Algae I can't identify or get rid of!

[landlocked303]

I have had this biocube running for about 6 months and have gone through some new tank algae blooms like diatoms and cyano. About 6 weeks ago I had this brownish algae that is very dust like (can be blown off substate easily with turkey baster) and I cannot figure out what it is or how to get rid of it. Here is some details about the tank: Filtration: biopure balls, protein skimmer, algae scrubber, carbon. I used to run gfo but got rid of that about 3 weeks ago to try the algae scrubber. I cannot get ANY growth with the scrubber. Parameters: Nitrate is 0, Phosphate is 0, dKh 8.6, Ca 435, Mg 1600. I was doing 50% water changes every week because I thought the water quality was bad. I stir up the sand to clear detritus. I didn't believe phos was 0 but now that I can't grow any algae in the scrubber I believe it. It doesn't seem like diatoms that I usually experience in a new tank and this one is 6 months old. Any ideas? ID the algae? Can my tank be too low nutrient? I'll include pics...

 

[brandon429]

heavy white lighting vs heavy blue would be my first counter to that condition, second would be a takedown cleaning just like we show on page six of the sand rinse thread kicked up under this thread. those are normal reef invaders when the tank isn't covered in coralline and excluding coral flesh...that real estate is wide open for invaders until then, so we hand guide that stuff out easily. thankfully this wasn't green hair algae allowed to seat in, this invader likely diatoms is easy to fix. if that was my tank, it would be fixed in 24 hours and look that way, applying the methods from page 6 we documented.

after completion, you'd be able to reach in there and grab handful of sand and drop it down, and zero clouding would result, the sand and rocks would be pristinely clean. fix that lighting to much less white, up the blue, prob solved high likelihood.

 

[brandon429]

page six

http://reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/page-6

see Donald's great pics

 

[landlocked303]

So you suggest taking out the sand and rinsing it with either salt h20 or RO/DI and then putting it back in? Also you think the actinic lighting isn't strong enough? The brown algae is on the rocks, back of the tank, power heads, and glass... not just the sand.

 

[brandon429]

I agree its evenly cast about and not just located in the sand, we just like to do thorough cleanings in that thread. Others would recommend just siphon removing it all out topically and then taking retroactive measures, we just collect examples of really deep cleans. If you didn't like the disassembly approach for first go, a thorough topical hand cleaning/siphoning of all that fully out of the tank, leaving the bed alone, and then decreasing white lighting by a large margin w help for sure. above all I think the white levels are the cause, I can generate that exact brown film in my tank if I just take my Kessil and crank it over to the 10 k setting.

the skip cycle cleanings for that thread are several steps to be done safely, in an order like this for your tank

catch fish hold in a container of clean water matching temp and salinity to this current water

in sep bucket for rocks take them out of your tank, rinse in saltwater externally, then put into clean water holding bucket totally cleaned of the invader. holding bucket is not the tank water, its new and salinity/temp matched clean water

that now leaves only the tank with no rocks or fish or corals, they're in holding. the tank can be disassembled fully at that point, the walls and pumps and all surfaces cleaned off. sand rinsed powerfully, final rinse in clean saltwater, then all put back over as if it was a new tank.

it skips the cycle because none of those steps is antibacterial medication. the disassembly allows you to mass rid the invader quick, then the change in lighting makes it hard to grow back.

the other way is safer, less takedown, but its leaving an invader in place vs making it fight to come back, at least its good to see options for each approach before going w one

 

[landlocked303]

I don't have any issue doing a big clean like that I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing. So I can literally pull my sand and rinse it and put it back in without major issues? I have done several top cleanings of the sand only to get the problem again in a day or two. I just use the stock lighting for the biocube so I can't do much about the lighting at the moment... Thinking about an led upgrade tho. It appears I can just get the new led canopy for the biocube. Haven't read much if people have had good results with them though...

 

[brandon429]

in that video posted im rinsing my sand in tap water then setting 11 yrs worth of coral and rocks back on top of it *after saltwater rinse* for a totally clean insta tank.

if you have any way of raising the light to lower intensity that would be a nice offset. even if you cant adjust it, you can still battle that invader by raw export theres nothing actually wrong w that light, it just selects for a little more white. we can muscle the stuff out then.


during big cleaning follow ups, when crashes happened these were the avoidable causes:
1. a poster didn't have enough saltwater ready to both fill up his tank after the change, and rinse the tap cleanly out of his sand. With an RO rinse you'd never have to worry about that. he put his tank back together over partially rinsed out tap water sandbed, chlorine irritation tank but no losses just stress, it dissipates quickly but that's an avoidable condition

2. recently at nano-reef.com a rip cleaner forgot to verify the sand was fully rinsed and when they reassembled everything a gigantic mess of detritus was still available for clouding, and to forbid clouding was the whole point of a rip clean. they literally took apart a dirty bed, rinsed it 1/4th, and put it back together with most of the waste now fully stirred up across the tank, they too I think didn't have enough water for both a full water change and the rinsing required.

3. a poster kept his fish in the same holding bucket as rock (so we adjusted our order of ops to be different) and tons of detritus was in that old rock, causing an ammonia event inside a holding bucket of small dilution, fish death. Detritus nonfactored is the risk in most times, predict where it w be and account for it.

being thorough is the hardest part of these runs because it seems so risky. its the non thorough actions that w kill a tank. the catch-22 is that in being partial with cleaning there's not really a cycle risk, but we leave so much waste causing the problems when a simple order of operations parted cleaning would have fixed both problems. your tank is new and easily accessible, its ripe for a run if you'd like. I like the idea of RO vs tap for your first go

I put my video on page six to show how clean sand looks when we drop test it

if you do that tuneup we'd love your pics, its scary first go :) but in time its just another Tuesday's events. my tank has had innumerable rip cleanings its 11 yrs old and only one single gallon, zero room for error. packed to the hilt w corals.