Something odd going on

[terminus est]

I have a big algae problem in my 55 and have had one for awhile. Normally I would simply add a fuge but lack of space makes that a little difficult . My bigger problem is that turbos die pretty quick as do any large snail and I dont know why. I have alot of hermits, astreas, smaller trochus snails, prolly close to a hundred cerinth snails if not more, and several other species of snails, a sally lightfoot ect. They dont seem affected, especially the smaller snails. I have lots of polyps, zoos and mushrooms and they come out just fine. The zoos are reproducing every week it seems. My trates are zero on both test kits I have so I am at loss as to whats killing my bigger snails and why there is so much algae. Yes I use RO/DI water, I have done a 10g water change every week for the last three weeks in hopes of getting rid of the long term problem but that didnt help. This weekend I am picking up one or two tuxedo urchins since I heard they are great algae eaters. Oh yeah I have a lettuce nudi that is fine as well. Can anyone think of what the problem might be. My 65 is perfect so I am at a loss of what this problem is.

 

[terminus est]

Far from starving, big hair algae problem. I dont think its a crab either because basically the snail will park somewhere and not move for a day or two and then be dead. I already changed the PC light bulbs last month just to knock that one out. I am going out today to see about a small cheap cabinet and a 20gal for fuge. Got plenty of macro in the other tank.
I will watch the crabs though, I havent ruled that one out, I have three big ones but they are more concerned with wrestling each other than anything else. (all are same species too)

 

[hondo]

I would not add any more algae eaters as you have more than enough now to do the job. The problem is too many nutrients in the water. Remember just because you test 0 for nitrates doesn't mean that excessive nitrates is not the problem it only means that all the existing hair algae in the tank is getting the nitrates down to 0 but to get rid of the hair algae you have to get rid of the nitrates they are feeding off of.
What is in the tank (bioload)
what is your feeding schedule and what type of food
What is your filtration type and what skimmer do you have
What type of substrate is in this tank.
Have you tested for Phosphates

 

[overanalyzer]

what is your PH?? I was having he same exact problem and my PH tests are those silly color tests ... well I thought it was fine - until I had a store test it for me .... turns out the PH was 7.75 not the 8.0-8.2 I thought i was ......
SOme of my critters were in from the start and they survived - anything I added woudl die. My hairy shrooms and ricordeas would come out .....do you have Xenia in the tank?

 

[terminus est]

Just added a fuge with macro. Both have sand beds, the main is a DSB. Fish are all very small, the LMB is the biggest followed by a percula clown, rainford goby, orange spotted goby, 2 small PJ cards, an unknown 1" blenny, and a green chromis. No xenia as of yet, hoping to change that this weekend, I have heard they are great nutrient exporters. I will check out the PH. Food is flake food, once a day. I have cut back on thatin the last couple days as well.
Its odd how this is my small tank with clean eaters with all these problems when I have my big aggressive reef with messy eaters (lion, snowflake) but not a shred of algae hardly, nothing my 3 turbos cant handle with ease.
The reason I said large numbers of cerinths above is because I dont know how many of you have them, but they breed like rabbits but are very small in comparisson to normal sized snails so who knows how many I have. I started with 10 about 6 months ago, now they are hard to count.

 

[bang guy]

Most species of the snails we keep eat diatoms and can easily starve with hair algae all around them. This will take a couple of weeks though.
If they are dying faster than that then it could be you acclimation proceedure. The larger the snail and the greater the salinity difference the longer the acclimation period needs to be.
Those are the only two reasons I can think of.

 

[terminus est]

Mine was at 1.022 earlier, I have since brought it up to 1.023 since adding the ref. Bring it up again tomorrow.