Cleaning Hair Algae

[KingOfJericho]

This may be really basic but a question none-the-less. I recently (3 weeks ago) moved and brought my 54 corner reef with me. I had done this once before by draining about 2/3 of the water into a Brute and placing all of the rock flat on the bottom to remain fully submerged. I then did the reverse on the other end and put the same water back into the tank. I didn't lose a single fish, clam, snail, crab, shrimp, or coral... not one thing. I did this again 3 weeks ago and lost most of my fish, 2 large snails, and my clam. The only thing I did differently this time is that I topped it off (<5 Gal) with mixed tap-water at my new place. I believe the problem is the tap water because the second I poured it in the fish started breathing heavy and most died (all but 2 clowns). I hooked up my R/O and made a full batch of water and did a 50% water change and everything literally started blooming like spring in a time lapse video. Within 2 days all of my zoas were back out and everything seems back to normal. I even purchased a few new fish and all seem to be happier than ever and are eating like pigs. I guess the question is what the hell could have happened?

The second part of my question is this: Many of my rocks have some residual hair algae from when I only had access to tap water. It looks kind of ugly. What I did with one of my rocks (I have about 65lbs of rock but only 5 rocks) is take it into a bucket of the dirty water during a water change and scrubbed it with a scrub brush enough to get the algae off but leave the coraline algae that covers almost 90% of them. It looks fantastic and I have zero coraline die-off on that rock. My question is whether I can do this to the rest of my rocks without making my levels go bonkers. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Deanos]

what the hell could have happened?

Temperature, salinity and/or pH of the mixed tap water was far different from the tank water.

 

[Bob 1000]

Don't know...Yes you can...

 

[marrone]

What could have happen is when you moved the LR some things on it died, which may have released toxic things into the water, like sponges. This could have killed off the fish and some of the inverts. When you did a water change, 50%, it would probably have removed most of the toxic stuff.

A 5gal change shouldn't have had killed the fish, as that wouldn't have adjusted the levels that much and the fish would have been able to handle it without any problems.

Also you could have gone through a spike which would have increased the ammonia in the tank which may have killed the fish. You may have also had a decrease in oxygen in the tank and with the increase in ammonia it may have lead to the fish dying.

As for scrubbing the HA off the LR, most people do it during water changes and it has no effect on the tank, outside of getting rid of the HA.

 

[KingOfJericho]

What could have happen is when you moved the LR some things on it died, which may have released toxic things into the water, like sponges. This could have killed off the fish and some of the inverts. When you did a water change, 50%, it would probably have removed most of the toxic stuff.

A 5gal change shouldn't have had killed the fish, as that wouldn't have adjusted the levels that much and the fish would have been able to handle it without any problems.

Also you could have gone through a spike which would have increased the ammonia in the tank which may have killed the fish. You may have also had a decrease in oxygen in the tank and with the increase in ammonia it may have lead to the fish dying.

As for scrubbing the HA off the LR, most people do it during water changes and it has no effect on the tank, outside of getting rid of the HA.

Very informative. For about 2 weeks prior to the move I had a breakout of cyano (red slime, likely thanks to the limited access to R/O water and having to use tap) which I think all died on the way over to the new place and ended up floating around and some junk floated up from the live sand as well that was probably toxic. That's also great news about scrubbing the HA, I can't wait to get home and do the rest of the rock.

 

[jhale]

hey there, I think we met at greenwich aquaria once, I'm going by your tank description.

you can remove the hair algae by scrubbing, and keep on top of the water changes with RO/DI water eventually you will win the fight against it. you have to limit the food for the algae in the system which is one of the reasons we use the RO water.