Lots of green algae

I try to refrain from putting any kind of chemicals in my tank.Just remember our slogan. Go slow let it grow. Quick fixes in this hobby are usually recipes for disaster. Good luck but be patient.8)

 

yea was thinking the same thing my main thing will be to reduce the phos level the reactor should and I hope maintain that. been reading alot about its all the natural process so was kinda not wanting to add anything to the tank. But from time to time I do use seachem clearity to take anything out before i do a water change and will put a filter sock in and then add it and once the tank clears I remove the sock and do my water change.

But yea slow is ok but was getting to be quite a chore to clean so needed to atleast slow it down a bit ;D

 

Just to be sure... I'm guilty of skipping a few of the posts on your thread today.
I want to make sure that you understand that it was the ph buffer what got your alkalinity so high, shooting your calcium just as high and even though I did not see a reading for it, i believe more than likely your magnesium is also very high.

I did have this problem a while back, and the only thing that brought down the alkalinity dramatically was water changes with RO water only! I just made sure to make my salinity quite a bit higher from 1.024 to 1.026 and then the next day I took 5 gallons of that saltier water out, and slowly added the 5 gallons of RO water. This is not ideal, though, but it worked for me in my emergency. My dKH was 16 at the moment, but my calcium was 260 or so and magnesium was 1900. A lot of my corals bleached and are now slowly coming back... I repeat.. slowly. My fish didn't seem to suffer much though.

Another option, if everything is doing OK, and you do have corals or clams that will use up the alkalinity and calcium, is to naturally let it be consumed. Coralline algae will also use great amounts of the 2 components.

Have you tested your magnesium levels? It is estimated that the ratio between magnesium and calcium is 3:1, meaning if you have 1350 mg you're likely to have around 450 calcium. I think part of fixing your problem, will be to lower your magnesium to at least 1600 to 1500 (1350 being the ideal).

Let me know if you did measure Mg while I was gone.

 

Will check it tom and see if it has gone down some. As for the ph buffer I tossed it an gonna stick to a 2 part system. Think the stuff was too strong and boosted it way way high. From now on look at alk overall. as for the corals they are doing great only have 3 a single zoo not sure what kind but it has a sprout comming out and is growing another polip and he seems to be getting bigger every day. Frogspawn frag that has doubled in size in the last two weeks and cant seem to remember what the last one was but he looks great too. I have an api test kit and from what I have been reading they are junk so gonna try and talk the wife into getting some new ones soon. Thats what I get for not doing more research on stuff. might take some water down to my LFS and have him look at it. As I think that maybe my 3 stage RO/DI has worn itself out so will be getting a new 6 stage dual RO Dual DI system as soon as I can. Think that might be part of my phos problem that I have right now.

As for the phos problem just installed my new reactor and will be testing it tom to see if it has come down a little. But other than that everything is going great. green is gone and I think it left on its own! Suprise Suprise next is the alk once I test ill post all the numbers again and see what there at. As of right now there is some leftover green in there that my CUC will clean up pretty quick so hopefully will be back to seeing that pretty purple soon.

 

Last Test As Follows

Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 0 ppm
Phospate 1.0 ppm
PH 8.2
Calcium 800-900
Carbonite Hardness 18dkh

New Test as of 12/23/10

Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 0 ppm
Phospate 0 ppm
PH 8.0
Calcium 800 or higher cant seem to figure this one out think the test kit is screwed up going to buy a new one and test. Will post results later

Carbonite Hardness 13dkh
Gravity 1.024

New phosphate reactor works great it was at 1.0 last night when I installed it. Filled it with 150mg Phosban tested today its at 0. The product sold me on that one was about 12 hours of soak time not too bad!! The green seems to be dissapearing and coraline sprouting so im so happy now just to figure out whats going on with this calcium problem that im having and the alk keeps going down so gonna continue to watch that carefully.

 

alright tested the calcium using a salifert test kit here are the results

Tank Water 800ppm
RO/DI water less than .01
Tap Water 200

So I think that it is just the salt mix that is boosting this through the roof here. Going to be switching to a diffrent one ASAP right now im using oceanic. Was gonna go to Red Sea Coral Pro as was the next best thing my LFS carries. It just baffles me that my salt could boost this calcium off the charts like this. Is this cuz something comming through the RO/DI is boosting the calcium level to the maxx? Or could it really just be that the salt sux. Im so confused here its not funny. 2 tests and both read 800ppm

If you were in my shoes would you switch salt ? Cuz thats all I can think of to do here and see were im at with this. Makes me wonder if its the rock leaching it out. Im not dosing it so were could it be comming from?

Puzzeled

 

I am as puzzeled as you. Do you have a recent magnesium level? I looked back I may have missed it. ;D

If the mag is out of wack the ca and alk will be so as well.

 

Dont know what my mag level is have to get a test kit for it. The one thing that bothers me is it has always read high and I figured it was just the junk api test kit but the tank is due for a water change this week. Im almost sure the mag is high also. What im gonna do is mix up some of the old salt that I have left maybe a gallon or 2 and test it. Im also gonna get my new salt and make some up and test it and see what my levels are for each without them being in the tank just freshly mixed up. Then maybe the mystery calcium will show its ugly face lol. The one thing I dont get is you would think by changing the water or corals/coraline eating it up it would eventully go down, it never has budged from that point. I have not read on here about people using anything to lower it. The only thing I read is them raising it and how its a chore to raise it. haha dont have that problem I guess :-/

Well im going to get to the bottom of it and when I do ill sure post about it here so people can read about it. The thing that is crazy is everything is doing great corals are growing they are very colorful dont quite get it. but one day I guess it will all come to lite. Just hope by then nothing turns around and all my corals are fine. As soon as my LFS opens back up after the holidays ill check for a mag test kit I think he has some in stock.

 

Your test kit maybe bad, I have had a few bad API in my time.

If the corals and fish and other inverts are fine, that is a good indicator that things may not be as bad as the test kit is saying. I can tell a lot more about my tank from the way the corals look.

 

Yea thats what I was thinking too. also the green algae outbreak was kinda bad for the coraline too it covered it all up and made it nasty. But this morning I saw some major growth of coraline over night one of my rocks that was flat was always the best looking rock is just pure dark purple when I woke up so the CUC must be catching up. Also picked up a lawnmower blenny yesterday so he is mowing it down pretty quick. Hopefully in the future he will be ok though cuz dont plan on keeping him stocked with brown algae. But Hopefully I can feed him wife thinks he is ugly but I like him.