No, not tap water, that will put phosphates back into your food, not take them out. If rinsing your food you have to use RO or RO/DI water.
Camarillo is about 100 miles south of us..
Camarillo is about 100 miles south of us..
Ace25's 75G Build Thread
- Thread starter Ace25
- Start date
Hi Ace i just finished reading your thread and i have to say that i herd that some types of hermits will eat algae. Also an Idea for the tank: you could ask you LFS if they would lend you one just to lower the algae issues. You could trade some frags as rent LOL. Good Luck with tank.
I am just going to tear my display down this weekend, cut up all the corals I have to see if any part of any of them are savable, and scrub all the rocks as good as I can to remove as much of the hair algae. I gave up pulling it out.. was spending 1-2 hours a day doing so, let it go for just 7 days and it is a nightmare. I pulled out about 5 baseball size clumps of hair algae yesterday, just out of my dead birdsnest, and it didn't make the slightest dent in the looks of the hair algae. I just feel it is past the point of trying to get critters to clean it up for me.. I tried that, spent $100 on an online CUC, 300 crabs, 100 snails, etc.. all dead from the bad water I used, which only fueled the ammonia spikes and tank crashing. I am at the "last resort" phase with the hair algae and forced to take drastic measures to remove it. Life... and my tank... will go on. All part of the "reef" game unfortunately. If your in this hobby long enough you realize this type of thing is inevitable and even the best of the best reefers have tank crashes on occasion. It is how you react to the crashes that shows your commitment to the hobby.. and with 15 years under my belt with SW now, I don't see myself quitting.
People keep telling me how mad I should be about it all.. I just have to keep looking at the positive side.. I have all my fish, and some of my fish are MUCH harder to replace than any coral I have, even though some of the corals cost more than my fish. I would be much more upset if I lost my leopard wrasses or potters angel.
People keep telling me how mad I should be about it all.. I just have to keep looking at the positive side.. I have all my fish, and some of my fish are MUCH harder to replace than any coral I have, even though some of the corals cost more than my fish. I would be much more upset if I lost my leopard wrasses or potters angel.
I've had to do the exact same things. All you can do is, as you said, look at the brighter side and keep going. If you quit after getting distraught or angry, the chances are usually lower that you'll even bother getting back into it. I know I almost quit when mine crashed and I had colonies that were over 10 years old that melted away. To say that I was sick was an understatement. It was like losing a dog--I was crushed. But I picked up what few pieces I had left and went from there. I can't say I've made huge progress since then, but that is for a number of other reasons.
Thats supposed to be tang not tank. LOL:hitting:
Also do you have a backup tank. If so you could fill it with distilled water from the super market and then put surviving fish and corals in it till your main tank comes back online. Good Luck and plz keep us posted.
Ya, I tried the tang method as well.. lasted 3 days and died. First 2 days, model citizen eating the hair algae like a pig and swimming great, day 3 dead on the sand. Ugh.
Anyway.. this morning actually is a good one in my tank. I hooked up my new "ghetto" sump to my tank on Thursday. 35G rubbermaid bin, 50lbs of good live rock, good skimmer (which is still doing great, I can't even compare it to my remora, it is on a different level), and new filters on my RO/DI unit, along with knowing the water is now back to "normal" levels in my area. So I did a large waterchange when I hooked up the new sump, everything got really mad at me immediately after, every coral that had any life starting sliming bad as soon as I turned the return pump on, which I thought was going to be the last straw that put all my corals out of their misery.. but 36 hours later and for the first time in a month my corals seem to be wanting to make a comeback. There are actually polyps out on my red planet, something I haven't seen in a week, so there may actually be hope of saving some of my corals. I still have to cut them up to cut out the really dead parts, but I think I may be able to save parts of about 1/2 of them if they are now on a path to recovery and not declining anymore.
Anyway.. this morning actually is a good one in my tank. I hooked up my new "ghetto" sump to my tank on Thursday. 35G rubbermaid bin, 50lbs of good live rock, good skimmer (which is still doing great, I can't even compare it to my remora, it is on a different level), and new filters on my RO/DI unit, along with knowing the water is now back to "normal" levels in my area. So I did a large waterchange when I hooked up the new sump, everything got really mad at me immediately after, every coral that had any life starting sliming bad as soon as I turned the return pump on, which I thought was going to be the last straw that put all my corals out of their misery.. but 36 hours later and for the first time in a month my corals seem to be wanting to make a comeback. There are actually polyps out on my red planet, something I haven't seen in a week, so there may actually be hope of saving some of my corals. I still have to cut them up to cut out the really dead parts, but I think I may be able to save parts of about 1/2 of them if they are now on a path to recovery and not declining anymore.
Couple non tank pics.. I still have some work to do, finish hooking up the chiller and ATO and clean up some cords, but for the most part it is functional now.
My new Bubble Magus NAC7 cone skimmer after 36 hours of running on my tank.
and my ghetto sump, 3x the water volume of my old sump and 60lbs of live rock total in the sump vs 10lbs before. Hoping this makes a huge impact for the better. I also made it so I just have to turn a couple valves in order to do a water change now.
My new Bubble Magus NAC7 cone skimmer after 36 hours of running on my tank.
and my ghetto sump, 3x the water volume of my old sump and 60lbs of live rock total in the sump vs 10lbs before. Hoping this makes a huge impact for the better. I also made it so I just have to turn a couple valves in order to do a water change now.
Sweet, looks like the skimmer is doing a fine job so far. Hope it helps on some of your issues and decrease the food chain for the algae growth. Still going to break the rock down? or see how things go with the new skimmer?
I don't have the patience anymore to try and let nature take care of the hair algae for me, so yes, I will still be removing my rocks and scrubbing off as much as I can. I know I won't get 100% of it but hopefully 95%+ of it and then nature can finish off the remaining 5%. That is my hope anyway. I must have over $200 easily into "natural methods" to control Hair algae in just the last month... tang, clean up crew, 200g of water changes... and I am worse off today than when I started.. so now I do it my way. 
