Any suggestions?? Water tests great, tank looks like hell.. (1 Viewer)

[Guest]

I had my water tested and here was results
PH 8.1
Nitrate = 0
Nitrite = 0
Amonia = 0
Phosphates = 0
Alk = 175

Yet I have green aglae going wild in my tank and has been for quite some time. I can't get it under control and now on top of that, my bubble anenome is looking like hell after doing great the past 2 years.
Any suggestions??

 

[Guest]

any sort of cleanup crew?

 

[Guest]

Not much, few astrea's, a lawnmower blenny, britstle star... Had 4 or 5 emerald crabs that have dissappeared over time.

I'm in the process of getting a much much larger clean up crew.

 

[Guest]

Have your silicates tested also. Our tank was testing awesome but we had high silicates that were causing some probelms.

 

[Guest]

Hmm, never thought of that. Can they test for that @ Global or one of those LFS down that way.

 

[Guest]

Tell us more about the tank: livestock, amount of feeding, water changes, lighting, filtration, etc.

 

[Guest]

Global tested ours, the kevin got us a more acurate reading on it. The membrane in our RODI wasn't filtering them out so we just went with a better membrane.

 

[Guest]

I feed the tank about once every 3 or 4 days, (formula 2 flake) and I feed my antennata lionfish once a week or so.
Livestock is:
pair of GS Maroon clowns
Regal Tang, Yellow Tang, Blonde Naso Tang
Antennata Lionfish
Purple Dottyback
Lawnmower Blenny
Bangai Cardinal
Multipe LPS (Hammer, Frogspawn, 2 torches)
2 toadstools, 1 finger leather
pulsing xenia
GSP's
Multiple Mushrooms
2 bubble tip anenomes
1 scolymia
multiple zoanthids

Lighting is 2x250 MH (10k XM's 3-4 months old)
2 x 110 VHO actinics due to be replaced
Water changes are far and few between. Just did first one in over a year last week. Was only 10 gallons.
Over 150lbs LR and a wet/dry filter. Also have a refugium with lot of green macro (don't know exact kind).

 

[Wildfire]

I also would look at you SiO2 levels (Silicates). Between those and phosphates, you would have 60% of the common algae problems.....

 

[Guest]

What kind of test did you use? I seriously doubt nitrates and phosphates were zero.

 

[Guest]

Took water sample to Aquarium World and had them test it.

 

[Guest]

What kind of test did you use? I seriously doubt nitrates and phosphates were zero.

We used Salifert to test ours, our numbers were all great.. it was just the silicates (sp)

 

[Guest]

Got it tested again today.
Nitrates = 0
Phosphates = 0

but test showed small amounts of silicates.

 

[ShaneV]

The problem with testing for Phosphates is that you can get a 0 phosphate reading if Algae is consuming it for growth. > 0 means you have phosphates that arent being used.
(Did that make sense?)

 

[Guest]

U mean 0 on the phosphate test basically says I may have phosphates in my system, they are just being used too fast by the green algae so I won't be able to get a reading on a test.

 

[ShaneV]

Thats what I was trying to say

 

[Guest]

Yes, but at the same time you are not over feeding so that would suggest that you have a mix of stuff coming in with the water you are putting into the tank, what you need to do is a TDS (or is it TBS) check of you incoming water, and your water coming out of your RO membrane then the water coming out of your DI. So that would give you an idea if you are getting it from the water you are topping off with.

 

[aqua-nut]

can I buy a test for silicates? I think I may have the same problem.

 

[Guest]

This is just getting better, I dropped a couple peppermints in today just for kicks n giggles, one of them is on his back in the bottom of the tank, appears to be on the verge of death....
Now I'm just even more confused, what could possibly be causing shrimp to die that fast??

 

[ShaneV]

Could be copper have you ever dosed it? Got LR from someone recently? They do have copper test kits.