find out what it was- it would drive me nuts if I never figured it out. I'd think any larger marine LFS would be able to ID it. Failing that find anyone with a microscope and at least get some good photos of it for future ID's- send copies everywhere until you find an answer.
IMO anything that devastating needs to be identified. Until you know exactly what it is you'll never be sure of its cause and/or cure.

[Cheech]

Hello...

thanks for the thoughts...

Once I did a nice cleaning of the tank, (before the crash), the only thing I started using was B-Ionic. I think that maybe I overdosed a little bit. But I doubt it would do that much harm..

Daily, I've been cleaning out my powerheads and filters.. This algae/slimy stuff got everywhere... Inside and around of the little impellor of my powerheads, filters... The stuff is anywhere, and everywhere that may have a little crack or opening of any sort. It's just so ugly, and smells like raw sewage!.....


Anyway, I'll take my time, clean everything up, and start from scratch... I will try to figure out what the stuff is though... I wish I had taken some pics, but I was too busy trying to make the stuff disappear.. I'll take some tonight.. I'm sure there's still some of that stuff lurkling around somewhere...

[Guy W]

do you have RIO power heads? If those siezed they could have crashed the whole tank. I've heard of it happening on many occassions???

[kreblak]

I really wish I could help more with this. To have your whole tank crash is just crazy! :confused:

[Guy W]

Never did get a follow up on my question. Were you using Rio Powerheads?

Guy

[liquafaction]

not that it takes the sting away, but I am sorry about your loss.

[Cheech]

I'm sorry... To followup about the powerheads, they're not Rio powerheads... They're all Aquaclear powerheads...


I was cleaning the rocks yestaurday, which were is a water/bleach solution for a few days... Man, does that stuff stink!!!! I felt like throwing up the whole night,... Now I gotta do the sand too... you wouldn't believe how I'm NOT looking forward to cleaning all that stuff up.... :rolleyes:


But someone's gotta do it...