5 month old tank, need advice on algae?

[L0stNoodle]

Hey yall I’m new to the forum, I started my tank five months ago and wanted to get some insights. I’ve got a WaterBox cube 20 with a mp10, and I use RODI water i buy from local fish shop. I have 1 banggai cardinal, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 pom pom crab, and recently just got 1 skunk cleaner shrimp. I also have 2 nessarius snails and 2 trochus snails. I’m probably not adding any more livestock except for CUC and corals from now on.

Tested my water today, Nitrate is between 5-10 ppm, and phosphate is .25ppm. I’m looking for some advice on the algae/bacteria that’s popping up in my tank. I think this is cyano? it’s on my sand everywhere, and comes back the next day after I blow the sand around to clean it. I know you’re supposed to go through an ugly phase when your tank is under 1 year old, but I’m looking for insights to see if this is normal or if there’s anything I can do better to make the sand and overall tank stay cleaner. My tank is near a window so during the day, it does get a lot of indirect sunlight too. I had some bubble algae (think it was from one of the frags) that i cleaned up and I have some hair algae here and there too that I also regularly pluck out.

Any advice would be helpful thanks!

 

[tbrown]

Kinda looks like Diatoms.

 

[RFLKPTR]

Hey! Dinoflagellates or diatoms. I know you've already spent considerable money and time on this hobby, but try getting a microscope and checking out what you have in your tank. It's a good way to educate yourself and you'll follow some rabbit holes to other informative parts of the hobby.

Not cyanobacteria in my opinion. Nothing so serious as to make any quick changes.

 

[Science/G]

They look exactly like the dinos I have in my classroom reef aquarium. I have looked at them under a microscope so they are dinoflagellates for sure. You probably have a mixture of diatoms in there as well. I would try to bring down your phosphates a little bit with maybe some gfo, and just continue your regular maintenance. Adjusting your light adding more blue to the spectrum might make things look a little bit better.

 

[dloberry]

If you have not added them you can try some copepods, but this is normal.

 

[Brocksamson7]

Copepods. Phytoplankton. If you can order some rubble from gulf live rock or Tampa bay saltwater put that in your overflow area. Get some brightwell phosphat-e to get that phosphate down.
Clean your socks if you’re using them. Better yet take your socks out and use filter floss in a basket instead and change it out every few days. It’s easier. That tank is so small little filtration and weekly water changes will fix a lot.

 

[Benymate]

Hey yall I’m new to the forum, I started my tank five months ago and wanted to get some insights. I’ve got a WaterBox cube 20 with a mp10, and I use RODI water i buy from local fish shop. I have 1 banggai cardinal, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 pom pom crab, and recently just got 1 skunk cleaner shrimp. I also have 2 nessarius snails and 2 trochus snails. I’m probably not adding any more livestock except for CUC and corals from now on.

Tested my water today, Nitrate is between 5-10 ppm, and phosphate is .25ppm. I’m looking for some advice on the algae/bacteria that’s popping up in my tank. I think this is cyano? it’s on my sand everywhere, and comes back the next day after I blow the sand around to clean it. I know you’re supposed to go through an ugly phase when your tank is under 1 year old, but I’m looking for insights to see if this is normal or if there’s anything I can do better to make the sand and overall tank stay cleaner. My tank is near a window so during the day, it does get a lot of indirect sunlight too. I had some bubble algae (think it was from one of the frags) that i cleaned up and I have some hair algae here and there too that I also regularly pluck out.

Any advice would be helpful thanks!

That phosphate at 0.25 is your issue and I’d put money on your source water being the culprit. Buying RODI from a fish shop is risky, their membranes and resin need regular changing and most don’t stay on top of it. You could be introducing phosphate before it even hits the tank. Test the water straight from the jug before it goes in, if it’s reading phosphate there’s your answer.
The window also needs to go. Indirect sunlight is still light, cyano doesn’t care that it’s not direct, it’ll feed off ambient light all day stacked on top of your display lighting. Block it completely.
Cyano is almost always flow and nutrients. You’ve potentially got both, check for dead spots on the sandbed too, MP10 is good but placement matters. Blow the sand, sure, but if the flow isn’t covering that area continuously it’ll just come straight back which is exactly what you’re seeing.
Fix the source water first. Everything else is secondary until you know what’s actually going into the tank.

 

[Euphyllia97]

Amphidinium Dinoflagellates and not cyano is my guess :)

 

[fish_collector]

Scoop up some of the sand and put it in a container with tank water, cap it and shake it up, then let it sit for 1/2 or so. If the contents of the container combine into strings then you've got dinoflagellates, if it just settles to the bottom it's diatoms.

Your phosphate at .25 is not entirely the reason you are having this type of growth in your tank. My own sps tank has phosphate levels at .35 and I have zero nuisance algae, so keep that in mind if you are looking to reduce the level. It certainly doesn't hurt to reduce it but IMO it's not the reason.

Your tank is new and does not have all of the organisms that it needs to function as a closed system yet. Unfortunately there is no magic bottle of fix-all that contains these organisms. I just siphoned out a bunch of detritus from under my frag racks recently and thought to myself as I was pouring it down the toilet "there's someone somewhere who could put this into their tank and solve many of their problems immediately" lol.

I don't suggest making too many changes all at once. As has been mentioned, verify your source water or better yet make your own. Keep up with tank cleaning, and by that I mean siphon the sand regularly into a bucket and discard that water (you'd be surprised how many reefers don't know how to use a gravel siphon-I'll explain it if need be), reduce the amount of light that hits the tank, keep the neck of your skimmer clean if you use one, point a powerhead at the surface to agitate the water thoroughly, don't overfeed but offer enough to fulfil the fishes needs, eliminate ALL bottled products...you don't need them...ever, fish food and a water change now and then will be enough to keep a 20g going.

I'm afraid you will just have to just wait this out, it will get better and easier after a year or so has passed if you follow the basics. And I agree some real live rock may help, TBS has some nano packages that are actually really affordable.

 

[L0stNoodle]

Hey Everyone! There’s still a lot for me to learn so I appreciate everyone’s responses and insights! I bought some copepods to help after suggested by dloberry and Brocksamson7. I’m looking into buying real live rock now. I saw doubts about me buying RODI from my local fish shop and unfortunately, it’s the only way I can get RODI water atm. RODI filtration just does not work well with my apt sink, I’ve tried many times.

I was doing water changes every other week, because my nitrate would deplete a lot from water changes but I’ll try to do a smaller weekly change to see if that’s better

 

[L0stNoodle]

Scoop up some of the sand and put it in a container with tank water, cap it and shake it up, then let it sit for 1/2 or so. If the contents of the container combine into strings then you've got dinoflagellates, if it just settles to the bottom it's diatoms.

Your phosphate at .25 is not entirely the reason you are having this type of growth in your tank. My own sps tank has phosphate levels at .35 and I have zero nuisance algae, so keep that in mind if you are looking to reduce the level. It certainly doesn't hurt to reduce it but IMO it's not the reason.

Your tank is new and does not have all of the organisms that it needs to function as a closed system yet. Unfortunately there is no magic bottle of fix-all that contains these organisms. I just siphoned out a bunch of detritus from under my frag racks recently and thought to myself as I was pouring it down the toilet "there's someone somewhere who could put this into their tank and solve many of their problems immediately" lol.

I don't suggest making too many changes all at once. As has been mentioned, verify your source water or better yet make your own. Keep up with tank cleaning, and by that I mean siphon the sand regularly into a bucket and discard that water (you'd be surprised how many reefers don't know how to use a gravel siphon-I'll explain it if need be), reduce the amount of light that hits the tank, keep the neck of your skimmer clean if you use one, point a powerhead at the surface to agitate the water thoroughly, don't overfeed but offer enough to fulfil the fishes needs, eliminate ALL bottled products...you don't need them...ever, fish food and a water change now and then will be enough to keep a 20g going.

I'm afraid you will just have to just wait this out, it will get better and easier after a year or so has passed if you follow the basics. And I agree some real live rock may help, TBS has some nano packages that are actually really affordable.

this was all really helpful, thank you

 

[Paul B]

I personally wouldn't do anything. It looks normal to me. I have about 50 times more algae than you have and I like it as it is normal and healthy. Eventually all that will work out on it's own, unless you put in some chemicals to "fix" it. That is how people crash their tanks or get them off to a bad start.

 

[L0stNoodle]

I personally wouldn't do anything. It looks normal to me. I have about 50 times more algae than you have and I like it as it is normal and healthy. Eventually all that will work out on it's own, unless you put in some chemicals to "fix" it. That is how people crash their tanks or get them off to a bad start.

I don’t really mind the algae on my rocks, I’m just not crazy about my sand looking like rust. The picture was after i blew on it with a baster so it can look worse than that. I think my tank is too young for me to put any chemicals in it right now.

I just added some copepods and going to switch to weekly 1gal water change. I also reduced the white light in my schedule. I’m also looking into a more accurate water testing kit. I currently use API Reef Master Test Kit and I’m kind of guessing on these reads sometimes because the colors are so similar.

Just waiting out this ugly phase xD

 

[wingster]

Copepods did the trick for me, my tank is the same age as yours. I dumped in 3 bottles and " injected" a 1/2 of a bottle of the 3 into the sand with a turkey baster, My tank was clear in two days.