Calling a Professional

[NYCJodi]

Can anyone recommend a good professional saltwater tank expert (perhaps someone who sets up and maintains tanks for a living?)?

I need to bring in someone with a lot more tank experience than myself to help fix the nuisance algae problem my 90g reef tank. I want advice and options on how to move forward. Since all my fish died, it's a clean slate and the time is right for any overhauling. I love my tank and don't want to give it up, but I'm running out of ideas. It's time to break out the big guns.


Thanks,

 

[romain]

What are the parameters of your tank?

 

[nanoreefer22]

What have you tried so far?

 

[spykes]

i remember shaun saying most algae is self sufficent in growth, like even if your phosphate is 0 nitrate is 0 diatomic and cyano, and whatever the case is can grow by just supplying enough light. I dont know if you have that case. But if you have a ton of coraline algae, that algae will not allow any other algae to grow on top of it. even my tank with very low perameter diatomic algae still grows. but i can tell you snails are your friend, and also where did you get your live rock, how clean is that live rock, how efficent is your filtrations. Numerous subjects come into play, we cannot just perscribe your a way of fixing the problem and the problem goes away. best if you post up what is in your tank, perameter like no3 and Po4. also how much you feed, what kinda lighting and what filtration do you currently have in your system.

 

[jackson6745]

Jodi, you're just asking to get ripped off. If you hire a "professional" you'll end up with a wet/dry with bioballs, no skimmer, nitrates of a 1000, and a hefty bill. If you want someone to put together a setup that will perform great, I'll gladly take your money and do it for you or I'll tell you how to do it for free There's a lot of help on this board, you don't need a "professional" for a 90 gallon tank.


Start by listing EVERY piece of equipment you run on the tank.

 

[Pseudo]

Alright Rich... I am in. I will help set up the tank with you. Let me know when and I will be there. I work for pizza and alcohol (scotch or Jack D). Man you have to get in touch with me. I cant reach you by phone.

 

[clownfishking]

Alright Rich... I am in. I will help set up the tank with you. Let me know when and I will be there. I work for pizza and alcohol (scotch or Jack D). Man you have to get in touch with me. I cant reach you by phone.

I thought you left the Country?

 

[jackson6745]

Alright Rich... I am in. I will help set up the tank with you. Let me know when and I will be there. I work for pizza and alcohol (scotch or Jack D). Man you have to get in touch with me. I cant reach you by phone.

Yooooo, Kasei how do I get in touch with you? Do you have AIM over there? Send me an email, tell me what's going on .
ttyl

 

[NYCJodi]

I would appreciate any advice, but I know it can be hard to diagnose someone's problem without seeing the system first-hand. Hence, my idea to hire a profressional. Here goes...

Tank set up in Oct of 2003. Never had an algae issue until 4 months ago. I was dosing with Kalk every night about four or five weeks before the algae showed up...I suspect this--or a rock I got at a store/fragswap--is what the trigger or source was. No fish are in the tank now--they're all dead from an outbreak of ich due to over-rock scrubbing to rid algae. Only invertibrates are in the tank now, so no food (than the occasional anemone feeding) is going in.

90g main tank with 1-1.5" sandbed; 125 lbs. live rock; 55g fuge with cheato and 4-5" sandbed; 2 powerheads, 1200 MaxiJets (replaced three months ago); Aqua-C pro skimmer; chiller set at 80 degrees; the return pump is a Model 7 utility pump, which says on the Web that it's output is 8100 lph.

Water comes from RO/DI unit that has just had all filters changed this spring. 20% water changes weekly, although I have also been doing small 10% changes mid-week since the algae sprang up.

PO4: .003-.005
NO3: 5 mg/L

Lights: 3 VHO super white 110 watt bulbs plus 3 super actinic 110 watt bulbs. Just changed all bulbs this spring. Light cycle used to be:

1 white/1 actinic on at 9AM; off at 9PM
2 white/2 actinic on at 10AM; off at 8PM

Now, we're doing 2 white/2 actinic on for 4.5 hours during the day to try and curb the algae growth (it's working).

Thoughts?

 

[Josh]

Are you dosing anything other than kalk?

What inverts do you have?

Do you have a picture of the algae or of the entire tank?

 

[NYCJodi]

No picture, unfortunately. Digital camera on the fritz.

I am adding iodine (1 capful) about every week. We were using a phosphate remover, when fish were in the tank, but it's no longer necessary.

Inverts: mushrooms, hermit crabs, 1 peppermint shrimp, 1 camel shrimp, 2 bt anemones, pulsing xenia, frogspawn, torch, star polyp, button polyps, snails, feather duster.

Please don't suggest I buy snails to get rid of the algae. The snails want NOTHING to do with the algae (as did/does no other fish or invert) and they just end up dying.

 

[NYCJodi]

Oh, and the algae is green, with long strands. Not matte algae. It got so prolific at one point that clumps of it were rolling through the water like tumbleweeds.

 

[NYCJodi]

Oh, and I'm not dosing Kalk any longer.

 

[Josh]

You stopped using the phosphate sponge right? Have you tested phosphates recently?

Have you used a silicate sponge recently?

On a side note, water changes are a good thing, but 20% weekly changes sounds like a lot, but that might just be me.

Have you tested the water coming out of your RODI unit?

Is there anything that may be leaking iron into the tank?

Algae generally requires phosphates, iron, and occasionally silicates to grow. If you starve the tank of these items then the algae should not be growing.

Is the algae leafy, or is it stringy like turtle grass?

 

[NYCJodi]

Not leafy. Like grass.

Yes, tested water out of RO/DI unit and it's golden.

Phosphate parems listed above.

What could be leaking iron? We have replaced the power heads. We aren't using a heater. ??

 

[Sean]

sent PM

 

[Justin_NY]

if i were u , i change my skimmer to bigger one. aqua c ev-240 this thing kick ass on my old 58 gallon tank, in a month my problem of algea is gone.

 

[NYCJodi]

The EV-240 is too tall for my sump area. I've only got about 28" underneath in the stand.

 

[Sean]

try and get some pictures it would help a lot.
but honestly sometimes you have to leave the tank alone and let it go. It should just level itself out. as far as algae eating animals dieing doesn't make sense I would definitely add some kind of animal to eat the stuff whether its snails, hermit crabs, tangs or even algae blennies. Also keep in mind that just because your test kit say you don?t have phosphates doesn?t mean you really don?t have phosphates.

how many snails and hermit crabs do you have and what kind are they?
Do you ever clean your gravel bed?
Have you noticed it getting worse after all these animals have been dieing?
Have you been adding more animals to replace the ones that died?
How often do you do water changes and what percentage?
Did you do any extra water changes after you found dead fish?
Did any fish die in some hard to reach spot that you were unable to remove from the tank properly?

 

[NYCJodi]

All of the animals you suggest for eating algae have been tried already. None of them were interested.

If the test kit registers little/zero phosphates, how can I have a phosphate problem? That doesn't make any sense. Isn't that what test kits are for?

The large mexican turbos we had all died off. We have about 10 nacarius (sp?) snails, and about 15-20 hermit crabs. I need to beef up on both, for sure.

The sand bed is something I'm worried about. We don't clean it per se, and I'm wondering if it hasn't "gone bad". I read that this can happen. A friend suggested converting to underwater gravel instead.

Water change info has been posted in thread above.

I don't believe we missed any fish that died. It's been eight weeks since the fish died, though.