Help! all corals close except zoanthid and green hair algae battle

[reefer369]

events for the last 2 wks
cleaner shrimp died
all corals suddenly closed
hair algae bloomed (started 3 wks ago)
all copepods disappeared (used to have a lot and visible on glass)
10% water changed (beginning last wk)
a couple of snails died (due to flipped upside down but I didnt know)

now
50% water changed (today)
added flux rx for algae fight
goni, alveo, duncan closed
blasto, mushroom half open
only zoa is fully open

15G nano tank, 3 months old and currently have no fish, skimmer, refugium

parameter (all hanna test)
salinity 33-35ppt
temp 78-79
ph 7.8-8.1
alk ~8.5
cal ~490 to 500 ish
mag 1k5ish
ammonia 0.03 ppm (the only test today 11/19)
nitrite + nitrate 0
phos 0.03 (always very low)

dosing
red sea ab+
all for reef
red sea alk foundation B (sync last wk)
sometimes reef roid

3 questions
1. what led to all my corals closed 2 wks ago and why only zoa is fully open now ?
2. why copepods population gone and hair algae bloomed (no3 po4 always low)?
3. is it green hair algae in the pic? how to fight it?

 

[ryanjohn1]

Nutrients are really really low. Add fish and feed them well. No skimming till nitrate is like 10-20

 

[ryanjohn1]

And yeah that gha your tanks still really young. Need fish and cuc

 

[Pistondog]

The flux rx is fluconazole and should take care of the gha, takes 3 weeks.
No water change til then.

 

[reefer369]

Nutrients are really really low. Add fish and feed them well. No skimming till nitrate is like 10-20

I have fish but out for ich treatment. skimmer was off since them out. so you think corals closed because of low nutrient?

 

[ryanjohn1]

It’s possible your starving them

 

[bratfink]

My 13.5G went through the ugly phase too. Everyone seems to do this differently, but I try to dose as little as possible. Where algae gets out of hand periodically I’d clean the rocks with a toothbrush (as much as I could) to get the worst off into the filters, then clean all the filters.
GHA can be a bit of a pain, trocus will eat it but not as fast as it grows. All the fish that really clean up this stuff are too big for a nano.
My vote would be to add 5 or so trocus (who incidentally can self right when they fall off).
But scrub the rock periodically until the ugly phase subsides.
I tend to do 20-30% water changes every 2-3 weeks, hence not dosing too much as the base salt covers most of it.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I would guess you had gone too fast in general. Only 3 month old tank, and had ich already and lots of corals dead. Lots of bottled stuff going into the tank....

Algae is very natural in a 3 month old tank, its because you don't have enough biodiversity yet, its better for you to learn how to deal with it correctly.

Are you doing weekly water changes, I don't get that impression from your post.

Is there a skimmer on the tank, is the water oxygenated enough? A tank pic will help.

I would just suggest to slow down, stop adding bottled stuff to your tank, learn how to deal with things naturally.

 

[reefer369]

It’s possible your starving them

starving on what? I thought light, ab+, alk ca mag are there food

 

[reefer369]

I would guess you had gone too fast in general. Only 3 month old tank, and had ich already and lots of corals dead. Lots of bottled stuff going into the tank....

Algae is very natural in a 3 month old tank, its because you don't have enough biodiversity yet, its better for you to learn how to deal with it correctly.

Are you doing weekly water changes, I don't get that impression from your post.

Is there a skimmer on the tank, is the water oxygenated enough? A tank pic will help.

I would just suggest to slow down, stop adding bottled stuff to your tank, learn how to deal with things naturally.

I do 2 wks 10% water change
skimmer and refugium always on when there was fish in take. turned off skimmer 1 wk after fish out but refugium still run. now both off.
stop which bottle or all? should I stop all bottles and do 10% WC wkly (I added flux rx to battle algae so probably do this plan 3 wks after)?

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

The flux rx is fluconazole and should take care of the gha, takes 3 weeks.
No water change til then.

This does work, I recently treated for Bryopsis and left it in for 3 weeks and around day 12 the GHA started to literally, disappear. My nutrients never came close to double zero, yet I still got a mild case of LCA (Dino’s) due to I guess the shock to my system caused by the treatment. I’m on the good side of the fight, but if I don’t do all the required Dino tasks, they start to win the war. And, now, the GHA is back in the same usual spots, very small and dark, but it’s showing it’s muscles. Since treating with Flucanazole my nutrients have been super stable at 6-7 NO3 and .03 PO4. One one hand, I wanted to warn about the treatment can cause other things to come to the front of the line. But typically if you don’t address the root problem, it will only come back. For me, I’m just really not sure if the GHA will over leave these spots in my tank with out targeted manual intervention. I’m going to pull those rocks, heavily soak the spots in peroxide and scrub with a pick ax, multiple times. I may even glue over some of these spots, or use F aiptasia… F-GHA, don’t steal my future award winning idea now Happy Thanksgiving and buy some **** really cheap day!

 

[reefer369]

This does work, I recently treated for Bryopsis and left it in for 3 weeks and around day 12 the GHA started to literally, disappear. My nutrients never came close to double zero, yet I still got a mild case of LCA (Dino’s) due to I guess the shock to my system caused by the treatment. I’m on the good side of the fight, but if I don’t do all the required Dino tasks, they start to win the war. And, now, the GHA is back in the same usual spots, very small and dark, but it’s showing it’s muscles. Since treating with Flucanazole my nutrients have been super stable at 6-7 NO3 and .03 PO4. One one hand, I wanted to warn about the treatment can cause other things to come to the front of the line. But typically if you don’t address the root problem, it will only come back. For me, I’m just really not sure if the GHA will over leave these spots in my tank with out targeted manual intervention. I’m going to pull those rocks, heavily soak the spots in peroxide and scrub with a pick ax, multiple times. I may even glue over some of these spots, or use F aiptasia… F-GHA, don’t steal my future award winning idea now Happy Thanksgiving and buy some **** really cheap day!

so it worked with only 1 treatment and you didnt have to repeat the treatment? what if ut doesnt work in 14 days do I wait longer til 3 wks or repeat the treament?

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

so it worked with only 1 treatment and you didnt have to repeat the treatment? what if ut doesnt work in 14 days do I wait longer til 3 wks or repeat the treament?

If you are going to do it, just hold on for as long as you can. For me at about day 20, my coral started to get grumpy. My space invader colony (melon sized) really got ***** and could see its skeletal form clearly. I had one toad stool that stood upright for ever, and it decided to point due south, and still is to this day, it’s not dead, but, it’s like that one friend you have that did one drop of acid too much… just never the same since. But, my other 50-60 coral didn’t even notice. I also had my Bryopsis come back, but it came back in the same spot it started from, deep inside a huge birds nest that has become a problem for algae. Etc. pl I think the Bryopsis spread last time from me trying to get it out of the birds nest manually. So this time, when I saw the first fern looking leaf in the birds nest, I pulled the birds nest and put it in a hospital tank. Treating with a Uber heavy dose of flucanazone and the lights are out. I just don’t know if I can leave the lights out for 3-4 weeks. I think. Ism going to bust up the birds nest and frag it up, thus eliminating the algae factory.

I left my skimmer cup off but skimmer on for aeration, UV off, carbon out and no UV the entire time. I did turn the ozone off too. I pulled my Refugium out, put it in a bucket with existing tank water (no light but did keep flow going). I did this the entire treatment window. I made it just shy of 3 weeks. I didn’t want to chance my space invader.