Algae attack and Fish are now dying

Wow. Lots of replies. Thank you all.

So let me answer your questions:

- I would be surprised if the tang died due to tank size stress since he was fine for over a year and just suddenly died. He was laying on the bottom struggling to breath and a couple of hours later gone. Last night he was swimming around eating algae. But it is possible I guess. What do I know?
- Didn't register any nitrites and I just tested the nitrates and got 20 ppm
- When I said clean the carbon and GFO I meant that I cleaned the BSR and pump and replaced the carbon and GFO with new. Hopefully I rinsed them well enough before putting them back into service. Anyway, it is basically clogged already with algae.
- I put all the water, sand and livestock into 5 gallon buckets, sealed them and had it all back in the tank within 4 hours. The water was cloudy for a day and then cleared up pretty quickly to a nice crystal clear. So obviously, the sand was all used and was totally stirred up.
- The blue tang is two days old and about half an inch long. We were told it might outgrow the tank and we would need to take it out if it does.
- @ska_d, not sure if I had a mini cycle or not. I did the same thing you did the first time. Still, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are all on the low side. Would I still want to put in some biostarter? Niteout?
-@Toronto Guy; it is a dino bloom. Confirmed.

I live in Indy and took a water sample and a live rock to both the Reef and Premium Aquatics tonight. Both said dino and probably didn't kill the fish. Both said to increase PH by adding B-ionic Calcium buffer 1&2 5ml 3 times per week (we were doing it once a week).

Premium said they thought there may be a bacteria problem since the water is kind of cloudy too. They said do more water changes - at least weekly for now. They also said the skimmer and carbon/GFO BSR I have is not enough and sold me a Marineland H.O.T. Magnum hang on filter. Redundant or a good idea?

I also bought their Premium RO/DI 100 gpd system. Will set that up tomorrow. Between the two, bye bye $200.

 

Check out this article by Randy Holmes-Farley:

Problem Dinoflagellates and pH by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

There's a lot of good information and advice there. Dinoflagellets definitely can release toxins that are harmful to fish, so I wouldn't go 100% on the advice of your LFS. Especially when they are selling you a bunch of equipment.

I could be mistaken, but I don't see what good the HOB filter will do you at this point.

In general, you need to raise your ph and lower the nutrients in your tank.

I'd suspect that high phosphates are your immediate concern. I'd hold off on another water change until you have enough RODI made up to do one.

 

OK, so here is the plan.

1. add new HOT Magnum filter to help clean out the now very cloudy, brown water
2. scrub the now clogged protein skimmer till it is spotless and put it back.
3. do the same for the BSR and add new carbon and GFO again
4. I have 2 5 gallon buckets full of the old water from my last water change and a 5 gallon bucket of RO water from my LFS that I don't want to put in the tank anymore. I plan to take every rock out and use a very soft brush on it to clean the algae off. I will take every power head, the thermometer and heater out and clean them too. Cleaning stuff in tank or RO water should at least get a lot of the algae out w/o putting too much in the water column.
5. I will cut lighting down to a couple hours per day if that for a few days
6. We are adding B-ionic Calcium buffer 1&2 at 5 ml per day 3 days per week to increase pH
7. We have cut off feeding for a couple of days and will start back up slowly.

Sound good? Thanks for all the links and helpful suggestions. The only thing that makes me wonder about dino is that there are no air bubbles trapped in it that I see. Just stringy brown slime.

 

Your plan sounds good. Regardless of what type of algae it is, it's being fed by phosphates and/or nitrates, so nutrient removal is key. Physically removing as much of the brown stuff from your tank will export all the nutrients that are locked up in it.

Do you have your GFO in a reactor? If so, test the effluent from the reactor. The phos readings should be zero, or at least significantly lower than your tank phos readings. If that's not the case, the GFO is saturated and needs to be swapped out.

 

This is probably the first problem.These rocks and sand should have been kept aerated via airstone or PH.It is likely that all the bacteria died during this time.Also using the old sand after stirring it added alot of nutrients to water with a low oxygen level likely causing a bacteria bloom.


They should have told you that this fish is inappropriate for your sized aquarium and should not have been added.



Nitrites and ammonia should be at zero in a cycled tank.

I would use old tank water to rinse rocks.Using FW will kill bacteria colonies.
Sounds to me like you caused a mini cycle and had a bacterial and dino bloom all at once.I would continue to test until ammonia and Nitrites read zero.

 

@Toronto Guy, I did recently change the GFO in the reactor but I have never tested for phosphates in either the effluent or in the main tank water. I will be buying some new tests soon.

@Vinny, I had no idea that 4 hours would do that much damage. And I thought I would be much better off with the old sand instead of new. Well, you live and learn as they say. I guess I learned a little here. Although we didn't test ammonia or nitrites for a few weeks when we have both have always been zero including now. So I don't know what to think about a mini cycle but it seems possible.

After gently cleaning the rocks in old tank water and carefully putting them back. The tank is much clearer. pH is still low(7.8 now) and we are trying to raise it. The water that comes out of my new RO/DI has a higher pH than the RO I was getting from Uncle Bills (my LFS). So hopefully that will help too.

We were carefully not to stir up sand but I will be checking for ammonia and nitrites and nitrates daily for a while.

Fingers crossed here. Thank you all.

 

Good to hear you are getting a handle on it. This statement confused me a bit."Still, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are all on the low side."
It is possible a mini cycle occured that burned the fishes gills and the bacterial bloom exacerbated the problem.

 

What a terrible situation to go through. I'm sorry for your loss. I must say that I learned a bit to. I know I will be moving here in the next couple months and I will be sure to use all new sand and just see the new with a cup or two of the old.

And I'm sorry to piggy back on this thread but i have a question. How does a mini cycle happen? What happens if you have to adjust your LR around. What can you do to prevent that from happening

 

update: My local fish store did not have an O2 test kit so I have not been able to test that. I did get a phosphate, calcium etc. kit and tested the phosphate level. Less than .25. So if it was high before, it is not now. I will be watching it carefully and working more on the pH.

 

Actually phosphate of .25 is considered high! Ideally it should be .01 or .00 How are you testing? A lot of the test methods are not very accurate.