Fat Al's 93 Gallon Reef Cube

The past week and a half has been horrible for my tank. I lost the majority of my sps & LPS corals. I could not figure out what was wrong. I've never had anything like this happen. I've had sps rtn, but never anything like this with my LPS. I tested my water, and everything was normal. My salinity, temp, and everything is stable. I've been stumped and was about to just let this tank go into a softie tank, bc they all seemed normal.


Well, I think I've just figured out what happened. I had messed up on my calculations on the Algae Fix, and had been dosing 10x what I was supposed to be. I am pretty sure this was the cause, bc I lost all my LPS in two tanks, both which was getting this treatment.


It sucks, because I've lost alot of nice corals. But I honestly feel kind of relieved because it was more of a simple error. I had read the back of the bottle several times on different occasions, but for some reason I was reading it wrong the whole time. I reread it tonight, and a light bulb went off.

 

That sucks. Sorry most of the time if lose something it's because I messed up.

 

Active ingredients: poly[oxyethylene(dimethylimino)ethylene(dimethylimino)ethylene dichloride]

I have no idea what that means. Lol. I remember reading that it bonds with something in the tank (sugars maybe?) and keeps the green hair algae from being able to take it in to eat.

It was working though. I done a 30 gallon water change and have adjusted my dose. I think I've read it only stays active in the tank like 24 hours. I'm not adding anymore LPS or SPS until I get the green hair algae under control though.

 

I did. I checked the nitrate with my api kit, and it was like 10ppm right before my weekly water change. I just got in a red Sea master kit for phosphate and nitrate. It was different than the other red Sea tests, and I didn't have time to sit down and mess with it. So I haven't checked my phosphates yet.

 

I'm sure the phosphate is running high. I've stopped feeding flake and pellet food, and my rodi water is running 0ppm when I test it with a TDS. I'm hoping I'll have some time over the Christmas holiday to read the phosphate test instructions and test it. It looked complicated to me when I opened the test kit.

The green hair algae is so ugly though. It makes me not want to look at the tank or take photos. I hate that.

 

Thanks everybody.

I've decided that I'm still going to go with a softie tank with some lps on the sandbed in this tank. It seems like a large part of this hobby is focused around the SPS aspect, and has forgotten how beautiful a softie tank can be. I do have some SPS that seemed to have survived, and I will continue to let them grow.

But with a softie tank, there are a lot of options. And I think leathers that are allowed to grow large, are some of the most beautiful corals:




Look at this large leather:




I'm also on the hunt for a weeping willow leather. I think this would be the king of the tank:



I was reading on another forum, and one user was talking about how everything in his tank died from overdosing AlgaeFix, except for anything with the color yellow in it. I don't know if this is a coincidence, but it seems like the only LPS I have that might make it is my yellow hammer. So there might be something to that theory.

 

I did just find this, but I'm not sure if it is what I am looking for. Unique Corals gets one every now and then, but not often.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3352+3354+1280&pcatid=1280

 

I went ahead and ordered a liveaquaria order tonight. The first two is divers den, but the lemon tree coral is not. I also ordered an ORA black clown to go with my other black clown. They are going to go in the carpet anemone tank. I'm not sure if the ORA long polyp coral is what I'm looking for, but maybe it'll be neat.

 

Yeah, it's a yellow fin flasher wrasse. I always liked the fish in David's tank, so I'm adding this one in honor of that. This will be fish #8 in this tank, which is the most I've ever kept in a tank.

 

Thanks Kim! I actually still have the original frag. It has grown though! If I can get some of these cooler softies to grow, I'll make sure you get some frags of them.

This is an old garf photo of a lemon tree coral, so if it looks anything close to this, I'll be happy.

 

The Lemon Coral was the only thing that wasn't Diver's Den, so I'm not expecting it to look like their stock photo, but if it does I'll be really happy. There isn't a whole lot of info or photos of them online. But the Live Aquaria ones are supposed to be photosynthetic. If I get any frags, I got you and Kim though.

 

I got everything in my tank this morning before work. My starry blenny was chasing the wrasse a little, but maybe that'll work out. The lemon coral looks super small. It was closed up, but it was only the size of an eraser on a pencil. I dunno about that one. The long polyp toadstool looked to be a normal frag size. The black clown seemed to pair up with my other clown, so maybe they will become a mated pair. I'll post photos when I get a chance, but my tank lights will be off when I get home tonight.