I just need to vent and ask a question

[StartingATank]

So I just came back from vacation, and my tank is a mess. Here are some pics:












So algae has run crazy, I have uvula smothering my exosphere zoa, bubble algae pockets, and gha everywhere. Also, a sponge of some sort has made its home in my branching gsp, but at least the gsp isn’t bothered by it. Do I need to get a sea hare? I will also be needing to get an emerald crab or pithos crab because my emerald died a month ago due to a phosphate spike. Tomorrow is cleaning day. :(. What also happened was the person watching my tank was making rodi water and forgot to turn it off, and so it overflowed the bucket and the baseboards are having to get replaced and maybe also the wall. I also have bristle worms in the tank now, I think. Well, for a plus, at least my stomatella snails have grown. And on top of all this, my fish got ich last week and I still have been unable to catch the royal gramma and the damsel. I am sorry for this long post but I just had to get this out

 

[rayadog]

Well fwiw, you prolly always had bristleworms lol. And not gonna lie, that wall of algae looks kinda sick and natural. Sorry about the home damage too :/ that’s cherry on top.

 

[kevgib67]

Sorry to hear, I’m sure your heart dropped when you got home and looked at your tank. If you want a quick fix to rid your tank of the unsightly algae I couldn’t recommend a sea hare more. Nothing I’ve had did a more thorough job and quickly. My oldest son’s 55g was a mess and he put one in and in 2 weeks the algae was completely gone. I had patches in my 32g and I put it in mine and by the end of the week there wasn’t a spec. Of course while it clears your tank you will need to be addressing the underlying cause.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Sheesh, I'm so sorry to all that is happening to you. I have come back home from vacation to see the disasters with my tank. First order of business would be to do some water changes, then I would beef up your CUC.

If it is feasible, I would pre-make your RODI water before going out of town. I always made a spare ATO bucket, so that the people watching my tank wouldn't have to mess with the RODI system.

 

[Kiwi reefer]

Bristle worms are not the worst, they will eat all the stuff your fish dont eat, if you want to remove them get one of the 3D traps they look kool.

Sucks about the RODI spill, We have all been there haha. As Above ^^^ pre made RODI in a bucket is always a win takes the pressure of your tank sitter as well.

I'm sure after a quick clean your tank will bounch back quick

 

[StartingATank]

Yeah it is probably true that I already had bristleworms. I am going to test my numbers today, but whenever I left nitrates were at 20 and phosphates were at .5, I had just done a massive water change before we left because the phosphates were at 2.1. Going forward I will premake the Rodi water and put it in a bucket. I will see if my lfs has a sea hare. I don’t think I remember them having one, but they also do have a huge wall of inverts, so I might have overlooked it.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Aside from the RO water damage, I am not clear on what happened here. Was the babysitter dumping food in my the cupful or something?

 

[StartingATank]

Ok so the numbers are at:
Phosphates - .87
Nitrates - 15.6
PH - 8

And to add onto this, my quarentine tank nitrates are over 75 and the PH is 6.4, so I'm going to do a 66% water change in that tank today. At least all the fish are eating well.

 

[StartingATank]

Aside from the RO water damage, I am not clear on what happened here. Was the babysitter dumping food in my the cupful or something?

So basically the person watching my tank was making RODI water to fill up my top off canister, but they forgot to turn it off and it was running for like 3-5 hours, so the water basically flooded the bathroom. I also told them to contact me if anything happened to the tank visually, and they didn't, and one of my acans got knocked off by the urchin and GHA was everywhere.

 

[gkprevite]

It seems you were less than prepared to leave. The ro should have been made prior to your trip, someone who is stopping by to check on the tank shouldn’t have to worry about that. How long were you gone? There had to be issues before you left. If you have an ato and an automatic feeder short vacations should be this much of an issue. How new is the tank?

 

[DexterKarin]

This is what I would do. First fire that tank sitter. That sucks. I think a sea hare would not be ideal. Some have great success with them, many just have a dead sea hare after a week. I think you need to work to stabilize that tank. The phosphates are high and I think you need to work to get them below 0.4 (IMHO) and stable. Most would say 0.4 is high but whatever. Twice weekly manual removal of the hair algae. And contact Reef Cleaners and discuss the best clean up crew. After working with them, I am of the opinion that people do not have enough CUC. In a 30 gallon, I now have over 20 hermits. They do good work at that number. Also test your RODI to make sure that TDS are 0. Just my opinion.

 

[StartingATank]

It seems you were less than prepared to leave. The ro should have been made prior to your trip, someone who is stopping by to check on the tank shouldn’t have to worry about that. How long were you gone? There had to be issues before you left. If you have an ato and an automatic feeder short vacations should be this much of an issue. How new is the tank?

Tank is little over a year old, I was gone for 5 days. I know I should have made the Rodi water before but the person said that they would do it for me. I do not have an auto feeder, so that is the main reason I got the person to watch the tank. There was a small amount of gha before I left but I just added some snails so I didn’t think it would explode like this

 

[StartingATank]

This is what I would do. First fire that tank sitter. That sucks. I think a sea hare would not be ideal. Some have great success with them, many just have a dead sea hare after a week. I think you need to work to stabilize that tank. The phosphates are high and I think you need to work to get them below 0.4 (IMHO) and stable. Most would say 0.4 is high but whatever. Twice weekly manual removal of the hair algae. And contact Reef Cleaners and discuss the best clean up crew. After working with them, I am of the opinion that people do not have enough CUC. In a 30 gallon, I now have over 20 hermits. They do good work at that number. Also test your RODI to make sure that TDS are 0. Just my opinion.

TDS is 0, and I have been trying to reduce the phosphates for about 3 months, I think. I personally don’t really like hermits, as they have been eating my stomatella snails.

 

[BeanAnimal]

So basically the person watching my tank was making RODI water to fill up my top off canister, but they forgot to turn it off and it was running for like 3-5 hours, so the water basically flooded the bathroom. I also told them to contact me if anything happened to the tank visually, and they didn't, and one of my acans got knocked off by the urchin and GHA was everywhere.

That does not answer my question, unless I am missing something.

I understand the water damage. I am not understanding what triggered the massive algae takeover.

 

[BeanAnimal]

This is what I would do. First fire that tank sitter. That sucks.

Fire them for the same mistake that most of us have made numerous times?

 

[StartingATank]

So basically the person watching my tank was making RODI water to fill up my top off canister, but they forgot to turn it off and it was running for like 3-5 hours, so the water basically flooded the bathroom. I also told them to contact me if anything happened to the tank visually, and they didn't, and one of my acans got knocked off by the urchin and GHA was everywhere.

That does not answer my question, unless I am missing something.

I understand the water damage. I am not understanding what triggered the massive algae takeover.

I also don’t really know what started it either, the only thing I can think of is that the little bit of algae was feeding on the excess food, because I currently only have 2 fish in that tank and they don’t really eat a lot, and I told them to put in a quarter of a cube every day into that tank, but I had the cubes already cut up into halves and the might have thought that the cubes were already into quarters and fed extra? I am unsure of what caused the spike.

 

[gkprevite]

I would just look to automate as much as possible for next time with big ato res and feeder. once you get it all cleaned up everything will be fine and look nice again. I’m sure it was a bit of a shock to come home to.

 

[StartingATank]

I would just look to automate as much as possible for next time with big ato res and feeder. once you get it all cleaned up everything will be fine and look nice again. I’m sure it was a bit of a shock to come home to.

Yeah I was unprepared because I asked the person if everything looked normal and the fish are eating, and they said everything looks great and the fish are eating fine. At least the fish were fine at least.

 

[rayadog]

The baseboard damage is rough not gonna lie; because then I start to question where else did the water go. But on the plus side that flat wall of algae should be easy to clean and no fish lost.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Fire them for the same mistake that most of us have made numerous times?

I've done it twice myself. I forgot to turn off the sink while it was filling with water, and when I came back to my bathroom, there was water everywhere. At least I made my ATO water