Hair algae experience

[mikeweber3]

I want to share my foolish failure in hopes of helping others

I have been successfully reeding for many years. About a year ago I started getting hair algae. All of my numbers looked great. Nitrate <3. Phosphate <3PPM. I tried many things until I totally crashed the entire system :debi: The one thing that should have caught my attention sooner was that snails and inverts didn't live long.

I thought I was running 1.022 salinity, as measured with the floating plastic needle tester I had used for years. Finally I took a water sample to my LFS. He said everything looked great except I was running 1.019

My conclusion; Over the years the plastic degraded and my salinity gradually dropped,all snails died, tangs died, hair grew and grew.

Solution; Totally tear down and start over. Primary salinity monitor Apex, secondary salinity monitor, refractometer. Turbos and inverts are happy, life is good again.

[MorganAtlanta]

Cheap swing-arm hydrometers can end up being really expensive...

[Reef Frog]

Glad you figured out the problem and are on track again. What else died besides snails and Tangs? 1.019 should not kill fish that are acclimated to that value (providing salinity wasn't see sawing).

Was the 3 ppm phosphate test reading accurate or a typo? If correct that's a huge huge load - probably 10x what is considered a good "target" value. It would certainly explain the algae but I'm not sure low salinity had any direct effect on an algae invasion or be a direct cause of death for health fish.

[mikeweber3]

Very long story. Started with the death of a ig Lion. I made the mistake of not tearing everything down to find him. The all the dominos fell

[Nano sapiens]

Swing-arm hydrometer devices are funny that way. They seem to take a few years to 'stabilize', but after that they tend to stay rock steady. I have an oldie of 30 years and each year I take a sample of my tank water to the LFS to verify that my reading of 1.022 still equals 1.026. It's been rock steady for the last two decades.

I think the problems you have experienced are mostly due to the Lionfish die-off and that it was not removed. This typically would cause a large ammonia spike that could have killed, or weakened, many of the organisms.

Best of luck with the new setup.

[lespaul339]

I quit using the swing arm type hydrometers when I had two of the same kind that read two completely different readings on the same water. Bought a refractometer, and tested it against both hydrometers and both the hydrometers were off. Swing arm ones are junk in my opinion. The floating ones are more accurate than the swing arm ones. But even so, the extra money for the refractometer is worth it in the long run.