I think I give up.

[Devisissy]

I know, I know. Lot's of threads just like this.

I have been in the hobby now, 15 years. I have never been really successful. For the past 7 years I have had the same tank crash multiple times. Nothing stays alive except the fish. Nothing. They become giant algae pits, I get rid of the algae, then the corals die, rinse and repeat. I have had all the same fish for the last 7 years except for one blenny that died of old age.

But corals. I spend all this money, then they all die. There is no reason either. I send my water for ICP, it comes back great (30 times over the past 15 years)! I home test EVERY week. Nothing out of the ordinary. PH, ALK, CA, MAG all fall within normal. I do a weekly water change with water the same level as the tank. I have a great RO/DI system. The light is a reef breeders. Par is EXACTLY what you would want for a mixed tank. Softies, skin falls off they die, Sticks, they RTN and die. Xenia, shrivels dies, mushrooms, shrivel die. what the heck?

The fish just hang out and live FOREVER. So over these last 15 years I have taken the tank completely down and restarted. New sand rocks and corals. Always with the same results. Algae, coral death, fix algae, more coral death. Each time I reset up the tank I get a new algae I've never had before.

I'm so done. I can't figure out why I am always fighting algae and coral death. I have a JBJ 45 rimless. I also have a 90 gallon custom made tank with trigger sump and an aluminum stand but haven't set it up because I can't figure out where I am going wrong. Why set up another death trap? So I got to thinking maybe I am just really bad at this and I should give up. I was looking at my app, and my tank has been painfully consistent over the last 6 years since I have had the app. The only real changes has been lighting. The last three years being with the reef breeders.

Why do I fail?! I have nothing to lose at this point if anyone wants to throw in their 2 cents. I will consider it. After painful painful husbandry I was able to defeat my hair algae...but just like the other 5 times the corals are dying now. They were when the hair algae was around but they just continue to die after the algae is dead.

Any advice?

 

[helmsreef]

To me it sounds like a stability problem. Whatever you may be doing could be swinging parameters left and right in between those icp tests. If really are done that’s understandable but I feel like we could all rally for you and try to help you figure out your problem. Could go through a day and let us know what you do such as feeding? How is your filtration? Are you using carbon or gfo? What’s your last icp look like?

 

[gbroadbridge]

I know, I know. Lot's of threads just like this.

I have been in the hobby now, 15 years. I have never been really successful. For the past 7 years I have had the same tank crash multiple times. Nothing stays alive except the fish. Nothing. They become giant algae pits, I get rid of the algae, then the corals die, rinse and repeat. I have had all the same fish for the last 7 years except for one blenny that died of old age.

But corals. I spend all this money, then they all die. There is no reason either. I send my water for ICP, it comes back great (30 times over the past 15 years)! I home test EVERY week. Nothing out of the ordinary. PH, ALK, CA, MAG all fall within normal. I do a weekly water change with water the same level as the tank. I have a great RO/DI system. The light is a reef breeders. Par is EXACTLY what you would want for a mixed tank. Softies, skin falls off they die, Sticks, they RTN and die. Xenia, shrivels dies, mushrooms, shrivel die. what the heck?

The fish just hang out and live FOREVER. So over these last 15 years I have taken the tank completely down and restarted. New sand rocks and corals. Always with the same results. Algae, coral death, fix algae, more coral death. Each time I reset up the tank I get a new algae I've never had before.

I'm so done. I can't figure out why I am always fighting algae and coral death. I have a JBJ 45 rimless. I also have a 90 gallon custom made tank with trigger sump and an aluminum stand but haven't set it up because I can't figure out where I am going wrong. Why set up another death trap? So I got to thinking maybe I am just really bad at this and I should give up. I was looking at my app, and my tank has been painfully consistent over the last 6 years since I have had the app. The only real changes has been lighting. The last three years being with the reef breeders.

Why do I fail?! I have nothing to lose at this point if anyone wants to throw in their 2 cents. I will consider it. After painful painful husbandry I was able to defeat my hair algae...but just like the other 5 times the corals are dying now. They were when the hair algae was around but they just continue to die after the algae is dead.

Any advice?

Sorry to hear, but there must be something amiss.

Have you lived in the same place the whole time? Tank in the same place?

Perhaps something environmental.

 

[JayM]

I’m by no means an expert in any of this, but you said nothing has changed but the lighting. That combined with algae problems and coral deaths makes me think that maybe your lighting is too strong. But like I said, not at all an expert, but I’m sure some smarter folks than me will chime in shortly.

 

[Derrick0580]

begin and the beginnin….are you using a quality rodi unit for ro water? Seen a lot of tanks suffer due to unknown stuff in the tap/well/city water.

 

[Devisissy]

I too thought the light was too bright. I have turned it down. My local fish group has a par meter I can borrow. I will get my hands on it. Pronto.

RO/DI is a spectrapure 90gpd 5 stage unit. Last time I had ICP testing I also paid for that water to be tested. It showed higher than wanted levels of Arsenic. Both in the ro water and my tank water. HOWEVER, that company states that this is usually a false positive on their part. Weird. I am going to send in another test this week. The kit just came in. So that might shine some light on it.

Tanks has always been in the same place. It's this annoying AIO. I will NEVER EVER use an AIO again. I use foam, a skimmer, the two reactors. Running carbon and GFO. I started vodka dosing two months ago. It is destroying the algae. Since I started my phosphates and nitrates have come down quite a bit and the algae green hair, has turned red and sluffed off, this was coupled with a bunch of other crap that I wrote about in a thread. Corals were suffering but hanging on. Now most of them have died or are dying.

Tank is in proximity to the bathroom on the main floor. But Febreze and perfume are not allowed on the main floor. Since it's just the two of us with my wife being more OCD than me, I am doubting it's that. However, I do use a candle wax burner. But I am not ruling it out either.

I feed frozen and Spectra flakes. I alternate. I feed just enough for each fish to get their fill. The fat old b word of a clown is a bully so I practically hand feed everyone. It has really helped with algae.

My latest deaths were anemones. The tank was up over a year before I put them in there. They did great, then slowly shriveled, moved everywhere and died. So the acro, encrusting monti, and acans are actually doing OK. Not great but OK. Even growing. The hammers, man, the hammers. I try not to cry.

The light is down to 39% blue and 10% white. I really need that par meter. I'll get it. Oh and it's not stray voltage I dont think, nothing shocks me or anything. And nothing is rusting or hiding out in tank. Everything has been pulled apart.

So I need the par meter and the ICP test. I am on it.

I got a bunch of hermits and snails. All of them are still alive. The snails I noticed sort of hang out at the top in a group. I mean they sometimes move around, but it's odd to me because in all my years I don't recall nerites always being above the water line.

Flow is DC adjustable return pump an MP40 and an MP10.

 

[JTP424]

I hate to say start from square one... but honestly?
Throw the fish in a quarantine. Scrub the tank.
Start a build thread on here. Noting and photographing EVERYTHING. From placement of the tank (maybe you have stray sunlight sneaking in) to when to add fish and corals.
Everyone on here wants to see everyone succeed in the hobby so long as they respect the livestock.
Give it a go and keep us updated every step so advice can be provided and things can be reviewed!

 

[Derrick0580]

I would use a different icp test, if they are giving false positives of arsenic that can’t be good, especially if it’s not a false positive and you really have it in your water.

 

[musaabi]

What are your parameters? You mentioned they’re within normal range but never stated the levels. If you’re growing tons of algae you might be nutrient rich. Have you considered not doing a mixed reef and stick with one type of coral group like lps or softies? How’s your flow? Lighting, you need to figure out how much light you’re putting out. What kind of fish do you have? Are they reef safe?

 

[Idech]

I hate to say start from square one... but honestly?
Throw the fish in a quarantine. Scrub the tank.
Start a build thread on here. Noting and photographing EVERYTHING. From placement of the tank (maybe you have stray sunlight sneaking in) to when to add fish and corals.
Everyone on here wants to see everyone succeed in the hobby so long as they respect the livestock.
Give it a go and keep us updated every step so advice can be provided and things can be reviewed!

The OP had done that multiple times already. It’s a big job and frustrating when it doesn’t change anything.

I think getting the PAR meter and testing the water with a new company for arsenic is a good start.

 

[Propane]

Sorry to hear about your difficulties. One way you could get a better start is to use some tampa bay live rock from the beginning. Lots of people have success with it and I think they spend less time fighting their tanks. As recommended above if you started a build thread and kept everyone updated the people here would be able to figure it. I would understand quitting but since you’ve been trying so long it’s likely you want to be successful with a reef tank.

 

[musaabi]

I hate to say start from square one... but honestly?
Throw the fish in a quarantine. Scrub the tank.
Start a build thread on here. Noting and photographing EVERYTHING. From placement of the tank (maybe you have stray sunlight sneaking in) to when to add fish and corals.
Everyone on here wants to see everyone succeed in the hobby so long as they respect the livestock.
Give it a go and keep us updated every step so advice can be provided and things can be reviewed!

This may be the solution at this point. I’ve had great success with my last 2 tanks when I seeded the tank heavily when starting out. PnB,
Mixed different starter bacteria for variety, phyto, copepods, etc. I was able to skip the ugly stage and tank stabilized a lot quicker. Also you don’t have a sumo so that makes filtration much harder. Not saying you can’t have an awesome AIO(we see plenty on here) but the sump does help. Don’t let the tank crash, when I first got into the hobby I was chasing number within a month of starting the tank, freaking out if phosphates were .2 and nitrates 30 PPM. I did so much crap trying to “fit the range” that I bottomed out my tank, dynos everywhere, hair algae on all the rock, corals dead. Now I much rather have excess nutrients then no nutrients. I bought a house, moved the tank to the basement and legit never touched it for almost a year other than occasionally feeding the fish or topping off my ATO(after the pump started running dry) and everything miraculously survived. Keep your hand out of the tank as much as possible because you don’t know what you could be introducing accidentally. Keep a journal and log EVERYTHING YOU DO. This will help when something goes wrong and you can reference what you did that made the change. I always said “idk what I did different everything is the same” meanwhile my hands in the water, moving small things, tweaking flow etc.

 

[FrugalReefer]

A listing of your parameters would be a good start at trying to find your problem.

 

[DJF]

Sorry to hear; FOWLR tanks are awesome too.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Can we get photos too please

 

[MartinM]

I know, I know. Lot's of threads just like this.

I have been in the hobby now, 15 years. I have never been really successful. For the past 7 years I have had the same tank crash multiple times. Nothing stays alive except the fish. Nothing. They become giant algae pits, I get rid of the algae, then the corals die, rinse and repeat. I have had all the same fish for the last 7 years except for one blenny that died of old age.

But corals. I spend all this money, then they all die. There is no reason either. I send my water for ICP, it comes back great (30 times over the past 15 years)! I home test EVERY week. Nothing out of the ordinary. PH, ALK, CA, MAG all fall within normal. I do a weekly water change with water the same level as the tank. I have a great RO/DI system. The light is a reef breeders. Par is EXACTLY what you would want for a mixed tank. Softies, skin falls off they die, Sticks, they RTN and die. Xenia, shrivels dies, mushrooms, shrivel die. what the heck?

The fish just hang out and live FOREVER. So over these last 15 years I have taken the tank completely down and restarted. New sand rocks and corals. Always with the same results. Algae, coral death, fix algae, more coral death. Each time I reset up the tank I get a new algae I've never had before.

I'm so done. I can't figure out why I am always fighting algae and coral death. I have a JBJ 45 rimless. I also have a 90 gallon custom made tank with trigger sump and an aluminum stand but haven't set it up because I can't figure out where I am going wrong. Why set up another death trap? So I got to thinking maybe I am just really bad at this and I should give up. I was looking at my app, and my tank has been painfully consistent over the last 6 years since I have had the app. The only real changes has been lighting. The last three years being with the reef breeders.

Why do I fail?! I have nothing to lose at this point if anyone wants to throw in their 2 cents. I will consider it. After painful painful husbandry I was able to defeat my hair algae...but just like the other 5 times the corals are dying now. They were when the hair algae was around but they just continue to die after the algae is dead.

Any advice?

Did you start your tank with live rock? Or dry rock I’m willing to bet it’s the latter.

Except for daily automated alkalinity testing, I don’t pay attention to the numbers, I pay attention to the animals. Are they healthy? Are they growing? That’s what matters.

It’s fairly easy to have a stable reef aquarium. If you start out with good quality live rock. Starting out with dry rock leads to lots and lots of problems many of which are not easily resolved.

For a nuisance hair algae, and other algaes, definitely use fluconazole. Hair are algae can become the bane of anyone even on live rock, but this is a miracle cure for it.

Dinos are typically from lack of bacterial biodiversity, I see a lot of people complain about them, and all of those people are using dry rock. I’ve never seen it be an issue on systems with live rock, and I have been in this hobby for 30 years.

Make sure you have a lot of water flow.

Make sure you’re doing 20% water changes at least twice a month.

Beyond keeping your alkalinity stable, I would not worry about other numbers too much. I test and no3 and po4 about twice per month and beyond using a computer to monitor the pH and automated tester to monitor the alkalinity, I don’t do any testing.

 

[brandon429]

We could fix a tank like this in rip clean threads

Guaranteed the lighting is being overdone here too, really correctable things per the description

There's a different way to nano reef that won't turn out this way, algae challenged

 

[MartinM]

PM me if you might want to jump on a call to discuss maybe I can help out. I really do think though that the issue is not starting with quality live rock.

 

[squidleydidleydoo]

I'm a newbie and don't even have a reef tank yet so take everything I say with a MASSIVE grain of salt, but I'm wondering if part of the issue might be the solutions you're using for each new algae bloom? From what I've read some of the aggressive solutions to wipe out specific algaes can nuke the corals in the tank too.
Whatever the cause is, I'm rooting for you!

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Have you used any chemicals to deal with algae? Do you monitor temp and PH where you can see changes throughout the day?