help - my tanks dieing/going green!!

Hi Guys,

I've had my tank up and running for around 8 months - and all has been well, i decided to completely rearrange my rockwork around a month or so back - and ever since i've been having trouble with
>green algae
>losing softy corals (pulsing xenia's, shrooms etc)
>nitrates are through the roof @.25
>yellowy water
>lost blueberry gorgonia

All fish stil, anenomes and hardy corals nice and healthy
readings:
ammonia 0
nitrate.25
nitrite - no longer have the kit
phosphate - 1 - (accounts for the algae - how do i reduce this)


I don't have any kind of filtration (barring skimmer) and haven't had since the 1st month of having the tank, I have always relied on water movement around my lr for this.

Is it possible redoing all the rock, moving the sand etc has started a new cycle, no new fish addded


tank:
40 gal
approx 10-11" of fish (baby long horn cow, flame angel, blue cheek goby, sailfin tang (baby), cleaner wrasse, percula clown - green bubble tip anenome, duncans, table coral, random sponges, & shrooms)
300 watt mh (8hours a day)
108 watt actinic 12 hours a day
36 blue led - 4 hours morning, 4 hours night
2* moonlight 2 hours morning 2 hours eveing
skimmer fed by 1200lph pump

4000lph of flow around the tank

Any help much appreciated

 

Hey Greeny
No filter ? Do you have a sump ?
I dont think a cycle happened from moving things around, but I would expect a potential increase in AM, N2, N3, ect.
1 for P4 is pretty high. What is your source water ? RO or tap water ?
I had a P4 problem until I went to RO water.
You can try a poly reactor with P4 remover or a product that I used with some luchk
Aquariums: Blue Life Phosphate Control

You could also cut back on the lights by a couple hours to help reduce algae.
Algea and P4 wont kill anything so I suspect something else is going on.

Good luck

 

hi, no no sump - just water movement in my 4 footer - all was well up until now,

Yeah ro water used - i've ordered some new cartridges as may be the cartridges are to old.

i'll cut back on mh and actrininc see if that helps - already cut back 2 - another 2 shouldnt do any harm.

thanks for the post

 

Moving the sand can cause a cycle for sure. Usually the rock is fine, but whenever working in the tank like that, you have to do your darndest to leave the sandbed undisturbed!
Now, am I reading something wrong, or is the nitrAtes really just .25? Or did you mean 25 (not a fraction)? Either way, that's really not that high at all, and probably wouldn't be causing the death of anything, specially not mushrooms. The blueberry gorgonians are very hard to care for, require constant feeding, and even in the hands of experts rarely make it past one year, so you may find your answer to that one right there.
As for the yellow water, are you running any carbon?

 

hi pack - no not running anything - no filters or reactors - the waters only looking yellowish in the tank - checked in testtubes and its crystal clear, as it is when the mh's go off, probably just my percepption due to all the algae - so not sure theres an issue there, how often do you need to replace actinic as don't think they're outputting as much blue light. yeah 25, not .25 apologies for any confusion. are reactors easy to set up and use as may get one to reduce phosphates

 

I would run carbon, it prevents water from becoming yellow, an excess of DOC. That could also be causing a bacterial bloom. Carbon is one of those things that I feel is fundamental in reef aquariums.

 

thanks gman - is it a case of put it in a reactor and run through that - or something else?

 

A reactor is best, but there are other ways, like in a HOB filter. And yes, reactors are very easy to set up and use. If you go that route, do two of them, one for phosphate media and one for carbon. The Little Fishes 150's work well and aren't too expensive. You can get one pump, and T-off into both of them. It can be a real small pump too, each reactor only needs about 50 GPH through it.

 

cool thats the route i'll take many thanks