High nitrAtes

[Turbovr3six]

Keep up the fight. :tank:

 

[rambler67]

Just hang in there my tank looked worse than yours at one time.

 

[bizzarro]

You may want to invest in strong powerheads or more. Usually dead spots is where cyano grows. I can see the water only flows horizontally and would explain why the bottom has it and the glass because the flow isn't strong by the time it reaches the other side.

Is there any movement going behind the rock?

Also, I wouldn't have the powerheads attached to pull air. The bubbles will just increase the saltcreep on the tank and lights splash guard.

 

[shark32]

Thanks Turbovr3six, rambler67, and bizarro,
I bought two more powerheads and I am just waiting for the Suregrip magnets to come in before I install them..I will definately put some flow behind my rocks as there is nothing back there now...I thought I had to have the air intake on the powerheads but I iwll be glad to remove them becuase they always fall off...Thanks!!

 

[shark32]

Happy New All!!
I just have to say AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
So for the last 3 months, I have been doing 10 gallon water changes every Saturday, I added two more Maxi Jet 1200 powerheads, I am running (from Bulk Reef Supply) ROX .08 GAC (10 tsp) and their High Capacity GFO (20 tsp) that I change out every other week, I change the filter sock every three days and for the last month I have been feeding every other day. My current live stock consists of a flame hawk fish, an indigo dottyback, a starry blenny, a yellow watchman goby, a shark nosed blenny, a porcelian crab, a banded shrimp, a pistol shrimp and a tiger brittle star.... my tank has a bunch of this stuff 9which I thought was GHA), which I am now beginning to think is possibly that awful dreaded 'dinoflagellates'....I will post some pics on the bottom of this...I just tested my water and this is what I got:
with Seachem:
Ammonia - 0
nitrItes - 0
with Elos:
nitrAtes - 5-10 (it's hard to tell which it's closer to)
with a Hanna Checker (twice, I did not believe it the first time):
phosphates - 0
PH - 8.2
SG - 1.026
I do not understand why I cannot get rid of this stuff...I am almost at the point of getting rid of my sand as someone had suggested and see if that helps...
Any ideas? Thanks in advance

 

[rambler67]

From the pic it still looks like gha to me. Did you check your water supply for phosphate. do you scrub the gha before you do the wc? it will take a while to get all the phosphates out of the sand and rocks if it was high for a while. good luck that gha is a royal pita.

 

[Turbovr3six]

Looks like green hair algea to me as well. I would try a 3 day blackout before I tried to remove the sand. How old are your bulbs?

 

[shark32]

Thanks guys!
I have tested my RO/DI(which my cartridges were changed in August) water with a TDS meter and it was zero...I'll do a check with my Hanna Checker though, I have never checked the non saltwater for that...I do not scrub my rocks b4 a water change but I do blow them with a turkey baster and a lot of yuck comes floating off...my bubls were just replaced in August/September....
One thing I forgot to mention was everytime I try to introduce a snail, he/she dies...that was why I was thinking alond the lines of dinos, however I did add a new conch and he seems fine... my fish would be okay with a black out?
I'm telling ya, this tank and I have a love/hate relationship these days...thank God the scale tips more on the love side

 

[rambler67]

you might want to try scribing it and siphoning out as much of the gha as you can on every water change. i actually used an old canister filter and sucked up all the gha while i was scrubbing then did a big wc about 3 times and it was under control but still took about 3 months to get complicity rid of it.

 

[shark32]

Thanks rambler67 ,
Was yours a bad case?
Usually about 2 or 3x a week I use this little PennPlax vacuum to suck out a bunch of it off the rocks, but this stuff is relentless...what would still be causing it? Shouldn't the GFO and GAC stunt it?

 

[rambler67]

yea it was about 4 to 5 inch long on the whole tank rocks glass every thing. the gfo and gac should be slowing it down. did you check the new salt water and make sure it doesn't have phosphates in it. you can also raise the cal they say it helps. i dont know if its a fo or a reef but you can do a 4 day black out but you also have to make sure you get all the dead gha out afterwords or it will just leak back into the water. are you running a good skimmer and filter socks to help lower the nutrients lvls in the tank?

 

[shark32]

I have to check the new saltwater when I make it on Thursday...mine is growing in the corners on the glass as well...it is a FOWLR tank...my skimmer is an AcquaC Remora Pro, right now it has a mag 3 pump, but I have a Mag 5 that I did not install yet because my flamehawk fish likes to hang out on the sponge of the intake on the Mag 3 and the Mag 5 does not have a sponge...but I am seriously thinking he might have to find a new place to hang...I do use a filter sock and change it every three days (and it usually is brown when I change it)....

 

[Awibrandy]

shark, back in 06 my tank went without maintenance for something like 7 or 8 months. Can you imagine what it looked like?:eek1: Yes, there was a good reason for such neglect: I had cancer, had surgery, moved, did chemo, then radiation all the while having contractors in & out everyday from March through June.
Anyway, back to topic!
GHA was everywhere in my 5' 120 gallon tank. What I did was: I got two bowls, I used 1 to put the clumps of gha that I pulled off, the other 1 had a little water in it so I could rinse my fingers, so I wouldn't get lose gha back into the tank. This I did when I had my little bouts of energy. My contractor would come in, and say "I see your feeling good today, your weeding". So this went on for months. Eventually I inherited my BBF's 155 at the end of my radiation treatments. Her tank wasn't much better off then mine as she was even sicker. So between my gha, and her aiptasia filled rocks I really had my work cut out for me. Sounds daunting doesn't it.:thrash:
Well, I'm a fighter, and refused to throw in the towel. I took all the rocks, got a brush, and literally scrubbed all the hair algea off, then I rinsed them, and put them back. I then got busy with the aiptasia with vinegar.
Then I got bold, and asked for help here on MR. Got the much needed help, in both physical labor as it is seen on my Tank Thread, and advice. Got an ro/di, socks (which I change daily), reactors to run BRS gfo & gac. I have not had any more problems with gha. I do 20% weekly water change, not counting the small water change when I rinse the gfo & gac reactors.
Please keep on top of your maintenance schedule, and you will be fine!! So, change your sock everyday, do 20% weekly water change, pull as much of the gha as you can while being extra careful not to aloud any loose gha floating in the tank. It will find a footing & grow.

 

[mbg75]

Follow Awi's 2 bowl method and pull out as much Gha as u can.

No corals, then go lights out for a week. If there is daylight in the room or a room light, The fish will be fine.

Your on the right track, nitrates are a fraction of what they used to be.

Not sure, but I think raising up magnesium helps with Gha.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[shark32]

Awibrandy, you sure are a trooper!! Hope all stays wells with your health and your tank!! A couple of months ago I took out two of the hairiest rocks and scrubbed them clean and they looked good for about 6 weeks and then it started coming back...I'll do it again this weekend, maybe that my parimeters are better shape then what they were, it won't come back as much (fingers crossed). When I pull it off, I usually fill a bowl with clean water and a cup with clean water and I use 9 inch tweezers and pull off what I can before my arm starts to ache.lol., then I dip the tweezers in the cup of water and back to tweezing again...I'm sure if I wanted it to grow, it wouldn't....stinkin' GHA:grumpy: ...
mbg75 -- thanks for the input and I had thought about raising the mag, but didn't want to mess around with adding anything again, since the last time resulted in 3 of my fish dying...
I will bump up my water changes to 20 gallons a wekk until I get rid of it...
Thanks again guys!!

 

[Jzhou]

Looks like your rocks may have trapped some phosphate. Have you thought about cooking your rocks?

 

[shark32]

Hi Jzhou,
How can you tell if they trapped phosphate? Never thought of 'cooking' them (actually I have to google that, not sure what that is LOL)...but thanks, I'll check it out...
I added a snail yesterday, and I drip acclimated him for about 1 and 1/2 hours and he hasn't moved from where I put him...so something is still wrong....

 

[Awibrandy]

Shark32, gotta wait til the nitrates come down for inverts. They don't do well with trates.
Cooking the rocks entails killing everything on them.

My rocks were phosphate loaded of over 6+ years of soaking it up from tap water in both my bbf's & my tank for years. I did not cook my rocks!! I just continue to do RO/DI water changes, and I lowered them considerably.
I am not very diligent with testing so the last time I tested was Dec. 12, 2011; the readings at that time were: Nitrates 10 & P04 0.15. I am still running gfo, and still doing 20% water changes. I also feed heavily, so I know it will take for ever for those # to go to 0 if ever.

Continue with the water changes & run a little more gfo in the reactor, and eventually you will start to see a difference. Like I said before it will not happen over night.

 

[Jzhou]

There is no accurate way of testing. But what ussually happens with live rock that have been in parameters where phosphate is very high is that they begin to absorb it. When the reefer finally chooses the right route and begins using RO and running gfo to get rid of the phosphate in their water coloumn, the phospate would leak back out into the water from the rock. Best way of cooking live rock is to put it in a large plastic trash can with a power head and running GFO in it while changing half the water twice a week. I would advise putting in a bulk head near the bottom of the trash can and installing a valve, makes water changes a lot easier.

 

[Jzhou]

you're not actually cooking anything, You Know youre done when the phosphate in the water is at zero. Key note is to maintain a heavy flow through the rocks and keeping it dark. The darkness forces the bacteria to dig deep into the rock to eat out all the junk that might be stuck. I use to do it when I bought new rock. Here is a really good thread or more info. Ussually it doesn't take 2 to 3 months like the guy stated, you know your done when phophate levels are back to their normal levels by weekly testings. Because o the lack of algae, you'll get a more legitimate reading.