at wit's end, need help! pic heavy

salty420

salty420

this fish was coming on to me
Mar 8, 2007
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Sugar Grove, IL
so some of you may have seen my post about my 29g biocube crashing fast. well things are not improving as i would like...
the algae in there is out of control! it's mostly the red slime and diatoms that are driving me nuts but that's not all... we've got just about everything minus the macro that i pulled out (it was out of control too!). of course the one kind of algae that is good is the only one that i can get rid of!
i've done about 5 big water changes, all in all changing out more than the full tank volume at least once. the params are pretty much great:
sg: 1.025
ph 8.0 (don't know why it was a little low this time..?)
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 0 (which i was a bit surprised since i had pulled all the macro a couple weeks ago)
phosphates 0
calcium 440

here is a pic of how the tank looked february
dadftsfeb11.jpg


and here is a fts from last night (prepare yourself)
dadstank006.jpg


see that little slime covered rock next to the gsp by the goby? that's where the yellow polyps are!!! i thought it was all related to the lights going bad as the bulbs were over a year old. of course they are on back order so i've put my old nova extreme t5 fixture on the tank. i did that after a big water change and after i siphoned off ALL the red slime algae and still it returns!
004.jpg

006-3.jpg

and those pics are from yesterday too, it's worse today. i added in a penguin 1140 ph to help with flow in addition to the stock pump so there should be plenty in there, i've never had a problem before this without an additional pump!

im really mostly bummed about that big shroom rock, most of the shrooms have sloughed off of it now, just a few babies remain...
dadstank003.jpg


i don't know what to do..? i feel like im covering all the bases i know about so someone please help me :help:
 
Holy moly. I wish I had something helpful to say but all I've got is, I am really, really sorry. What in the heck! How does this make any sense with perfect water params???
 
okay. that is a huge change. that was a nice reef. here is what i would do: water change with all correct parameters and i would get chemi-clean for red slime algae. i think it calls chemi-clean or chemi-pure, i'm talking about white powder made for red slime in a small plastic bottle. i like it and it doesn't hurt anything, if used properly. follow directions and do another water change in whenever it states in directions after treatment. the shrooms don't look good but can make come back. rinse algae off corals with tank water in a bucket, possibly just use terkey bester.
 
salty420 said:
the original bulbs came with the tank which was purchased as a full set up (fish and all). they were at least a year old so needed to be replaced - which is why i think they caused the algae outbreak to start with..? but the t5 bulbs are less than a year old.
Click to expand...

time to change your original bulbs:)
 
as stated in original post the bulbs are on back order :( they are ordered so as soon as they come in they will be shipped. i've also ordered some chemi-pure so hopefully that will help. the red slime is taking over! i've got water ready for another change and my itty bitty diy siphon works great for sucking off all the red slime. it's hard to even want to bother cleaning it tho to be honest, as soon as i get in there and clean it up the next day it's back and the day after that it looks like i never cleaned it to start with :(
 
forgive my ignorance, but is there no kind of critter you could put in that would eat it all up? I read a long article a few days ago - of course, I forget where - about algae issues like this when the water is perfect and you've done everything you can think of and the author's response was to basically keep doing what you're doing and to add in some chemi-whatever and add in the critters that will eat whatever you miss. I believe it also stated that once the algae takes hold, it is nearly impossible to completely get rid of it without completely breaking down the tank and cleaning everything and basically scrubbing your rocks down with a toothbrush. I would personally take option A and get some critters to eat it. But then, I'm new to the hobby, so maybe I haven't got a clue. I wish you luck though. You're So good, I'm sure you'll get it all worked out and more beautiful than before.
 
Since you can't get the bulbs. What I would do is shut off the lights and cover the tank with a blanket for 3 days, uncover, do a water change and cut back on your lighting schedule untill you get the new bulbs.
 
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