100% Water Change

[BCOrchidGuy]

Well, I've been fighting a losing battle with marco algaes. I had a 4" deep sand bed and my macro algaes (caluperas etc) were growing faster than I could keep up. I flushed tons of it down the toilet, tried using it as compost and the list goes on and on. I decided to go barebottom and today I pulled out all my corals and put them into another tank with 1 week old water. I pulled out all my rock and put it into a big rubber maid bin with tank water, and pulled out all my sand bed. I then mixed up 40 gallons of fresh salt water (IO) and let it circulate for a couple hours. I slowly put the rock back in and restacked it so the top would be quite a bit higher, now my Acro's sit much closer to the light so I hope to get a bit of colour back in one that was a bit washed out. I have a beautiful Acro that is pink with purple tips, as well as an awesome green Acro with blue/purple tips and a yellow/green acro. I also have a very fast growing green tipped pink birdsnest as well as a number of different Monti's. The tank looks good, corals were all open and I have about 100 heads of Xenia now I have to attatch to rock. Ricordia was looking good as well as everything else.

I did the 100% water change because removing the sand bed (DSB) released a lot of hydrogen sulphide (rotten eggs smell) and I figured it would be the best way to reduce nitrates that weren't showing up on my test kit. I added purple up, some Kent Magnesium and will move the fish back in tomorrow. My sump is full of macro algaes that I'll take in to the LFS, I guess I didn't do 100% after all, my sump holds about 20 gallons of water.

Wish me luck, I hope I got all the algae.

Doug

[kwirky]

wow. good luck dude. I'm afraid of sandbeds becuase of situations like this. They're horrible experiences to go through and not having sand in the first place gives me the piece of mind that I won't do something as drastic as this.

If your alkalinity and salinity between the 100% water and the old water are the same you shouldn't have too much for losses. I've done 100% water changes myself. They're nerve wracking but I've never had problems beyond molusks dieing.

GL

[Myka]

I don't get it...were the macro algaes in your display tank? (eek!) Or was the sandbed causing nitrates that the macro algae in your sump couldn't keep up to?

[hillbillyreefer]

Must have been the day for this yesterday. I did the same thing in my 24 nano, my problem was GHA though. All my critters look good today.

How did yours turn out?

[fkshiu]

I'll play a bit of devil's advocate here and say that the 100% water change may have served no purpose. This is because the phosphates and nitrates that have been feeding your algae problem may be tied up on your live rock. It may be a classic example of algae growing wild but test kits (which test the WATER) reading zero.

Changing out the sandbed was a good a idea, but you still may have algae issues from the live rock (esp. if it's as old as the sandbed was).

If algae issues reappear consider cooking the live rock while keeping the livestock in a QT.

[Myka]

Yep, that's what I had to do.

[BCOrchidGuy]

Thanks for the replies and thoughts, So far, no troubles, all corals are open except one Kenya Tree and it's just a bit limp but Acro's are all doing well. Pulling all the algae (all I could get) off should give the scopas tang and the rabbit fish a good chance of keeping up with any algae that does grow back. The algae was in the display tank and I have some in the sump with 24 hour light on the sump. I wanted some algae in the tank because I'm limited for funds and wanted something to add to the bare spots but the algae got way out of hand. I'm thinking now I will frag my acro's and perhaps use them to fill in the tank, the green tipped pink birds nest grows very fast with out being right under the light so if I frag it and use it mid level on the rock it should fill in with in 4-6 months. I left a tiny bit of sand, not even enough to cover the bottom but enough to give it a nice look. I'm looking forward to coraline algae covering the bottom. BTW even my crocea is opened up very nicely and seems to be liking the new arrangement.

Doug

[Myka]

Pics?