alge id. and how to get rid of it

[Jerzyray]

ok, What would each of you try to get rid of this stuff?

 

[Jerzyray]

Po4 reaches an equilibrium with the surrounding water.

what test kit do you guys use for po4?

 

[Fritzhamer]

I own a Hannah but you can tell by looking at the tank where your levels are at. Algae is a good indicator. I run a huge fuge now but when I see algae starting to creep out all over I put the reactors back in and prune the fuge back.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

ok, What would each of you try to get rid of this stuff?

what test kit do you guys use for po4?

Tooth brush snails check you're flow.

API. And I don't test much.
Not sure why.

 

[leepink23]

ok, What would each of you try to get rid of this stuff?

For me the two times I got cyano my nitrates were 0, now I try to keep them 2-4 and now my corals are growing. I also vacuum my gravel with water changes, make sure my rocks are cleaned for detritus, keep good flow and continue to keep my phosphates around 0.01. That's just what worked for me.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yet people grow algae with almost no detectable po4 or nitrates.

Yup. That's why cuc and manual removal is a must.
They did evolve in a low nutint environment.

And it's a scientific fact btw. Po4 in rock and sand reaches equilibrium in the tank.

 

[Fritzhamer]

Yup. That's why cuc and manual removal is a must.
They did evolve in a low nutint environment.

And it's a scientific fact btw. Po4 in rock and sand reaches equilibrium in the tank.

I'm not disputing that, it's why it takes so long to get rid of po4. My point was that every reef board has thousands of posts just like this one, except usually with test results showing there is "almost no phosphates". The reason is that the rock, sand and all the algae that started the post, have bound that po4 up. If you take some of that cyano and place it in a dark jar for three weeks I guarantee that water won't show .01 phosphates.

If you have algae, you have phosphates. I think cyano and most of these peat algaes take hold when the ratios are off po4 to nitrate, etc.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I'm not disputing that, it's why it takes so long to get rid of po4. My point was that every reef board has thousands of posts just like this one, except usually with test results showing there is "almost no phosphates". The reason is that the rock, sand and all the algae that started the post, have bound that po4 up. If you take some of that cyano and place it in a dark jar for three weeks I guarantee that water won't show .01 phosphates.

If you have algae, you have phosphates. I think cyano and most of these peat algaes take hold when the ratios are off po4 to nitrate, etc.

Again. Po4 on Rock and sand reach equilibrium with the surrounding water.

There is no verifiable research on po4 and no3 ratios save for some organisms uptake.

None that I have seen.

If have successful corals you also have po4. If you have po4 you don't necessarily have algae or cyano. I don't have cyano.

 

[Jerzyray]

Does it blow of is the question.
It could be an accumulation becuse the flow is dropping stuff there or some weird micro organism thing died.

yes it whipes right off

 

[Fritzhamer]

Again. Po4 on Rock and sand reach equilibrium with the surrounding water.

There is no verifiable research on po4 and no3 ratios save for some organisms uptake.

None that I have seen.

If have successful corals you also have po4. If you have po4 you don't necessarily have algae or cyano. I don't have cyano.

We are arguing the same point. If you have .82 phosphates a 100% water change won't bring you to zero due to all the po4 in the sand and rocks. The .82 in the sand and rocks will leach back into the water. PLUS all the po4 bound up in your bubble algae, hair algae, film on the glass, coralline, etc will at some point die and release the po4 back into the water.

My point was that people posting "how do I end this algae infestation, I have no detectable phosphates" don't actually have no phosphates. They have little phosphate in the water but it's there, clearly it's there in that closed system. Often indicative of other things off as well.

I'm not aware of any studies showing cyano from ratios being thrown off but it's been so heavily discussed with carbon dosing and biopellet use. I saw some when my biopellets brought my nitrates down to almost nothing, as have other posters in this thread. I also saw it when carbon dosing, as I believe the op is now.

I think the theory that these pest algaes are only able to outcompete macro algaes in scenarios where nutrient levels are out of whack is well documented. When near Redfield ratios, macro algaes outcompete the pest algaes. Didn't BRS do a video on this?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Oh yes. A 100 won't change it much at all. It lives into the sand. And so little goes into the water it stays in the tank. 100%

Didn't BRS do a video on this?

No I don't belive they did. I'm willing to look again if they did.
The resident chemist here seems to disagree. Other scientific and pro aquarist literature also seems to disagree.
But I'm willing to look

I agree there is pretty much always po4 in a system.

I'm saying the causes and reasons the odder organisms appear are far more complex than we commonly under stand. Many many a seasoned aquarist will note that Over a long time with a tank , odd algae sponges cyanos and other things will cycle though the system and disappear.
I have red gha right now. Well I did. It all fell apart and I knocked it off with a tooth brush.

So personally don't ever point to po4 as causality to these appearances and ime no amount of change to good regular schedule makes much difference.(also what the old timers had said) Its def good to double check your stuff , for all of us , and ask questions but.....it could be just the sump is dirty and blowing food back into the tank.
And the frag ya got last week was from direct from Fiji and you don't qt. I had the lime green cyano for a while. 8/9 months a couple years ago. That stuff is a trip.

 

[Fritzhamer]

The resident chemist here seems to disagree. Other scientific and pro aquarist literature also seems to disagree.
But I'm willing to look

I agree there is pretty much always po4 in a system.

I'm saying the causes and reasons the odder organisms appear are far more complex than we commonly under stand. Many many a seasoned aquarist will note that Over a long time with a tank , odd algae sponges cyanos and other things will cycle though the system and disappear.
I have red gha right now. Well I did. It all fell apart and I knocked it off with a tooth brush.

So personally don't ever point to po4 as causality to these appearances and ime no amount of change to good regular schedule makes much difference.(also what the old timers had said) Its def good to double check your stuff , for all of us , and ask questions but.....it could be just the sump is dirty and blowing food back into the tank.
And the frag ya got last week was from direct from Fiji and you don't qt. I had the lime green cyano for a while. 8/9 months a couple years ago. That stuff is a trip.

You should check out Diana Walstad's The Planted Aquaria. She sites far more studies than would be practical to do here. Granted it almost entirely pertains to fresh water algaes but it's still very relevant.

Cyano is airborne so in the way that all our tanks have po4, we also get constant exposure to cyano. (Maybe less so in the Midwest). There are also so many things dormant in live rock that I don't think these seemingly random algae cycles are at all random. It's just that conditions in our tank changed enough, allowing that particular algae to take hold and thrive over the other dominant algaes.

Every established tank has traces somewhere of different nuisance algaes but they are held at bay, confined to a few fringe spots. When one of them explodes and becomes an infestation it's safe to assume the conditions have shifted to be favorable to that one particular algae.

Booms of cyano are usually seen in areas where nutrient levels are high and at a ratio inconsistent with what is normally found in nature. If you read up on the Redfield ratio (literally endless studies here) you'll find that different algaes have different limiting factors in terms of no4. Whichever algae can best make use of a tanks ratio will likely become dominant, other factors accounted for.

Cyano is often found in tanks where the po4 is way outside of the Redfield ratio as cyano is really good at utilizing high po4 and less n, which other algaes aren't as good at.

If this were a different reefer I may not have so casually said "your phosphate is too high" but a reefer who has never seen cyano and wants to know if a tang will eat it, isn't someone likely (in my opinion) to have nutrients under control.

That is no way an insult to @Jerzyray by the way. I asked this exact same question twenty years ago or so. No one is born with a reef tank and asking questions and having things go wrong is how we all learn.

Back in my IT days I'd always caution new people to not look for the complicated answer. The more people know about something, the more complicated the problem could be. "Maybe it's a permissions issue on their group? Maybe there's a corruption on that hardware group? Perhaps we're having concatenation on that line?" - Did anyone make sure the printer is plugged in and powered on? ---

I like to start at the obvious and work my way up to a corruption in group permissions. Algae issues are almost always nutrient control problems.

 

[Fritzhamer]

Here's the BRS video:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/why-do-i-have-high-nitrates-but-low-phosphates.295414/

 

[Jerzyray]

I own a Hannah but you can tell by looking at the tank where your levels are at. Algae is a good indicator. I run a huge fuge now but when I see algae starting to creep out all over I put the reactors back in and prune the fuge back.

Ill give that a try. I have some seachem PhosGuard will that work? Or should I get some strait up GFO

 

[Fritzhamer]

I've never tried phosguard. I've always used straight up gfo. People seem to have guard results with both.

 

[leepink23]

Both have worked for me, i also like phosphate rx but you need a good skimmer for that. Do you use RODI? What food do you feed and how often?