algae id? And how to solve it.

Alexreefer · Jan 19, 2019

I have had this tank set up for 7 and a half months now and I have been battling to love this problem. I think its cyano but I have dosed red cyano Rx and chemiclean and none have shown any affects at removing it. I have lost all but two fish and my corals look very bad. I am on my second day of the 3-day medication of red cyano Rx. Will post picture's soon.

sfin52 · Jan 19, 2019

What's your po4and no3 numbers. Pics will really help.

Alexreefer · Jan 20, 2019

sfin52 said:
What's your po4and no3 numbers. Pics will really help.

Will post when I get out of work today.

Alexreefer · Jan 20, 2019

This is the tank without blues. It is covered in a cyano like algae but it won't go away. I turned up the light cycle in the refugium to try and combat some of the cyano in the DT but it grows down there and it doesn't help. I am thinking about doing a three day lights off but My corals are already so stressed out that I'm afraid they might die so I plan to do the following. When I do my water change tomorrow I will take my orals out and place them in two buckets. I will place the frags in a bucket and put egg crate to hold them up. As for my My big green coral you see in the second picture which I still don't know what it is will go in alone as he is about 8 inches across. I plan on putting my two Ai primes to light the buckets and keep a close eye on them. Does this seem ok? Any suggestions. Will post my params in a few. Plan on fixing the aquascape during the water change and will siphon out all detritus and clean the sand.

Thanks, Alex

Alexreefer · Jan 23, 2019

Today is day 1 and a half of the three day lights off. I placed my corals in buckets with an ai prime. I plan on taking my rocks out on day three and putting them in a peroxide/saltwater bath for about a day or two. Will this have any negative affects on the rock. Should I have my refugium light on? Lastly should I do a water change after the 3 day black out?

Hemmdog · Jan 23, 2019

Alexreefer said:
Today is day 1 and a half of the three day lights off. I placed my corals in buckets with an ai prime. I plan on taking my rocks out on day three and putting them in a peroxide/saltwater bath for about a day or two. Will this have any negative affects on the rock. Should I have my refugium light on? Lastly should I do a water change after the 3 day black out?

Not sure but how are you heating and providing flow and oxygen to these buckets?

Alexreefer · Jan 23, 2019

Hemmdog said:
Not sure but how are you heating and providing flow and oxygen to these buckets?

I have two air stones and heaters placed in the buckets

AustinB · Jan 23, 2019

It almost looks like a diatom bloom? I see a brown film in the pictures is that what it looks like, fuzzy brown film?

Alexreefer · Jan 24, 2019

AustinB said:
It almost looks like a diatom bloom? I see a brown film in the pictures is that what it looks like, fuzzy brown film?

Might be as I have battling it as cyano but not sure now. Going to do wc today and put rocks in a peroxide bath for a day or two

AustinB · Jan 24, 2019

Where do you get your water from?

Alexreefer · Jan 25, 2019

I use a Rodi with 0 tds water. I use a mix of omega sea salt and red sea coral pro

AustinB · Jan 27, 2019

Sorry I didn’t check back in. What were your water parameters at, and how did the blackout go?

Alexreefer · Jan 27, 2019

I just performed my water change and all params are now in a good range. I did a 3 day black out and most of my algae went away then I took all my rocks out and placed them in a 30 gal sterilite container and put in h202 everyday for 3 days. All rocks are clean of algae and while rocks were in the container I kept the light off in the dt. Sadly for some odd reason I lost all my lps which is sad but now I can really focus on how I want my tank to look. Will post pictures tmr when lights are on.

Alexreefer · Jan 30, 2019

Her is the tank today without blues. It looks very good. Hopefully, it stays that way. fingers crossed

Alexreefer · Jan 30, 2019

Any idea what caused this and how I can prevent it in the future? #reefsquad?

saltyfilmfolks · Jan 30, 2019

Alexreefer said:
Any idea what caused this and how I can prevent it in the future? #reefsquad?

Add a wide variety of snails.

Alexreefer · Jan 30, 2019

Will do. Plan on leaving the tank on autopilot for a couple weeks to see if the algae or cyano comes back

wlittlefield · Jan 30, 2019

Be careful and go slow. I did a similar thing with my rock when I was starting. However, by letting them swim it h2o2 you basically kill a big portion the 'live' part of your rock. That means they will likely need re-cycle and populate with beneficial bacteria. As that is underway, you'll want to control nutrients going into the tank or risk major nutrient/ ammonia / phosphate swings.

As I said, I tried a similar method to get rid of bryopsis. It did sort of work, but performing such a jarring action was difficult on the tank and set of a serious chain reaction that was equally challenging to control.

Alexreefer · Jan 31, 2019

wlittlefield said:
Be careful and go slow. I did a similar thing with my rock when I was starting. However, by letting them swim it h2o2 you basically kill a big portion the 'live' part of your rock. That means they will likely need re-cycle and populate with beneficial bacteria. As that is underway, you'll want to control nutrients going into the tank or risk major nutrient/ ammonia / phosphate swings.

As I said, I tried a similar method to get rid of bryopsis. It did sort of work, but performing such a jarring action was difficult on the tank and set of a serious chain reaction that was equally challenging to control.

Will do. Thanks for the heads up. Will get some microbacter7 and monitor my nutrients closely