Do they maybe need higher alkalinity? When my results were golden my alk ran closer to 12. I was over dosing soda ash based on a faulty test kit. I gradually brought it down to less than 9 and then my troubles started.
Can you elaborate on how you "shut the tank down" for this newbie? We have hair algae and our best corals (green fire star, zoanthids) are failing miserably -- after having done well for nearly a year. Thank you!!
Well prepare for a book. I shut the tank down by moving everything out of the aquarium into a new system where I began to grow macroalgae first before anything else. I have no fish also which is important to note because they generate the phosphate which is helping to fuel algae growth. I didn't have to shut down the tank for the reasons of algae I had to move the tank out of my brother's house and needed to go smaller to have it in my house. I had been beating the hair algae and could have kept the tank up. First, it's a balancing act, if the hair algae has excess phosphate it will hold strongly to surfaces if it has a deficit of phosphate it will come off with relative ease and you need to do this first and remove as much as possible. To do this you will need to cut back on feeding enough to be able to pull the hair algae easier. If the hair algae is a large enough presence it will bottom out your phosphate which is what is killing your zoas, I went through the same thing with mine. Second it's a competition between every organism in your aquarium that uses phosphate, you have only a certain total amount of phosphate available. If you continue doing everything the same you will have freed up phosphate and the hair algae will only come back into the space you have left unless you introduce something to compete, I have used caulerpa prolifera to great success battling hair algae because it seems to compete directly and grow quickly. The sad part is that starving the tank will starve your animals as well as the hair algae which is why competition is better than starvation for the long term. I have so much more to say but it is hard to organize quickly. I have been studying algae growth and the effects of phosphate on algae for over a year now ever since my tank troubles. Feel free to ask any more specific questions, or let me know if I wasn't very clear, I try not to ramble but it's hard.
I just saw this. You don't need to throw it out hair algae is not a disease it can pop up in any tank, it is a balancing agent that keeps your water clean when phosphate is too high. Hair algae probably cleans more people's tanks than anyone could guess.
Is your magnesium under 1500ppm?
Happy hump day!
There are those of us (not me) who have the "blue thumb" and can grow every type of coral they touch successfully and long term into massive colonies that need multiple fraggings every year! But then there are those reefers, like me, who are very successful with certain types of corals but then are not able to have success with another. Let's talk about it today!
1. What one coral thrives the best in your reef aquarium?
2. What corals seem to struggle to survive or even die in your reef aquarium?
3. What is your oldest coral and how long have you had it?
PC Superman via @DivingTheWorld
