Algae Outbreak!!!

[midtnmike41]

IT'S BACK!!! This is becoming a real struggle. My tank has been doing great for months, added some frags, they are doing great and growing nicely. They look white and bleached in the pics but its my camera, they look good. In the last 2 weeks I started seeing patches of the green hair algae again. No clue what to do about it again. I am feeding very little, lots of flow, parameters look good. I need some advice how you guys keep your tanks algae free. Below are my parameters and light cycle.

Salinity 1.026
Nitrate: 0
Phos: .02
calc 420
alk 8.5
mag 1375
temp 78
0 TDS on RODI water

 

[brandon429]

I would have strictly used 35% on that as external rasp treats but the new additive Vibrant is strong apparently, worth a try for a few dollars for sure. Its in the main forum as a new retail additive, makes strong claims, for you it would be only water dosing and it should go away, not sure how that sustains but check the thread its building strong. I would have also made sure we did a tangible lowering of white spectrum and more favoring the blue for the new evaluation period if we never mentioned that prior...but that doser, they're saying 1:10 and that algae you have will stop.

when the surfaces are made white, that opens them to colonization again as a cycle, the clean up crews or hand work simply guides it back, until its purple coralline + invaders. cyclic...that doser is claiming to be independent of those biocycles and that's one tall order

there was a time in reefing where keeping small reefs was 'impossible' and we shattered that notion. for someone to come up with some bio combo of bacteria in a bottle to attack algae isn't impossible to behold just needs testing.

 

[midtnmike41]

I need to do a water change this weekend so I will get what I can off with a toothbrush but I will try the Vibrant. I will post my results. If it wasn't for GHA I would love this hobby!

 

[djd3mon]

I have been using Vibrant for roughly 3 weeks now. I cal tell you it is very slow to work. Right now I am seeing my tank glass is SUPER CLEAR. my hair algae is pretty weak, but still there. It is no longer spreading though. I wish this Bryopsis would hurry up and die. I took out as much algae I could and have been dosing 2.5ml 2-3 times a week along with 30% water changes weekly. It is surely but slowly working.

 

[midtnmike41]

I have been using Vibrant for roughly 3 weeks now. I cal tell you it is very slow to work. Right now I am seeing my tank glass is SUPER CLEAR. my hair algae is pretty weak, but still there. It is no longer spreading though. I wish this Bryopsis would hurry up and die. I took out as much algae I could and have been dosing 2.5ml 2-3 times a week along with 30% water changes weekly. It is surely but slowly working.

Good to know! I am only battling hair algae at the moment, but seems like an eternity.

 

[djd3mon]

I don't have it as bad as you I would at least double dose. 2.5ml twice a week.

 

[dbdisok]

I was successful using Dr. Tim's Refresh followed by Waste Away.

Your problem is cause by excess nutrients built up in your system over time. The products work to breakdown the nutrients.

 

[midtnmike41]

Hey @brandon429, just a quick update. Tank is thriving now. Quick question, any harm in dosing peroxide in lows levels to entire tank daily? I'm thinking 10ml dose for a 100 gallon tank. I had a cyano outbreak about 2 weeks ago and was hoping peroxide would help knock that down and keep it under control. I do have a fire shrimp in the tank, I think I remember reading they don't like it.

 

[fscbishop]

I used vibrant with great results, I also run a algae scrubber, it works well

 

[midtnmike41]

This actually started when I used vibrant. I have not had cyano in a LONG time until I used vibrant to rid some green hair algae patches, and it worked. It started off small and would go away but now its covering my sand bed and doesn't seem to be receding. I've stirred and vacuumed just keeps returning.

 

[brandon429]

That's great to hear about the tank!

√ support trying vibrant simply because a large number of tanks in the vibrant thread showed good results. In my opinion any cyano should be battled by full hand cleaning first, then actions taken to the water only in the absent/cleaned condition

Dosing X to a tank with cyano clearly accumulated makes the job harder for X

Is far easier to suppress a regrowth vs have a single dose both kill and facilitate breakdown all in tank

The hand removal can be expected to be cyclic for a while as reefs will do, and bluer settings on the lighting vs whites is helping many as well in combination

Peroxide rates low imo on the scale of good cyano cures dosed into water based on thread offerings. It's very predictable in terms of tolerant organisms as a benefit and like you mentioned lysmata are unlikely to survive it going off post statistics.

Can it work as a regrowth preventer? Yes. But if it was my large tank there'd be a UV inline to cheat burn any monerans long before they aggregated ~ + hand removal.

I guide cyano right out of my pico tank and it appears predictably when laziness sets in. the accumulations come back when sandbed starts to accumulate and stay gone months between bed cleanings.

cyano \ spirulina and species of green micro algae classify as recurring invaders in a reef tank due to distribution modes. They wind up in street pushes.

Cyclic in battle, not an indicator of things wrong when they show up... expected and dealt w. is how I view cyano battling. I see it opposite of green hair algae battling.

Green hair algae or bryopsis or invasive dinos are requisite hitch hikers and potential invaders, so I like to remove them by damaging the rock anchor surface lightly, then externally treat the cleaned area with 35% direct. Algae will not build mass in those conditions and imported invaders can be forced out such that over five years now only the cyano shows up in my tank to reflect on over feeding or export laziness

Gha and variants do not grow on the rocks, it's solid coralline I've done zero algae work on rocks in five years and I have no grazers, fish, (coral only) and no more frag imports (all full) so the only invaders I'll ever see are the ones that cross-contaminate from the natural environment (air and water vectors)

I believe fierce hand guiding, knives as rock picks as needed + powerful surface burn with chem cannot be equalled for selecting out anchored invaders in a reef tank. Peroxide as an attempt in the 1:10 ratio is typically safe we show but truly I never dump anything in my water but cyclopeeze and rods food chunks.

Tank draining and then accessing the surfaces once needed with needle-delivered 35% peroxide blasted out any gha its simply gone and not part of the tank biota I hope.

 

[O'l Salty]

My tank is 3 months old and I'm getting some GHA, cyano and some tan/brown fuzz type of growth on most of the rocks.

I'm going to remove my rock and clean. Should I spray 100% peroxide on the rock then brush and rinse?

I have a couple of zoa frags I want to treat. Should I remove them and soak in a 3% to 10% solution for a couple minutes then return them to the tank?

 

[arman]

I think tangs will work for you much more better than snails and crabs.

 

[brandon429]

Where avail, it's better to reverse the treatment above

Brush and use a metal tool/knife outside the tank on the rock to remove all the algae first so you are digging up the holdfasts/anchors and then rinse it all off where it appears to be algae free

Then use peroxide on the cleaned spot to catch cellular stragglers, this is rock n roll algae control

 

[midtnmike41]

It's been about a year since I spent a week scrubbing algae off rocks. Tank is still doing great and all I am doing is skimming and two part. Corals lost color due to no nutrients so I cut the carbon and gfo out, cut back on water changes and things colored up and started growing. So not only is my tank looking better than ever, its easier to maintain. WIN! @brandon429

 

[brandon429]

O DANG man that's beauty I remember these works well. dedication.com

 

[midtnmike41]

Just another update. Things are going great, seeing growth and great color. Thanks again @brandon429

 

[brandon429]

Mike that’s so sharp those are bouquet caps

This is now linked to a -take action- thread at nano reef.com

the colony growth between those two pics is powerful

 

[brandon429]

I linked this tank as work examples in the past, and to get to see it in full bloom sans invader is the rarest payoff man.

there's no telling how many large tanks we lost to invasion since you've been guiding yours into compliance. Most will not accept more than one gardening session as a legit form of control. after delaying action mos/weeks, res publica is expecting a one off event to undo all that...undo something that will seat into a reef given mere import, much less any help with nutrients in their favor...and we know that depending on tank variables it could take several work sessions. until each tank can find its grazer match (lucky) to do this detailing for them, our constant struggle, we have our hands and our will as stand ins.

I do not know of a better example of a large tank turnaround than this one Sir

darn nice
B

 

[midtnmike41]

Thank you sir! It was a frustrating time. I honestly think if I did not already have so much time, money, and livestock already invested I would have given up. I am very glad I did not. Looking back there were some things I would have done different in the beginning. I started off with brand new white dry rock. I did not let it "cook" and I blasted it with high powered LEDs from day one. I cant prove it, but I feel like contributed to my algae problem. So if I were starting a new tank again I would heat the new rock in a bin of heated saltwater for a few months before setting up the tank, and I would keep lights very low until the rock had a change to form a little protective film. Just my thoughts on it.