Brown algae/Sea Stars sad - HELP!!!

[dedex]

I bought a complete set up from a gentleman who needed to take down his tank. It is a 75g. At the risk of being criticized, I need to know what is going on with my tank. I purchased the contents of his tank on Feb. 24, including the water, sand, corals, liverock, fish and sandstars. That same day we placed everything back in the tank except for the livesand, which we slowly added to the tank over the course of the last week and a half. Everything was looking GREAT until the last couple of days. It started with brown algae growing on the tank walls and rock, then the zoas and polyps closed up, the mushrooms look very upset, and today my sand sifting sea stars are looking very sad and turning pale. I have tested the water for nitrates, nitrites, phosphates, amonia - all are zero, and salinity is 1.026. We use an MR-1 proteing skimmer, and have 1 MH that we run for about 8 hours and 2 pc lights that we run for about 11 hours a day, and moonlights at night. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what is happening in there? Anything else that I need to test for? Thanks!

[papagimp]

The move most likely stirred up a bunch of crap, that can cause nitrates and phosopahtes to rise, ammonia/nitrites as well and cause a mini-recycle. If you have algae, than the nitrates and phosphates probably are not 0, but just too low to test for or being used up by the algae quickly. With any luck, the algae will just burn through it's fuel source and go away with a little time, but keep an eye on water quality very carefully using a good test kit, no strips or sub-par crab like that. Salifert would be a decent choice from what I hear.

Find a new home for any and all sandsifting starfish. not a good addition. In my humble opinion, their nothing more than a cheap unintellegent and uninformed purchase to help stir the sandbeds. What most people dont realize is they get far to large for most any system and will require expansive amounts of open thriving sandbed to feed properly, otherwise they just slowly starve to death. A 75g is WAY to small to even consider one, let alone more than one.

what kind of flow do you have in the tank right now? Are all pieces of equipment back where they originally were or were powerheads relocated? could be a flow issue but most likely nutrition for the algae has been stirred up from moving the system.

Keep the algae blasted off the corals (a turkey baster is great for this, $1 at the dollar store ) Can possibly reduce lighting down to 6 or 4 hours on the MH for a week or so to try and reduce the algae as well. Careful not to overfeed, that will raise phosphate and nitrates both and definatly help fuel more algae growth.

[dedex]

I am using saliferts. I have a closed loop with three inlets running on a sequence dart. I didn't purchase the tank from him as that was the reason he was taking down the set up. It is a new tank and the rock placment is different as well as the flow, I am sure. We are also feeding only every other day with a frozen blended mix that the guy gave us to ensure that their diet didn't get disrupted. About a table spoonful. We currently have 7 small fish. I will try the baster, but do not see any algae growing directly on the corals. So, you feel this is just a phase the tank is going through? I have more sand to add, we currently only have about 40lbs in the tank, but I am leary now. I will test again tonight to see what the params are. Any other advice? Would you add the rest of the sand (30 lbs) or just leave it as is?

[papagimp]

So let me recap to make sure I understand: You purchased a complete system, but had the tank itself replaced in the process. That makes the diatoms showing up a little more understandable. Even though the rock and sand had time to mature, and then got mixed up and stirred up, the tank itself matures and grows films of bacteria and other stuff (algae and whatnot) during the process, you just took all that away, so this is probably just a phase the "new" tank is going through, it's going to act like a cycled tank, but new nonetheless for a little bit. havint the 7 fish probably doesn't help too much either. I have about 10 fish in our pair of 75g's.

What did you do with the sand you pulled from his system prior to moving it all over? how was it stored? kept circulation going and whanot or just sat in a bucket? some die off may be occuring in the rock and sand, just a smidge but that would be enough to fuel algae spurts.

if I had to bet money, I'd say just a phase and it should go away in a few weeks at most. probably alot less than that.

The baster will help keep corals from suffocating when blanketed in algae, but i wouldn't recommend blasting everything from the rocks, will spread that stuff around unless you had some massive mechanical filtration going on. (more assumption than scientific data here)

[dedex]

We just stored the sand in some saltwater (from the original tank) in a closed 5 gal pail and left it on a heated floor. No circulation.

I should have worded my original post differently. We purchased ONLY the contents of the tank, not the equipment. (Including the water, sand, corals, liverock, fish and sandstars).

Only problem is that I don't know of anyone close enough to me that would have a tank that could keep the sea stars...I dont want to see them die...I live in timbukto Northern Minnesota, and the closest reefer to me is at least 40 miles away.

Also, we have several snails in the tank...wouldn't a spike of nitrates have killed them by now?

Can you also recap as to what you think I should do to take the proper measures to get rid of the brown algae, just so I understand properly and get this taken care of ASAP. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!!!

[papagimp]

Storing the sand like that may help to cause problems, have your rinsed it at all? If not, rinse the remaining sand well before adding it. Get some kind of sifter/collendar (spelling?) and scoop the sand, dip it in a bucket of old tankwater from a water change, then dip in a clean bucket of new saltwater (saltwaer will help ensure that all the bacteria doesn't kill off from a rinse in freshwater) Then add to tank.

Most people wouldn't know someone close that could house sandsifters. I found a home for mine (yup, I made that mistake too) in a 600g tank here locally. But even that tank may not support this fella for the rest of it's natural life, and in all likelyhood, it'll die early at a minimum. We've got a buyers/sellers forum here on RC, may wanna try there. or try a LFS and see if they'll give you store credit, if no on the credit, see if they'll just take it off your hands. Better to let them do what they do best than let it die in your tank.

A nitrate spike may not effect em as badly as you think. Ammnia and nitrite are highly toxic to inverts but nitrates, sometimes it'll harm em, some are just hardy enough to not be bothered. When my tank crashed last year and ammonia and nitrites hit the roof, I didn't loose any snails. Lost lot's of sps corals and one fish, but none of the snails. I found it wierd too.

Measures i would take, keep phosphate removing media going, perform regular water changes (10% a week), Keep your skimmer running to the best of it's abilities. Do not overfeed. Ensure their is plenty of flow in the tank (at least 20-40x turnover rate, for a 75g, that means 1500gph - 3000gph) And finally, try to be patient.

Most new tanks, if not all, will go through a diatom bloom (most likely what you're seeing here) first before anything else really happens. Tank will cycle, than diatoms coat everything, they will usually go away on their own with a little time and be replaced by another nuisance called cynobacteria, Same on that, it'll go away in time, but doing everything listed above should help, then once that's over you tend to see more hair algae, bryopsis, bubble aglae, stuff like that. usually on a mature tank, these will indicate a larger problem at hand, but in newer system, it's very common and usually nothign to worry about just yet. you've bascially started a new tank, just a happen to be lucky enough to have access to alot of live rock and sand. i would add the rest of the sand soon, but rinse it first as mentioned above.

And finally (wheeewww, getting winded here) Be sure to get more than just my opinion. The nice thing about reef central is the wide variety of knowledge. Someone else may have some great idea's that I just didn't think of or dont' know.

[tangeray]

coulod be a lighting issue. could be too little substrate. should have added the live sand asap. i would lower lighting hours to 6hr MH and 8hr PC

[papagimp]

too little substrate? could you elaborate a little for us?

[tangeray]

after reading his post i realised he has rocks, i originally thought he didn't with very little sand. Feeding the tank would raise some concerns under those conditions. just misread sorry guys.