Brown/Stringy Algae Problem... attaching to corals. What is it? What do I do?

[dturner]

Hey guys,

My saltwater system has been running a little over a year now. I did upgrade to a new tank about 2 weeks ago and used new sand, but kept majority of the old water and used all of the old live rock. As of the past couple weeks I have been having a bit of a stringy brown algae problem... it seems to affect the corals mostly, it seems like it attaches to the corals and definitely seems to keep polyps from extending, some more than others. My leathers and softies seem to be the worst affected by it, my leathers haven't opened fully/happily in a while.

I did a 30% water change 2 days ago hoping to help it and I have also done a blackout for 2 days this past week. Since the blackout I have very slowly kicked my T5's back on, I ran 2 actinics for 2 days for about 4 hours a day, I have just started running 3 additional actinics plus 1 12k daylight bulb as of today.

My parameters:
PH: 8.2
Phosphates <0.03
Ammonia & Nitrites = 0
Nitrates - Undetectable
Calcium 400
Alkalinity 9
Magnesium 1100ish (working on bringing this up)


I am running a GFO reactor with high capacity gfo with a BRS reactor. I have a 250 gallon rated reef octopus protein skimmer. I have 2 filter socks catching junk from my overflow. If I forgot any params, let me know and I will post them. Pic posted below to show what I am dealing with.

Please help me solve this problem. I think it may be affecting the well-being of my corals and I don't think it's diatoms.

 

[JR's Reef]

It look to be dino Problem Dinoflagellates and pH by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

 

[dturner]

Oh that doesn't sound good. Seems to be a very bad problem. UGH..

 

[dturner]

I have 3 clams and a bunch of SPS and LPS and soft corals... would it be bad if I blacked out my tank for a week? During the 2 days that I did the black out it seemed to help a lot.

 

[JR's Reef]

I have 3 clams and a bunch of SPS and LPS and soft corals... would it be bad if I blacked out my tank for a week? During the 2 days that I did the black out it seemed to help a lot.

The few times Ive dealt with it I got rid of it with high PH. Its pretty common thing to deal with in the spring when the temps in your house start to go up but normally only in newer setup tanks. Lights out for a week wouldnt be a good idea but you could do 2 off 1 on then 2 off again I dont think you would have a problem doing that

 

[Barky]

dturner, I found a post on reef central about someone who dosed 1ml of hydrogen peroxide for every 10gallons, I read the post and everybody had succes. I told a friend who had dino issues and she to seen results in a couple of days . Good Luck The Guide to get rid of dinoflagellates - Reef Central Online Community check this out

Brian

 

[olesalty]

i fought this same problem. Even with the black out periods it would come back as soon as i turned the lights back on for any length of time. I changed my ro system to one with spectapure silcabuster and it disappeared and havent seen it since.. So i assume i had silicates in my water that my ro unit wasnt taking out.

 

[dturner]

Thanks for all the helpful posts everyone, it's greatly appreciated. I think I am going to try the kalkwasser/high PH method first as that has seemed to work for people. Luckily I have caught it in its earlier stages so hopefully I stand a fighting chance.

 

[caudill187]

blackout, hydrogen peroxide, phosguard, carbon, + big water changes worked for me.

 

[REEFKEEPER10]

Look like it is cleaning itself off to me.