water quality question...

[madamekiki]

suddenly my water quality has begun to take a turn for the worse and i can't figure out what to do...it all started when my heat was out for a couple of weeks do to a gas line leak in my house. when i got home and was able to jump back into taking care of my tank again like i should (the two weeks i was gone i would check it daily to make sure filters were running, temp was ok and to feed the little guys) i noticed a huge cyano and hair algae outbreak. i also noticed two fish were missing, a purple fire fish and a carpenter's flasher wrasse. all water parameters at that time were good except for ph which was low and salinity which was high. i did not have a kit for phosphates at that time...i bought a phosphate kit and saw they were high so i've been doing water changes ever 2 or three days. i noticed all of my other parameters going wacky after i moved and cleaned off a bunch of live rock to rid it of the hair algae. i'm wondering if this could be the cause of my high readings for ammonia nitrates and nitrites? while moving the rocks around i found no traces of my two missing fish. i just did another water change in hopes that it will help...i use ro water from work (the perks of working at a fish store i don't have to buy a ro setup right away). any ideas as to what else i can do? and are the water changes too frequent...it almost seems like the tank is trying to re-cycle itself...should i just let it be and see what happens? help me please...walter mondale (percula clown), rupaul (royal gramma) and louis and oswald (skunk cleaner shrimp) would greatly appreciate any advice you can give...

thanks,
rachel

[charlie]

you are definitly on the right track to lower everything. I would keep up the water changes you are doing and keep testing. I would leave everything (hair algae) be for a while until you get those params back in line, then we can get to work on that. HTH

[madamekiki]

after yesterday's water change things seem to be looking up. phosphate dropped from .75 to .5, nitrite dropped from .3 to .1 and ammonia dropped from .4 to .3...nitrates however are from 15 to 40...can anyone say cycle? i'll do another water change tomorrow morning as today is the day to set up chompy's new home (he's a red eared slider). thanks for your advice charlie and as soon as water params are back in line i'll be needing your help to get rid of that awful algae and cyano problem...although maybe by then the water quality will help take care of everything else...we'll see...

thanks again,
rachel