What the hell is wrong with my tank!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tuton]

I have done x6 25 gallon water changes in my 55
I use RO water
I have a good quality skimmer
I feed very little
My photo period is only 8hours
I only have 4 fish (2 small damsles, 1 clown, and a tribal blenny)
I have a large CUC (x25+1 hermits+6 shrimp+5 emerald crabs)
My paramiters are all zero that are supposed to be
my tank is all cloudy and is covered in hair algae
WHAT THE HELL

[SpookyMcSpooker]

um, what's wrong?

[Tuton]

sorry fixed it

[RubberFrog]

How long has it been set up? What do your phosphates test out at?

[rovster]

What seems to be the problem.....?

[ryeguyy84]

How long has the tank been setup?

[Palting]

Uhh, cloudy tank and lots of hair algae?

How old is the tank?
How much live rock?
How much flow?
What kind of light fixture, and how old are the bulbs??

[Tuton]

the problem is that I can't see 2 inces inside my tank (im just so fustrated)
I have done 6 50% water changes every week for the last month and a half
the tank is 5 years old but was wiped out in january and have never got back to the way it was
phospates test as 0ppm but I think its a false negative

[Tuton]

The fixture is a nova etreme 324watt 6bulb t5
The bulbs are close to a year old but Im getting new ones as a christmas gift

[RubberFrog]

Shut the lights off for a week.

[Palting]

Do you mean wiped out as in, everytthing that was there for 5 years died in January? If so, what did you do to revive the tank? You could have all kinds of rotten things in there if not revived properly.

[Typo R]

Do you dose anything? Maybe an over dose of something is causing the cloudiness. Carbon. Gfo etc...

[flyin2jz]

Mix salt and leave it in the bucket and see if its clear. May be using some bad salt or something.

[Tuton]

more or less
I did at least 10 55 gallon water changes, removed most of the dead things, and ran fishless until october

[Typo R]

^ yeah what he said.. Also whats your salinity level.

[Mouse]

Sand or BB ?
What caused the wipeout? <-- really need to know this before anything can be done

[EpicExposures]

Have you tested your water for phosphates. Freeze dried food is really good at introducing phosphates to your water.

[hollister]

You did how many water changes? 25% a month is plenty and if you have problems then a 1 time 50 % change is pushing it. To many water changes can cause the tank to re cycle.

Hair alge like low flow and high phosphate.

[BlueDartReefer]

Stop the water changes as they are feeding your algae. How about some pictures?

[scarface70706]

run a carbon reactor to clear up the cloudynes. also get yourself a po4 kit and see what it tests out to. if a slight bit of po4 is showing you will need to run a gfo reactor as well. this might help rid the algae. i use to have a pretty bad algae problem untill i started to run gfo. its been almost a week and the algae is faddings away. also when i run carbon and filter socks it clears up my tank over night. and dont do so many water changes. your just making things worse. 20% every 2 weeks is good enough.also run some filter socks... a picture will help as well. and a pic of your filtration.its hard for us to really see whats going on when we cant see it. you can only explain so much ya know. please post a pic.

[TheFishTeen]

Well everyone here has their own opinion and they're own ideas, but its extremely important that before you start switching things around, make sure you are really on the right track with your water perimeters. Take another test, in fact, take a lot more tests. Get as accurate tests as possible on the following:

Ammonia (NH3)
Nitrite (NO2)
Nitrate (NO3)
pH
Salinity
--
Phosphate (Po4)
Magnesium (Mg)
Calcium (Ca)
Iodine (I)

One you have up to date numbers on all these perimeters, (above divider line are primary), we can work from there.

Also, you should take a test on the TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) of your RO water. That way, we know if its something in your RO water, or your tank water.

[Tuton]

Originally Posted by TheFishTeen

Ammonia (NH3) 0ppm
Nitrite (NO2)0ppm
Nitrate (NO3)0ppm
pH 7.9
Salinity 1.024-1.025
--
Phosphate (Po4) 0ppm
Magnesium (Mg) N/A
Calcium (Ca) 300,350 ppm
Iodine (I) N/A
TDS 0ppm

[Tuton]

I run carbon and kent marine phosphate sponge
The crash was caused by some cynobacteria remover (cant think of the brand name)
when the lights first turn on in the morning its pretty clear but a slighty cloudy
then within an hour it turns completly rust brown

[Palting]

Hmmm. Whatever is making you tank cloudy appear to be reacting to light, something photosynthetic maybe. Goes along with your GHA problem.

Certainly I'm not an expert, especially when it comes to crashed tanks, but I'll give it a shot. When your tank crashed, everything died. Despite your best efforts, you had a nitrate overload, and the algae, cyano, and other nitrate and light responsive organisms have taken over. Your parameters look good, because everything is bound up with these organisms.

Obvioously one option is to start over. Drain, clean, nuke and sterilze everything, and restart. That would be a pain.

How about straining the water first? Get a powerhead with those fine micron filter attachments. Get a filter sock, also fine micron, and attach it to your drain. Then, agitate the substrate, blast the rocks with a turkey baster, scrub the GHA with a toothbrush. Do it repeatedly, maybe every 2 days. Rinse and clean those filters daily. You are already doing multiple large water changes, anyway, so you can time it with one of these major agitation/clean ups.

Like I said, I'm not an expert. That's my best thought. Maybe a post apocalyptic tank crash expert can chime in.

[Mouse]

Originally Posted by Tuton

The crash was caused by some cynobacteria remover (cant think of the brand name)

Do you remember the dosage you used?
All I can think of doing is (and Im not an expert or sure of the issue)...

Do you have a QT tank? If not perhaps get an older 20g and move the fish/cuc over with a few lbs of New LR/base rock. Cook the old LR you have, toss whatever sand and do a detailed cleaning of all equipt. This will take time but it may be the least expensive providing the rock will cook out.
I have a feeling (not sure) that the rock/sand is holding bad juju