Algae help

[jmcdflag]

Hi,
All this tank grows is algae.

IM Fusion 15.
Lights Noopsych mini currently at 10% white, 40% Blue/purple
Fusion filter floss roller

8 months old - started with live rock.
2 healthy clowns, various snails (10?), and a watchman goby
3 very unhappy coral frags.

Do weekly water changes.

First had outbreak of GHA. After trying other methods, fixed that with FluxRx
Dosed with Copepods a couple months ago
Dose with live Phytoplankton daily
Was doing OK then I added a skimmer and things went to hell. Skimmer is now off. No idea if that's connected.

First battling what people said might be chrysophytes (after posting microscope video on the Dino group)
Was using AlgaeFix and dosing nitrate and seemed to be making good progress.
Then went on vacation for a week and come back to this gunk completely overtaken the tank. No idea what it is. Looked at it in the microscope and there is no movement so it's not Dinos.
My previously happy coral frags all closed up now.
Nitrates were crashed so I'm dosing Nitrate again.

All tests done with Salifert except Phosphorous done with Hannah ULR


Readings:
PH 8.2
Temp 79
Nitrate 1 (up from zero when I got back)
Phosphorous 0.1
Alk 9
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Salinity 1.025
Calcium 400
Magnesium 1200

Is this normal? I've done probably a thousand hours of research and spent probably $2000 and my tank just looks terrible most of the time.

All I want to have is a couple clown fish and soft corals. About to just cut my losses and trash the tank.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

The path getting to stability is rough, 8 months is still young in my book. I would manually clean as much as possible. you could do a black out for 3 days to set the algae back, but this will also effect your coral. Your tank biome needs to be helped. I went through dinos caused by algae in my sump, then cyano caused by the high nutrients. I did not spend money to combat them. I just stuck to regular maintenance and cleaning. The algae I see in your picture are feeding off high nutrient's. The testing can fool you because they are using the nitrates and phosphates. the only thing that you can buy that I would recommend is pods and possibly microbactor clean. You need to know what the PAR is in your tank. It may be to high causing the battle with to tilt in the algae's favor. Microbactor clean does not clear what you have, but can help knock it down and help prevent.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Hi,
All this tank grows is algae.

IM Fusion 15.
Lights Noopsych mini currently at 10% white, 40% Blue/purple
Fusion filter floss roller

8 months old - started with live rock.
2 healthy clowns, various snails (10?), and a watchman goby
3 very unhappy coral frags.

Do weekly water changes.

First had outbreak of GHA. After trying other methods, fixed that with FluxRx
Dosed with Copepods a couple months ago
Dose with live Phytoplankton daily
Was doing OK then I added a skimmer and things went to hell. Skimmer is now off. No idea if that's connected.

First battling what people said might be chrysophytes (after posting microscope video on the Dino group)
Was using AlgaeFix and dosing nitrate and seemed to be making good progress.
Then went on vacation for a week and come back to this gunk completely overtaken the tank. No idea what it is. Looked at it in the microscope and there is no movement so it's not Dinos.
My previously happy coral frags all closed up now.
Nitrates were crashed so I'm dosing Nitrate again.

All tests done with Salifert except Phosphorous done with Hannah ULR


Readings:
PH 8.2
Temp 79
Nitrate 1 (up from zero when I got back)
Phosphorous 0.1
Alk 9
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Salinity 1.025
Calcium 400
Magnesium 1200

Is this normal? I've done probably a thousand hours of research and spent probably $2000 and my tank just looks terrible most of the time.

All I want to have is a couple clown fish and soft corals. About to just cut my losses and trash the tank.

Also after you clean your glass with a scraper or any tools you use for maint. in your tank, need cleaned after use, I'm talking with peroxide, this will kill any algae that you have on them and keep from reintroducing it back into the tank.

 

[jmcdflag]

The path getting to stability is rough, 8 months is still young in my book. I would manually clean as much as possible. you could do a black out for 3 days to set the algae back, but this will also effect your coral. Your tank biome needs to be helped. I went through dinos caused by algae in my sump, then cyano caused by the high nutrients. I did not spend money to combat them. I just stuck to regular maintenance and cleaning. The algae I see in your picture are feeding off high nutrient's. The testing can fool you because they are using the nitrates and phosphates. the only thing that you can buy that I would recommend is pods and possibly microbactor clean. You need to know what the PAR is in your tank. It may be to high causing the battle with to tilt in the algae's favor. Microbactor clean does not clear what you have, but can help knock it down and help prevent.

Well, thanks for talking me off the ledge. :)

PAR on this light is like 350 at top, 250 at bottom at 50% all channels. Maybe just under 200 at bottom for my current settings - based on a youtube video from a guy with same size tank, same light.


So what I'm hearing is:

Clean off as much as I can
Stop dosing nitrate - just let it be zero?
Turn the skimmer back on to reduce nutrients?
Dose the AlgaeFix? Or no?
Dose microbacter
Get more copepods
Maybe turn off lights for 3 days?

Thanks!

 

[BlueBayouReefHTX]

My friend, this looks like dino to me. Specifically, Ostreopsis. You won’t know for sure until you look at it under a microscope. Dose neonitrate and neophos and get them up higher. Your parameters are basically bottomed out. Went through the same thing.

 

[BlueBayouReefHTX]

I see where you said you looked at it under a microscope. That’s interesting…not sure how long ago that was, you may try it again and see what you see.

 

[JerryB1232]

The path getting to stability is rough, 8 months is still young in my book. I would manually clean as much as possible. you could do a black out for 3 days to set the algae back, but this will also effect your coral. Your tank biome needs to be helped. I went through dinos caused by algae in my sump, then cyano caused by the high nutrients. I did not spend money to combat them. I just stuck to regular maintenance and cleaning. The algae I see in your picture are feeding off high nutrient's. The testing can fool you because they are using the nitrates and phosphates. the only thing that you can buy that I would recommend is pods and possibly microbactor clean. You need to know what the PAR is in your tank. It may be to high causing the battle with to tilt in the algae's favor. Microbactor clean does not clear what you have, but can help knock it down and help prevent.

Well, thanks for talking me off the ledge. :)

PAR on this light is like 350 at top, 250 at bottom at 50% all channels. Maybe just under 200 at bottom for my current settings - based on a youtube video from a guy with same size tank, same light.


So what I'm hearing is:

Clean off as much as I can
Stop dosing nitrate - just let it be zero?
Turn the skimmer back on to reduce nutrients?
Dose the AlgaeFix? Or no?
Dose microbacter
Get more copepods
Maybe turn off lights for 3 days?

Thanks!

1. Cleaning them off does nothing, but break apart the mates for them to assemble in a different area. If you want to clean them, you have to siphon them out. People do this by siphoning them into a 1 micron filter sock and letting the tank water fall into a bucket so they can reuse the water and not do a water change

2. I would definitively raise your nutrients, low nutrients will help them come back after you blackout the tank. Higher nutrients will help other things grow to outcompete the dinos when you do a blackout.

3. I would leave the skimmer, because it removes organic nutrients and not inorganic nutrients like you are dosing.

4. I would stop dosing algaefix, because in this case you want algae to grow, because your snails can eat algae, they cant eat dinos

5. In my head the copepods would make the situation worse because they would eat the algae you want to grow and not the dinos.

6. In this case you definitely need to do something to reset the playing field. A blackout is rough on corals, so I would consider other options like the filter socks before I resort to blackout.

In short, raise nutrients and then use a method to reset the playing field. You want other algae to grow and outcompete the dinos. Algae can be handled by your clean up crew, but nothing will eat dinos. Also turn down your lights for now, that PAR is pretty intense and is just helping them spread more.

 

[JerryB1232]

The path getting to stability is rough, 8 months is still young in my book. I would manually clean as much as possible. you could do a black out for 3 days to set the algae back, but this will also effect your coral. Your tank biome needs to be helped. I went through dinos caused by algae in my sump, then cyano caused by the high nutrients. I did not spend money to combat them. I just stuck to regular maintenance and cleaning. The algae I see in your picture are feeding off high nutrient's. The testing can fool you because they are using the nitrates and phosphates. the only thing that you can buy that I would recommend is pods and possibly microbactor clean. You need to know what the PAR is in your tank. It may be to high causing the battle with to tilt in the algae's favor. Microbactor clean does not clear what you have, but can help knock it down and help prevent.

Well, thanks for talking me off the ledge. :)

PAR on this light is like 350 at top, 250 at bottom at 50% all channels. Maybe just under 200 at bottom for my current settings - based on a youtube video from a guy with same size tank, same light.


So what I'm hearing is:

Clean off as much as I can
Stop dosing nitrate - just let it be zero?
Turn the skimmer back on to reduce nutrients?
Dose the AlgaeFix? Or no?
Dose microbacter
Get more copepods
Maybe turn off lights for 3 days?

Thanks!

1. Cleaning them off does nothing, but break apart the mates for them to assemble in a different area. If you want to clean them, you have to siphon them out. People do this by siphoning them into a 1 micron filter sock and letting the tank water fall into a bucket so they can reuse the water and not do a water change

2. I would definitively raise your nutrients, low nutrients will help them come back after you blackout the tank. Higher nutrients will help other things grow to outcompete the dinos when you do a blackout.

3. I would leave the skimmer, because it removes organic nutrients and not inorganic nutrients like you are dosing.

4. I would stop dosing algaefix, because in this case you want algae to grow, because your snails can eat algae, they cant eat dinos

5. In my head the copepods would make the situation worse because they would eat the algae you want to grow and not the dinos.

6. In this case you definitely need to do something to reset the playing field. A blackout is rough on corals, so I would consider other options like the filter socks before I resort to blackout.

In short, raise nutrients and then use a method to reset the playing field. You want other algae to grow and outcompete the dinos. Algae can be handled by your clean up crew, but nothing will eat dinos. Also turn down your lights for now, that PAR is pretty intense and is just helping them spread more.

@jmcdflag I accidentally quoted the wrong post

 

[jmcdflag]

Just figured out that I was prepping my microscope slides wrong. I was putting the drop on the slide then covering with another slide.
Figured out there are covers made specifically for that and I'm seeing a completely different picture. Most definitely dinos.

 

[Skywater]

Just figured out that I was prepping my microscope slides wrong. I was putting the drop on the slide then covering with another slide.
Figured out there are covers made specifically for that and I'm seeing a completely different picture. Most definitely dinos.

Turf algae scrubber,will help. If you study them you will see several ways they can and will diminish nuisance algae. You can easily control the nutrients with a turf scrubber with how much light you run in your scrubber.

 

[Popeye_ali]

Have you done an ICP test out of interest if you’ve been fighting for a while?
As the others say, the nutrients are being swallowed up quicker than what’s left within the water column

 

[Popeye_ali]

I would go back to basics.
I personally would cut the chemicals, drop the lighting schedule a bit, make sure you’ve got good flow. Syphon what you can and do frequent WC for the next few weeks. Just get back to stability and a regimented routine.

 

[FishLvR]

I think I defeated my dino. But now I have a new algae. Looks like byprosis but unsure if that's it without the scope. I ordered a bunch of live rock from two companies to see about starting a refugium. It wasn't too bad to beat, but I can never seem to get ahead and that is where I get discouraged.

 

[jmcdflag]

Here are my microscope videos if it helps. Thanks for all the input. Have reduced lighting, will discontinue chemical treatment. Have gotten my nitrates up to 10 so that should help. Also increased flow.

 

[jabberwock]

My suggestions are to switch to micro daily water changes. In my 25 gal, I add 2 16 oz red cups of new red sea salt water and dip 2 16 oz red cups out of the tank every day. I would also add some real ocean live rock and sand. I love TBS products! https://tbsaltwater.com/products/jar-package

 

[jmcdflag]

My suggestions are to switch to micro daily water changes. In my 25 gal, I add 2 16 oz red cups of new red sea salt water and dip 2 16 oz red cups out of the tank every day. I would also add some real ocean live rock and sand. I love TBS products! https://tbsaltwater.com/products/jar-package

Thanks! I did start with both true live rock and sand. Got some interesting hitchikers!