Chemical problems

[bikerbabe156]

I am new on this forum. We have bought a 180 gallon reef aquarium. We bought it from someone who had it in his garage at home and owned a LFS and went out of business. This tank is approx. 7 years old. I am having a heck of a time getting the chemicals right. We have a red slime algae problem now.
CA 500
PH 8.0
NO3 10
NO2 0
NH4 0
MG 1380
Phospates .32
Alklinity of off the chart low ( using Brightwell Alklinity 8.3 to no avail)
I have some leathers that are dying and I just treated this tank with chemiclean to stop the red slime algea...Any advice here?
Thanks

 

[Beengirl]

I am new on this forum. We have bought a 180 gallon reef aquarium. We bought it from someone who had it in his garage at home and owned a LFS and went out of business. This tank is approx. 7 years old. I am having a heck of a time getting the chemicals right. We have a red slime algae problem now.
CA 500
PH 8.0
NO3 10
NO2 0
NH4 0
MG 1380
Phospates .32
Alklinity of off the chart low ( using Brightwell Alklinity 8.3 to no avail)
I have some leathers that are dying and I just treated this tank with chemiclean to stop the red slime algea...Any advice here?
Thanks

The phosphates are high, which will contribute to algae. Red slime algae is from too many nutrients in the water. You could use Phosguard to help remove phosphates. I would also do some PWCs to help remove nutrients. How much do you feed an how often? How many and what kind of fish do you have?

 

[bikerbabe156]

We have a rabbit fish, 2 cardnals, yellow tank, sailfish tang, mimic tang, 6 clowns, a blinny. We were advised by our LFS to do water changes everyday for 7 days. And to turn lights of for 2 days, now the chemiclean we added and tomorrow another water change. We do have phosgard in a reactor but it is unpluged for the chemiclean at presant. I am feeding our fish 1/3 of a cube of frozen formula one and a small strip of dried sea weed for the rabbit and tangs. Corals get a bout 1/4 dose of phyto Green and I cut that down from 1/2 dose. I am now concerned we might go through diatoms again because of the water changes. Lights are on about 8 hours a day. We also have phos pads we were using until we did the chemiclean. All of that will be back in place tomarrow at noon after our water change. I guess part of my concern could be that the live rock is leaching it out and possibly the sand. We have done several sand cleanings only to have the algae return moments later. I am stumped as to why the alkilinty is so off. I understand the Nitrates and Phosphates. I guess next I could quit feeding the fish and coral (just kidding). We have discussed changing the sand out completely because we don't know where it came from. Rock is a whole other story.

 

[Sniperhank]

Sounds like all these issues are coming out of disturbing that 7 year old sandbed. Just do large water changes and it should all come down. Siphon out the cyano before changing the water. It'll take a month or 2 to get it under control.

 

[Ingy]

Sounds like all these issues are coming out of disturbing that 7 year old sandbed. Just do large water changes and it should all come down. Siphon out the cyano before changing the water. It'll take a month or 2 to get it under control.

+1 to all that

I had similar diatom issue when I moved my 110 gal tank. Stirred the sand and diatoms bloomed.
I WOULD stop feeding the corals unless you have any non-photosynthetic corals. They are fine with just the lights.
It is amazing how much it takes to raise Alk. My 110 takes about 40 ml just to raise it 0.5 dKh. Are your tests measuring in dKh or meq/l.
Ratio is 1 Meq/l = 2.2 dKh. So if your are measuring in meq/l then your lower range is around 3.5 meq/l

 

[bikerbabe156]

yes my alk is a round I have a red sea alkalinaty test kit. It is off the chart low. We just treated for the slime and did our water change today. I dosed with the 8.3 a bit ago and really I don't know what it will be after a few days of dosing because we have been in the process of water changes every day for 7 days so I really don't know if that is why the alk. is off but I just got the test kit not too long ago. The calcium is 500 and I just checked the ro/di salt water in the barrel and it was also 500. I am thinking I may need to change the salt after what we have used the rest of what we have. What kind of salt do you use?