First Trial Failed! Help Me!

[soccerbo24]

Alright so I got Into the fish hobby about a year and half ago wit just a 10 gallon community tank and had that for about 6 months with no problems so I bought a new tank and got a 20 gallon african cichlid tank again no problem just one fish got fungus the first week and all have been healthy since 5 in a 20 gallon over a year they are pretty big but very very minimal fighting because of caves so after so much success I spent about 2 months researching and asking all these questions about doing a saltwater tank well I got started with a 29 gallon tank with 30 pounds of live sand 26 pounds if live rock a large fake coral piece and a smaller fake coral piece I got a power head a 150 submergible heater and a marineland filter for a 55 gallon tank bought a test lot a hydrometer and 25 gallons of saltwater from my local pet store feeling confident let the tank run and cycle through I didn't measure anything Untill after about 2 weeks and I just had everything check out but my Ph was a little low at 8 so I let it sit for about another 2 weeks then I went out and bought a firefish goby green chromosome occelarius clownfish and a Faldo Hawkfish! They all went in just fine with the acclimation all were happy swimmers but firefish loved to hide!! Then after a little longer about a month I went out and bought a coral beauty and a strawberry doddyback after only 2 days the coral beauty died to what I believe was lack of oxygen then with all fish happy I went out and bought 3 coral frags placed them in the tank and for about 2 weeks it was perfect they all opened up wide! Fish swam around ate properly and everything was great but after a few weeks I noticed some hair algea growing ( I did have a clean up crew but mainly was sand bed and glass cleaners) and a few days later my hammer coral frag closed up which was weird and for the next 2 months everything has been dieing! I did a water change and almost hours after my firefish died but I soo checked all my levels and nothing had changed then my over coral frag was covered in hair algea and hair algea was growing randomly in the tank so I bought two turbo snails to fix this and they have done nothing then my dottyback now hides all day and all night doesn't come out to feed but when I lift up the fake coral piece there he is just swimming around then my clownfish died randomly checked my levels again nothing changed and bowing have some red stuff growing on my other coral frag and my Hawkfish doesn't swim as much and looks near death he's losing color, so 3 fish died one coral covered In hair algea one covered in mystery red stuff and one hasn't opened in 2 months hair algea growing and I need help I know I have no protein skimmer but I read a few times about frequent water changes can be the same thing which I do no sump just a tank what should I do don't wanna kill all this I'm only 17 and plan to be a hobbyist for life but it hasn't been a good start someone just help me

 

[geridoc]

Wow - rough introduction to the hobby, but normal. Most hobbyists, especially the 17 year old ones, are rightfully eager to get going, and I think that's what happened to you. First, a few questions. How did you cycle the tank? What are your nitrate levels? What/how much do you feed? What kind of lighting do you have? What, exactly, are your water parameters. "OK" just isn't informative enough. Do you quarantine new fish? Do you use RODI to make your salt- and top-off.water? For now, the only emergency advice I could give is to keep up with frequent water changes until we get a handle on your water quality.

 

[flower]

Hi...it sounds like you have high phosphates, hair algae needs phosphates to live. It won't do any good to test for the phosphates because the HA is feeding on it, and will give you a false negative reading on any tests. The mystery red stuff is called cyanobacteria, it feeds on PO4 as well, and it means you have extra nutrients it's feeding on...AKA extra wasted food. Increasing water flow to the area where it's settling will help to suspend the food to be taken in by the filter and removed. (at least that's how I think it works...all I really know for sure is that increased water flow usually helps..as to why...)

Water changes daily until you get parameters under control, and it whould help if part of your CUC were a "meat eater" not all nasty stuff is algae, if you get a serpent or brittle star (not green), they will eat the wasted food, so will nassarius snails. I always used a skimmer, even with water changes... and it kind of sounds like you need one. The surface of the water has to really churn to get some good gas exchange, I always made the surface look like it was boiling. The HA and cyano may be sucking the oxygen from the tank, which would kill the fish. SW has less oxygen then freshwater. The top of your tank should be open, and not covered (I don't know if that pertains to you)

I hope this helps, every one of us has our ups and downs as we learn the hobby, it doesn't sound like you did anything really bad to cause things to hit the fan yet, it's all fixable.