Question/possible help

[mel0508]

Okay, I haven't been here in a while, but I am needing some insight/possible help.
I am in the process of testing the water for all the numbers, but I am also getting ready to do a 10 gal water change. When I turned on my lights this afternoon, I had a dead turbo snail and a dead green chromis. Last night when I fed them, the chromis was fine. Snail...not so sure...it's a snail. He didn't move often. I went to LFS today and they suggested water change, test water again, and then come back.
Well, here's the thing...I'm not so sure that I trust them...had some red slime about two weeks ago...wait forgot the basics...
55gal tank
Up about 9 months
T-5 metal halide(?) lights
Current inhabitants:
Fuzzy dwarf lion
2 gold stripe maroon clownfish
1 black blenny
1 conch snail
10 narcirius snails
2 mexican turbo snails
1 hitchhiker crab that I can't seem to find right now
1 (sole remaining) Green Chromis
1 red mushroom coral
Lots of slug/snail looking things that seem to multiple by the hour
Okay, back to that other stuff...the LFS told us to use this red slime killer stuff, so we did, red slime is gone. Then we had a hair algae problem. They told us we had to many phosphates, so we added this stuff called Phos Guard to the filter area and left it for a week or so. Well, I thought everything was swimming along fine and now I have a dead fish and a dead snail and I still have the hair algae and aiptasia that WILL NOT DIE!!!!!!!!!!!! As soon as I have the water readings I will post them, but for now I am at a loss. It seems that everytime I go in the LFS they try to sell me one more thing, but I don't know that I really needed all of that stuff. Also, they told me that I should just start sucking out the slugs when I do the water change or taking them out by hand. They are white and tiny, but there are a million of them.
I guess I just need some encouragement to work this thing out. It is really frustrating

Any help or encouragement is greatly appreciated. Maybe even someone to just talk me off the edge of the tank.
Thanks
Melissa

 

[ophiura]

WATER CHANGE, WATER CHANGE, WATER CHANGE.
That is actually good advice

Did they do a phosphate reading or just sell you something?
ALgae is due to nitrate/phosphate issues and they can be resolved with....Water Changes. Do you have a skimmer? Refugium?
THese problems are caused by overstocking, overfeeding, lack of maintenance or other export (good skimmer, refugium, water changes, etc). So it will be important to review feeding and maintenance habits as you don't appear to be overstocked.
There are a lot of products out there...and yet they don't address the ROOT cause of the problems, which means it often just pushes the problem in another area.

 

[mel0508]

They did not do a phosphate reading and I am not sure that the testing kits I have are adequate.
I do not have a skimmer or refugium. I wasn't sure I needed one.
It could be due to overfeeding. We were feeding every other day, but we have recently cut back to every three days. I don't know if that was enough for the Chromis though. I fed the other one today and he acted like he was starving.
The LFS said that our fuzzy could be dominating the tank and not let anyone eat, but I have not seen that. She would need to be doing that when no one is around. For the most part, she hangs out under her rock and comes out for play and dinner. She's actually quite a joy.
I agree, they sell you stuff, but it doesn't exactly take care of the problem. So, I still have hair algae and dead fish. So, I need to figure out the root of the problem. I think perhaps the feeding, maybe the water changes, but we do them every other week unless something indicates more often. I still haven't gotten all the water tested, but our water is usually very good. We'll see. I think that might be the key.
Thanks for the support. I will keep everyone posted.

 

[ophiura]

I would not cut back the feeding to that infrequently, personally. What do you feed, and how much?