Deal of a lifetime or curse of a lifetime?

[Cannonman17]

First of all- been looking around the net at aquarium forums and this looks to be tops! Second, I am long winded sometimes...sorry
Now:
Got a call last week from some inlaws.. there relatives have a 55 gallon FOWLR set up and their sick of it, do I want it for $200.00 HECK YES!
Well, turns out it's a 75 gallon complete with trickle filter with built in protien skimmer, about 100 lbs of LR, 8 damsels of various types, a shrimp or two, and a XXL hermit crab, oh yeah, full of apistias aneomes too.... I took it all home (all day project) cleaned the tank out good, replaced substrate, put the live rock back in, put half the old water back and mixed half new stuff. Didn't lose anything, all is up and running... just added three peppermint shrimp for the aneome problem... hope that takes care of it BUT now I have a bad algae bloom, brown, black, and green hair... added yellow tang (I wanted him out of my reef tank anyways) I figured he could eat the hair algae, I added ten hermit crabs and 20 snails... nitrates are there but not at what I would call a problem level-20-30 ppm. Temp 79, nitrites 0, PH and alkalinity perfect... any ideas on what else I might need to do- it's almost like the tank is cycling all over again... also had about 50 die off of my live rock with the 50% water change... looking a little better but ouch... maybe that's my problem?

 

[Hara]

hmm, you should not have had any die off at all with just a water change.
The nitrates are at a problem level IMO, and you are seeing the end result. That is enough to feed an army of nuisance algae. I am wondering what the trates were like BEFORE the water change.

Anyway, at this point in time, I would really watch the ammonia/nitrite levels for a few weeks. Be prepared for emergency water changes. It might be the fact that you severely disturbed the substrate that you are seeing this. The addition of the clean up crew will help a bit, but getting the trates to zero, and manual removal of the problem will help more.

This might help some:
http://www.fantasyreef.com/showthread.php?t=478

 

[Cannonman17]

I tested the tank with a better kit today and the nitrate level was 20 ppm and nitrite 0. I seen the yellow tang eating some of the black color algae today so maybe that's not bad and I see since adding the pep. shrimp all the aptisias are gone except in the over flow box. Had a yellow tail blue damsel die today, I seen it acting funny and upon looking closer seen something sticking out of it's mouth, couldn't tell what, it croaked within two minutes, autopsy didn't find a cuase of deat, and what ever had been sticking out of it's mouth earlier was gone. I'm waiting on a new cameral battery but will post picks of my two hundred dollar deal when they arrive.

 

[angelscrx]

Sweet deal, hopefully they won't want it back when you get it straight.

 

[afilter]

Concur with Hara, but also would check PO4. IMO, it is as much of a problem as nitrates when it comes to algea. I would be curious to see what they are. Also, what is your water source and have you run tests on it. Just a thought.

Good Luck,

 

[patman3d]

Wow, sounds like you got a steal

Even though you have algae bloom and aptasia, I still think you done well.

Probably best thing to do is just to keep the water parameters to good stats. I aquired a bunch of live rock, fish, sand, and the lr had lots of hair algae and it is about non-existent today.

Oh yeah, I also limited the amount of time the tank was lighted as well.