Hi everyone, I have a 1 year old reef tank. It is 100 gallons, plus a 25 gallon sump. It has a magus curve 7 skimmer, 2 Ai sol lights from 9 am to 8 pm 14 inches awl. I have two wp25 that push a lot of water plus my return. I have only lps corals. My parameters are stable salinity is 1.026 p04 is near zero so is no3. I have a tlf reactor with biopellets that I just started. I have a uv sterilizer as well. All new bulbs and everything works fine. I sometimes put kalk in my ato. Now to the problem... I'm thinking it's diatoms on my sand bed that will not go away no matter how hard I try. I do weekly water changes etc.. I feed every other day either pellets or fresh food that I made. I two tangs, wrasse, 2 clowns, Niger trigger, and 2 chromis. I have cheatomorpha and dragons breath in sump. My sand is the caribsea a rag alive. Please help me get rid of this.... p.s I do have egg crate below the sandbed..
algae problem that will not go away !
- Thread starter Flameangel08
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It's a very thin layer. Not cyano. I just added more sand because I vacuumed most out. Maybe it was a major die off of my first type of sand I used that I covered with new sand? I started off with Caribbsea Fiji pink and then added Bahama oolite on top. Now I just added more oolite because most sand was already gone
First of all I think your photoperiod Is too long. I would suggest 8 hours only. Most of the time these issues are caused by excess nutrients. Algae has to have nutrients in order to survive. You may want to have your test results double checked by another source. Are you using rodi water? Have you tested your source water for tds? When you feed make sure all food is consumed within 2-3 minutes and don't let it hit the bottom of tank or go into rock.
If your thinking Diatoms, then I would say its Dinos, they look similar on start up, but are very difficult to get rid of.
Okay to mike007, I will turn down my photoperiod. I have a spectrapure maxcap 5 stage dual tds meter. The last tds meter that's tests the last two stages are at 0. I have only been doing 5 gallon water changes weekly but I will now be doing 30 gallons every two weeks since I built a nice set up that makes it a lot easier. I had a professional tank guy who is also my friend come test the water and on the Hannah p04 meter it was 0. I do not have any other algae what so ever except this stuff. I will post a pic soon. It's very frustrating but I am taking it one step at a time.
the sand bed definitely looks like cyano to me....the back glass - I'm not sure.....
yep exactly^. disappears when lights are off. Not cyano because i did the chemi clean treatment and it didn't do anything
I'm thinking it's diatoms. And I'm thinking it's my rodi water. Like I said it's the 5 stage rodi spectrapure dual tds. Pretty sure it has a silicate buster. It's 7 months old. How do I prevent silicates? I've had gfo and it didn't do squat. The brs brand. Maybe buy a silicate remover and put it into my water change water?
olesalty
Community Member
Dealing with the same issue ATM and its not my first time. Happened to me once before when I wasn't watching my to filters. The maxcap silicabuster cartridge went bad. One thing that helps is to not do water changes to feed it. I like to syphon it into a bucket with a filter sock before lights out and when the turn on.
Yes that Is cyno on the sand bed. I am battling this myself. I am using zeovit coral snow ,zeobak and zeoym. and It Is slowly going away. No one really knows why this crops up from time to time but It does. I have tried increased flow, water changes , vacuuming sand and that has not helped. I am running strong leds that are only 7 months old. I truly believe it is caused by nutrients that are coming from rock or the sand. I have slowed down on feeding also. Many people do a 3 day blackout with results but if you don't find the cause they will come back. Try reducing feeding , keep up with your water changes and vacuuming sand and hopefully it will go away. Also to note test results can be deceiving because the algae is consuming the nutrients.
it sounds like it acts like dino's
This is the problem I run into with other forums and hobbyists. Can't get the right answer between dino, cyano, or diatoms. I am leaning towards diatoms because I did a 3 day black out and it came back within an hour of lights being on.. my tank lights have been off for an hour and it's already gone.... I tried chemical clean for cyano and it didn't do anything. I have already seen dinos in the tank and got rid of them by removing the rock it was on. I am looking for a good silica buster maybe there's a better one then the spectrapure? If not, I'm still going to replace it. Is there any media or chemical I can put into my water change water to be certain silicates are removed?
olesalty
Community Member
I agree with the diatoms as it looks just like mine. I believe if your silcabuster filter went bad like mine it starts to leech the silcates back in. I changed mine you should do same if its seven months old. I use spectra too. Its a great filter to use. If you do some syphoning like I said into a filter sock. Then du.p that water back in it should go away on e they consumed what was leeched in I think.
it's just trying to help 
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