Major problem looking for help.... - Page 3

gandolf · 10-19-2006, 08:33 PM

say I talk to a friend about your tank. Has been in it for 15 yrs. Now when your son did the R/O water backwards. He but bad thinks in the water like lead, copper and other metals. He said to take out all the coral and keep lights at a min do a 90% water change . But he said even this may not work. it may be to far gone. sorry

paweis · 10-19-2006, 08:58 PM

Thank you for all the help! I really appreciate all the thought put in to my problem. I will definately print the article above and my son and I will pick over it as well. We are keeping our fingers crossed that some of the changes he is making today will help a bit.

I know it is possible that he may have to try a "black out" but would hate to see him lose what he does have left, which, surprisingly, is a fair amount of corals! I have no idea how they have made it through this so far as their life has been horrible with all the brown stuff, water changes, chemicals added to kill brown stuff, so on so on......

Tomorrow I will probably go and buy a new test kit with additional tests for him to use.

More ideas are always always welcome!!

Pam

paweis · 10-19-2006, 10:04 PM

So if you do a 90% water change as suggested and it does't get better and is too far gone, what then? What can be used in the tank/how do you start it over? Can you reuse your live rock?

Loman · 10-19-2006, 10:44 PM

paweis,
IN thinking about this situation I am not sure there is any great answers. It sounds like you have been fighting this for a long while. Are you still using the RO unit? If so I would probably suspend that for a while just in case it was causing the problem. If I had this situation I think I would set up one of the other tanks you mentioned somewhere relatively warm and livable (probably not the garage) and slowly move a few items at a time from this tank to that tank after cleaning them as effectively as possible (in many cases I realize that is not much cleaning). You will probably need to cycle the new tank first. I would start with the items I feared cleaning the most such as some of the Live rock and corals. If you get an outbreak in the new tank then you at least would no what material caused it. I have never encountered a tank in this condition and had to deal with these type problems so I am guessing a bit and offering my opinion about what I would likely do. I am not saying it is the best or even the right thing to do but I simply toss it out as an idea. Sorry not to be of more help.

paweis · 10-20-2006, 12:32 PM

We certainly have the equipment to set up another tank; I just don't want another one set up really at this time if he can't fit it in his room and I think the 55 is all he can get in there at this point. Actually, we do have a bonus room he could use but I'll leave that up to him if he wants to do it. We shall see. It is a lot of work.

We are wondering if it would help to add some live sand to his existing tank. We read in one of the articles about using some from another tank to help fight the cyanobacteria. Any ideas on that?

Pam

Lily · 10-21-2006, 03:55 AM

Hi,
I have a 30 gal salt water tank and have had it up & running for two years. I had this same problem with the green slime. I found that gradual water changes every third day of about 25% plus vacum the sand & rock surface daily with blackouts only during the daylight hours worked to rid my tank of this problem. I did

Lily · 10-21-2006, 03:59 AM

Hi,
I have a 30 gal salt water tank and have had it up & running for two years. I had this same problem with the green slime. I found that gradual water changes every third day of about 25% plus vacum the sand & rock surface daily with blackouts only during the daylight hours worked to rid my tank of this problem. I did not add any additional medication to my tank, I increased the circulation in the tank and kept the tank on the cool side. It took about 3 weeks to completely kill this stuff off but it has not come back. Good luck

paweis · 10-21-2006, 10:56 AM

Will the coral live without the light for three weeks like that?

Pam

Loman · 10-21-2006, 12:20 PM

Pam,
I had thought about suggesting a blackout but was worried about the coral surviving it. I am not sure. You might want to consider bits of pieces of all of this. If you could find a reasonable temporary place to remove the coral to then you could do a complete blackout and see if the algae died off. You can be even more proactive about water changes etc. and try to alter the environment enough that it gets cleaned up. Adding LS is probably good in most cases but I do not think it will solve this problem. I think it is just something else to get algae stuck to. I know you said your son is the one that really takes care of the tank but I also think it is important to do rapid and consistent water changes. If you wait several days between them etc. it just gives the algae a chance to grow back and increase so you never get it out of the tank.

paweis · 10-22-2006, 01:34 AM

Oh, so you mean he shouldn't be waiting a few days between each water change? Now, he has been doing that. He could do them a little more often than he has. It is hard to make the water that quick but I could go and buy some in between for him too....
So, are you thinking he should do water changes every day?
Thanks,
Pam