Kalk Drip Methods..

[charlie]

If the sea hares died in your tank, could that be a source? What time frame are we speaking of?

[gregr]

Yeah- I think they died in the tank- I pulled one out before it starved but the other two disappeard so they probably contributed some. That was about 6 weeks ago roughly- maybe a month. I'm working on the video clip now.

[gregr]

Click here to watch a 50 second clip of the tank. The Duncan coral is closed up because it got knocked off it's perch when I was cleaning the glass- it usually has all the heads open. Aside from that everything else looks pretty much like it always does. I was about to shoot some closer up shots when the metal halide lights went off :eek3:

[charlie]

Was that a lawnmower in there? If it was, start paying him double time!!!!

I have been thinking about this and maybe you are just going thru one of those things that we all go thru at times. If that is the case, you know as well as I that it is just gonna take time Greg. I think the issue with the RO/DI is what hurt the most, at least that is what I can figure???? Thge water change schedule you are on is good, at least I think so. you could maybe cut back, because it is gonna take time and (oh God) patience, and good maintenance practices. I think once you get your fuge straightened back out, hopefully things will get back in line. The thing is, you have good references down there also, meaning LFS and such. I would continue to try to maybe get in touch with Gene and maybe Kevinpo and see if they have any ideas, aside from we have gone thru, more heads are better than one!!!!

Nice vid by the way!!!

[CutthroatKid]

WOW! Your tank is beautiful! Some great video right there too!
Hope you guys can get this deal resolved...

[charlie]

yeah really, the last pic I saw of Greg, he had a beard, I hope he hasn't pulled all that hair out too!!!!!

[zhenya]

Hi Greg,

Just finished watching your video of the tank. What can I say? I've never had hair algae like this in my tank, so I can;t really offer advice on dealing with it other than the abvious.

Unless of course the garbage has been absorbed into the rocks and sand.

You can start ringing the bell here, I think. It will take some time for the crap to leach back out and to be removed by filtration devices that you have. In the meantime it may continue to fuel the algae growth.

So what's the abvious you say? I would continue to remove it manually and stay with water changes schedule, not more often but your usual rutine. If there is a possibility to remove some of the rocks, at least, do that and clean it ouside the tank in salt water. Rinse it well from the gunk, so that little leftovers don't go back in the tank, and put it back. You can try doing this to the rocks that corals are not attached to, at least to make some headway, if you know what I mean.
If stuff does not grow on the sand bed then I don't think it is causing the problem. Two years old sand bed should be just fine and healthy if it was constructed and seeded with critters properly. When did you last recharged it with critters?

Anyway, my next step would be to remove sand bed from the fuge. You can put like 1/2" of fresh live sand in there ( I would go out and buy some from a reputable dealer that has really good stuff with lots of crippy crawlers in it) and that is it. The rest of the space should be left for the chaeto alone, with brisk water movement so it is rolling like a ball in there and watch it grow. Prune it often so it grows good for you. Do you have light over the fuge? The reason your chaetomorpha wasn't growing is because it was out competed by the hair algae in the display.

I would love to see pictures or video of the sump and fuge, if you could, I am sure it is fine but I really just want to see it.

Skimmer isn't spotless but it's not horrible- cleaned it a couple months ago.

I clean mine every other week, I know it's anal but I can;t stand looking at the dirty skimmer.
Forgot to ask you, do you run ozone?

[zhenya]

Yeah- I think they died in the tank- I pulled one out before it starved but the other two disappeard so they probably contributed some. That was about 6 weeks ago roughly- maybe a month. I'm working on the video clip now.

Greg,

If you want to try a sea hare, get only one and make sure it isn't huge and at the end of it's life cycle. This things don't live very long as is, so be certain that you see it eats the hair algae before you get it.
What type of snails you have in the tank at the moment?

And, when you do water changes do you blow off your rockwork?

[gregr]

Thanks for the help guys- I truly appreciate it. CutthroatKid- you live up by Charlie in the land of Cutthroat trout? I've fished some of those rivers up that way. The Locksa, St. Joe, Elk, too many awesome rivers to even remember. Beautiful country and even though it's probably harsh weather right now I'd rather be there, freezing, cleaning the ice out of the guides
What I could never wrap my mind around is why the corals look good but at the same time the algae is so bad. I guess it would make sense that if the bad stuff is leaching out of the rocks it would feed the algae and in turn the algae was feeding off the nutrients in the tank, in effect taking nutrients away from the corals. So the coral growth slows down but the conditions aren't so bad that they look bad. They look great for the most part. I'll try to finish the video today with some closer up shots.
I've never "re-charged" the sandbed. Never heard of it even. Do you mean just add some new/different livesand? I can get this stuff today if that's what you're talking about. I'm picking up a Copperband because I cannot win the war against aiptasia with Joe's Juice or Aiptasia X (or kalk paste) so I can pick up the sand at the same time.
Remove the sand (and rock) from the refugium? Why do you say that? There is about 25 pounds of clean liverock in the refugium right now on top of that sand (sand has no algae too). I have been thinking about pulling some of that rock out and swapping with rock in the tank but I'm afraid to do it because it will stir up so much detritus
Refugium has two T-5 daylight bulbs over it, by the way. As for cleaning the skimmer- you guys are talking about cleaning the inside of the main chamber right? The collection cup itself gets cleaned thouroughly every time I empty it, which is about once a week.
No ozone- I did on a tank a long time ago and the skimmate increased but was thinner. Pretty much the same thing as when I was dosing vodka. Aside from the increase in skimmate I saw no other changes. Water was very clear to start with so that changed minimally. Oxygen levels must've gone up but with such big turnover and water movement I think oxygen levels are ok. Hmm- I should test it though- never have before.
As for snails- there are two Nassarius snails (I got three about a month after the tank cycled and two are still alive 18 months later- didn't think they lived that long), a couple turbos and a few Astreas. I kinda gave up on snails when the algae was thick and they did nothing. As far as algae eating critters the only ones that had a visible impact were the sea hares. Snails seem to just want diatoms. And to knock over corals
I don't vacuum detritus off the rocks when I do water changes- I will do that in the future. Thanks for the tip and all the other help!

[zhenya]

Greg,

I didn't mean the live sand in the bag. Those are OK if you are starting new, smallish tanks. You already have a sand bed and what you need is to perhaps recharge it with the animals.
I tried to locate this site but all I found is cached pages. However, in the link I provided there is a phone number and email, so you can call or try the email and see if they are still in business. Ask Morgan Lidster all the questions you want, he never refuses to help and helped me incredible when I was setting up my 75g years ago.

Remove the sand (and rock) from the refugium? Why do you say that? There is about 25 pounds of clean liverock in the refugium right now on top of that sand (sand has no algae too). I have been thinking about pulling some of that rock out and swapping with rock in the tank but I'm afraid to do it because it will stir up so much detritus

I'm not sure what size your refugium is, Greg, if it is really large than that rock won't be a problem. As long as it doesn't impede circulation and prevent your chaetomorpha from rolling freely in there. I'm guessing your fuge is a stand alone set up? If so, it is a different ball game refugium. ;)

Live sand? How live is it?
The reason I ask is that a smallish footprint sand beds end up being a nutrient sink and do more harm than good in a long run. However, that's just my opinion. As far as removing rocks, it would be OK to stir up some detritus as you can easily syphon it out during water change with the 1" tubing. I did it in my 110g tank and it works good. It doesn't help if you have detritus just sitting there poluting your system and nothing is eating it. It;s OK, as I'm sure you know, to have some detritus in the system because it is a food sourse for many different animals, including some of the cnidarians. The same aplies to the fuge, hence why I'm always whining about having too much rock or sand in them if they are part of the sump set up. It traps too much detritus and if there is nothing to eat it in there then there is trouble down the road.
Anyway, don't want to sidetrack this thread with me standing on a soapbox.

[gregr]

Feel free to derail the thead
The refugium is 40g- so not too big, not too small. The rock takes up quite a bit of space so at least some of it has to come out. I have a dream... I'd love to have jawfish living in the refugium someday, so I want to keep some rock and a little rubble in there. The sandbed is pretty much completely covered by rock now though. There are two overflows on the main tank- one of them feeds the refugium (the water from the refugium overflows into the sump, via a 6" long 2" diameter piece of pvc). It gets plenty of flow this way.
The refugium needs work- I will take your suggestions and work on them. I look forward to the time when it is actually exporting nutrients. As I said earlier in this thread, once I get the refugium working I will give it a month or two and if the algae in the main tank doesn't show signs of disappearing I'll break the whole thing down and start over. Really hoping it doesn't come to that

[CutthroatKid]

haha yes I do. Trout fishing is a summer time event though, I'm not gonna freeze my butt off unless it's for red meat! ;)

Gene, What would you consider a small foot print? Do you have an article i could read on what you mean by nutrient sink?

[gregr]

lol- when you live in LA the best time to get out of town is "always". I put down the flyrod several years ago when I picked up the camera but back in the old days I mostly went fishing in winter and fall. No people and hungry fish

[zhenya]

Gene, What would you consider a small foot print? Do you have an article i could read on what you mean by nutrient sink?

Jase, read these two articles and see if you have mor equestions after that.
Ron Shimek's Website...Deep Sand Beds
How Sandbeds REALLY Work by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com

A small foot print to cosntruct a deep sand bed would be a nano tank like the 20-30 gallon size, I would think. There simply wouldn't be enough room for the animals to reproduce and survive long terms and the sand bed would become a dead sand bed leading it to become a nutrient sink. In other words there wouldn't be any life in there to metabolize the wastes.

[CutthroatKid]

Thanks Gene. I believe those are two articles Charlie directed me to a couple years ago. I need to read them again though since I'm not sure i really got it to start with. haha