Amazing progress, but still having issues, (ID help and advice)

[rennjidk]

So, here's where I stand. My tank was overrun with dinos, cyano, and bubble algae. I do mean OVERRUN. Instead of rebooting like I initially intended, I settled on a treatment attempt first.

Here's the tank day one, with so many dinos it's hard to see.

Almost every single rock surface looked like this. The bubble algae was incredible.

I started by testing parameters. 0.0 No3 and 0.1 Po4. Not surprising. I've never been able to raise the No3 because the algae would just grow faster. I knew I had decent flow @1200gph in a 20g display, so I started treating the cyano with 10
days of chemiclean. That knocked out the cyano.

After a skimmer fed WC, i focused on the other issues. To address the dinos and BA, I manually removed as much as possible, installed a UV sterilizer in my overflow, turned off my light, and started dosing API Algaefix every 3 days.

Here we are 2 weeks later.

Unfortunately, although I QT'd the nems before starting, I still lost them. But as you can see, the tank is a night and day difference.

I'm still seeing BA in impossible to reach areas. Every tiny nook still has little bubbles.

I've read that algaefix can take several weeks to work and BA is the last thing to go. Not sure there's much else I can do about that but wait?

The other issue I'm having is this stuff growing on my back wall, wavemaker, and glass scraper. It's definitely not dinos. It's not GHA, but it is some type of filament algae. It's grey, brown, or silver in color and does not blow away. I doesn't seem to be affected by any treatment so far either. Could this possibly be bryopsis or chrysophytes? Should I just start a dose of Flux for good measure?

 

[rennjidk]

Ordered the Flux RX. At this point, I don't see how it could hurt. I'm doing a 90% water change after the BA is eradicated, and turning back on my carbon reactor. Any dosing suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[taricha]

Algae is always a hard problem - and there was tons of it here that got eradicated effectively. For those who choose to go chemical routes, this looks like an effective application of those methods.

a sufficient concentration of Algaefix slows or halts the growth of many types of algae as long as it's in the water. GAC removes the algaecide. You can either give it another week or two of doses to see if the bubble algae goes to zero with more ongoing algaefix in the water. Or run GAC, clear the water, and then pull GAC offline and do more algaefix doses.

I don't see anything that looks particularly responsive to fluconazole?
I suspect the grey strands are bacteria taking advantage of the space and nutrients left behind by lots of dead/damaged algae. So likely bacteria covering dead or stressed hair algae.

 

[rennjidk]

Algae is always a hard problem - and there was tons of it here that got eradicated effectively. For those who choose to go chemical routes, this looks like an effective application of those methods.

a sufficient concentration of Algaefix slows or halts the growth of many types of algae as long as it's in the water. GAC removes the algaecide. You can either give it another week or two of doses to see if the bubble algae goes to zero with more ongoing algaefix in the water. Or run GAC, clear the water, and then pull GAC offline and do more algaefix doses.

I don't see anything that looks particularly responsive to fluconazole?
I suspect the grey strands are bacteria taking advantage of the space and nutrients left behind by lots of dead/damaged algae. So likely bacteria covering dead or stressed hair algae.

Hey, thanks for the input! I did read your thread on delectable algaefix levels a while back. If I recall, you were dosing every 2 days instead of 3, correct? Would you recommend this to maintain levels within the water, or follow the manufacturer's dosing schedule?

 

[taricha]

Well, regardless of the frequency, eventually your doses can't bind to surfaces anymore and accumulate in the water. I found that for me without the measurable chemical in the water, macroalgae could start growing mostly normally again (except chaeto - very sensitive.)

So I'd expect you'll need some to hang around in the water to prevent bubble algae growth. It's fine to follow the printed schedule.

 

[rennjidk]

Well, regardless of the frequency, eventually your doses can't bind to surfaces anymore and accumulate in the water. I found that for me without the measurable chemical in the water, macroalgae could start growing mostly normally again (except chaeto - very sensitive.)

So I'd expect you'll need some to hang around in the water to prevent bubble algae growth. It's fine to follow the printed schedule.

Just a follow up for recording purposes. I finished my final dose 2 days ago and with it went the last of the bubble algae. The black out really had no effect as far as I can tell, but for scientific purposes (if you would even call one stand alone study that) lights out and algeacide from 12/10/23-1/29-24. Overall a successful venture.

 

[rennjidk]

Welp, here we are 2 months later and I'm about ready to throw in the towel.

Everything was going great up until about a week ago. Rocks were clean and growing a lot of calcareous algae, my nutrients were steady at 7.5N and 0.03P. Then, seemingly out of no where, DINOS.

UV has been running on the system the entire time. It knocked out the other dinos in 24hrs when it was installed. I can only assume they've been replaced with the large cell variety.

There's also a good bit of GHA, which I'm fine with, but nothing will touch it because of the dinos.

I'm open to any and all suggestions, but I haven't seen temperature increases or silicate dosing as an effective treatment in the past.

 

[thedon986]

At this point, ditch the last of the corals and turn off the lights for month might be worth a try.

 

[rennjidk]

I guess I'm pretty much on my own at this point, so here is my plan of attack:

Manual removal with 1/4" airline, followed by several doses of DIY reef snow and MB7.

I have no idea if this will work or how it's even supposed to. I've just reread several dino threads about this, and some report positive results.

 

[jabberwock]

How many gallons?

 

[JGT]

2 words…live rock.

 

[jabberwock]

2 words…live

2 more words

Real Ocean Live Rock

 

[rennjidk]

2 words…live rock.

2 more words

Real Ocean Live Rock

Cool, so all of us with multiple year old systems are supposed to just toss everything in our tanks and order gulf rock?

Ocean rock owner also encounter issues. It's not the cure all it's cracked up to be.

 

[JGT]

Doesn’t matter how old. Whatever’s going on with your tank and what you’ve tried - twice now - isn’t working. That’s probably one of the worst cases of invasive Dino’s, algae etc I’ve ever seen.
Can’t speak for others and husbandry will differ between tanks/tank owners but I’ve always setup my tanks with live rock and never experienced any of the things you’re going through. So I’m talking from experience.
You’re lucky in that it’s a small tank so starting over doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated.

 

[jabberwock]

Cool, so all of us with multiple year old systems are supposed to just toss everything in our tanks and order gulf rock?

Ocean rock owner also encounter issues. It's not the cure all it's cracked up to be.

Yeah, it is not simple. You said you are ready to quit. So, maybe quit. That is up to you. I feel bad for your challenges. I have had my own. Algae farm, catastrophic tank glass failure, total ich devastation, gorilla crabs, its a tough row to hoe. I have reached my highest levels of success with real ocean live rock. Might require a restart. You can save your livestock.

 

[jabberwock]

Looks like an IM 25 lagoon?

 

[JGT]

If you want to give it one more go with what you’ve got, I suggest you follow the rip clean process as documented by @brandon429.
Others have followed it to success.

 

[taricha]

UV has been running on the system the entire time. It knocked out the other dinos in 24hrs when it was installed. I can only assume they've been replaced with the large cell variety.

I know that you say UV has been constant the whole time, but that is stringy stuff.
The stringy dinos form by attachment out of the water. Troubleshoot your UV, make sure that it is pulling from and returning into the display.

You say you have UV, the growth form says your UV isn't active.

 

[rennjidk]

I know that you say UV has been constant the whole time, but that is stringy stuff.
The stringy dinos form by attachment out of the water. Troubleshoot your UV, make sure that it is pulling from and returning into the display.

You say you have UV, the growth form says your UV isn't active.

That's really interesting. It's an IM 9W UV bulb on a 15g volume system. The bulb is still glowing and worked great 2 months ago when installed.

Do you honestly believe that it is no longer functional, and that is where my attention should be?

Edit: it's worth noting that they do not disappear at night like the Oc. dinos I installed the system to combat. Everything stays in its "stringy, snotty" form regardless of light.

 

[rennjidk]

@taricha this is 7hrs after lights out