Hey all. I have a young, 6 month old tank that has been battling algae on and off for the last month or so very heavily. I believe it to be dinos and will be using a microscope to ID it after this post and will post pics if I can manage to capture them.
I have a shallow sand bed, and Marcos rocks (all of which have been cycling or in the tank for about 9 months). The sand has been covered on and off with a slimy, bubbly black layer in the lower flow spots (which aren't really that low flow at all) for about two months. It really picked up the last month, and now is covering the rocks during the day, and snail shells and more. It really fades down at night but comes back quickly in the day.
Here's some pics:
The hammer is the least happy looking guy the last two days, right on the last dose of hydrogen peroxide (more to come on this later).
My tank is a 24"x24"x12" lagoon tank with an identical sized sump with small fuge section with chaeto, skimmer, and filter sock. I have decent flow with an MP40QWD at 25%, and an IceCap 1k. My build thread can provide more details:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef-rehabilitation-29g-cube-and-equipment-room-build.519795/
My water parameters are as follows:
Salinity 35 ppt
Temp 78
Nitrate 0.2-1.0 ppm (Salifert)
PO4 0.01-0.22 ppm (Hanna)
Alk 9.5 (Hanna)
Calcium 485 (Salifert)
Water is Tropic Marin Pro reef mixed into 0 TDS using an inline meter RODI made by me with a 7-stage RODI (3 stages of BRS-type DI). Odd note here: while my Anion resin needs replacement every 80 gallons, my cation resin hasn't changed color in like 400 gallons of water, and my mixed bed has only needed replacement twice.
My phosphate has always been a battle keeping it detectable, even when my skimmer was malfunctioning due to backpressure on my airline extension going outside, and with no chaeto, which I just set up last week to try and outcompete the dinos. When I say 0.22ppm as a max, its usually between 0.01 and 0.02, occasionally jumping the morning after heavy coral/fish feeding to try and raise nitrates, which I have been working on. I have even had to dose NeoPhos once or twice. NeoNitro is something I have been dosing at a rate of 5-20 mL a day to try and get out of the 0.2-1.0 range. I'm lately usually closer to 0.2 ppm.
I know my alk is in an odd range. I decided to try and elevate params to maximize growth, but decided to be non-experimental and just stick to 8.5. I'll be lowering it over a couple weeks to month. My calcium is crazy, I know. I used a Hanna meter which is a pile of junk. Triton test showed me at 580 last month, so I have been slowly working it back down with a trusty Salifert kit and decreased dosing levels.
Here's a link to my last Triton test from about 3 weeks ago: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/63672/
Only thing out of whack is I had dosed some ChaetoGro without testing and slightly elevated my Fe levels. There is no metal that could be dripping into the tank that I could find. I have done 3 water changes of about 15% since this.
My bioload is quite low still. I have three firefish, and 15 snails composed of Astraea, cerith, nassarius, and margarita. I have 20 corals: a mix of acro and other SPS, some LPS, and some softies/zoas. I usually feed around 1 cube of frozen food a day with 3x a week of 1 scoop reef roids, 1 scoop Reef chili, and 1 dropper of PolypBooster. The polypbooster seems to really set my PO4 through the roof.
I added the chaeto (a huge mass) from AlgaeBarn last week to try and fight the dinos and it's hard to tell if its growing or just loosening up/dying off. I was planning on maybe pulling half of it out tomorrow, to see if I can't get a clearer picture of what it's doing.
I did some testing for cyano last weekend by pulling some scum off the sand and putting it in a shotglass with tank water and splashing some hydrogen peroxide into it. I saw some bubbling, though no pink hue to the water and thought this was a positive test for Cyano as the algae mats were appearing to turn more red than the black color they had been in the past. So I dosed 4 mL of 3% hydrogen peroxide to the tank every 12 hours into high flow areas of the sump for 2.5 days before decided I wasn't seeing enough change to feel this was cyano necessitating something that was upsetting my zoas and maybe my hammer which I noticed on the last dose. I haven't done a water change since, and will do one tomorrow so hopefully this makes them happier.
Should I just chill and let this pass or is dinos something necessitating strong action to correct? I can live with the algae as my SPS all seem not to care. The only things that have seemed to care are my zoas which can have the slime grow on their tube bases and get stretched out and/or closed and unhappy looking. But if this is just going to continue until I take action, I'm game to do something about it.
Now to break out the microscope and post some pics if I can get some.
I have a shallow sand bed, and Marcos rocks (all of which have been cycling or in the tank for about 9 months). The sand has been covered on and off with a slimy, bubbly black layer in the lower flow spots (which aren't really that low flow at all) for about two months. It really picked up the last month, and now is covering the rocks during the day, and snail shells and more. It really fades down at night but comes back quickly in the day.
Here's some pics:
The hammer is the least happy looking guy the last two days, right on the last dose of hydrogen peroxide (more to come on this later).
My tank is a 24"x24"x12" lagoon tank with an identical sized sump with small fuge section with chaeto, skimmer, and filter sock. I have decent flow with an MP40QWD at 25%, and an IceCap 1k. My build thread can provide more details:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef-rehabilitation-29g-cube-and-equipment-room-build.519795/
My water parameters are as follows:
Salinity 35 ppt
Temp 78
Nitrate 0.2-1.0 ppm (Salifert)
PO4 0.01-0.22 ppm (Hanna)
Alk 9.5 (Hanna)
Calcium 485 (Salifert)
Water is Tropic Marin Pro reef mixed into 0 TDS using an inline meter RODI made by me with a 7-stage RODI (3 stages of BRS-type DI). Odd note here: while my Anion resin needs replacement every 80 gallons, my cation resin hasn't changed color in like 400 gallons of water, and my mixed bed has only needed replacement twice.
My phosphate has always been a battle keeping it detectable, even when my skimmer was malfunctioning due to backpressure on my airline extension going outside, and with no chaeto, which I just set up last week to try and outcompete the dinos. When I say 0.22ppm as a max, its usually between 0.01 and 0.02, occasionally jumping the morning after heavy coral/fish feeding to try and raise nitrates, which I have been working on. I have even had to dose NeoPhos once or twice. NeoNitro is something I have been dosing at a rate of 5-20 mL a day to try and get out of the 0.2-1.0 range. I'm lately usually closer to 0.2 ppm.
I know my alk is in an odd range. I decided to try and elevate params to maximize growth, but decided to be non-experimental and just stick to 8.5. I'll be lowering it over a couple weeks to month. My calcium is crazy, I know. I used a Hanna meter which is a pile of junk. Triton test showed me at 580 last month, so I have been slowly working it back down with a trusty Salifert kit and decreased dosing levels.
Here's a link to my last Triton test from about 3 weeks ago: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/63672/
Only thing out of whack is I had dosed some ChaetoGro without testing and slightly elevated my Fe levels. There is no metal that could be dripping into the tank that I could find. I have done 3 water changes of about 15% since this.
My bioload is quite low still. I have three firefish, and 15 snails composed of Astraea, cerith, nassarius, and margarita. I have 20 corals: a mix of acro and other SPS, some LPS, and some softies/zoas. I usually feed around 1 cube of frozen food a day with 3x a week of 1 scoop reef roids, 1 scoop Reef chili, and 1 dropper of PolypBooster. The polypbooster seems to really set my PO4 through the roof.
I added the chaeto (a huge mass) from AlgaeBarn last week to try and fight the dinos and it's hard to tell if its growing or just loosening up/dying off. I was planning on maybe pulling half of it out tomorrow, to see if I can't get a clearer picture of what it's doing.
I did some testing for cyano last weekend by pulling some scum off the sand and putting it in a shotglass with tank water and splashing some hydrogen peroxide into it. I saw some bubbling, though no pink hue to the water and thought this was a positive test for Cyano as the algae mats were appearing to turn more red than the black color they had been in the past. So I dosed 4 mL of 3% hydrogen peroxide to the tank every 12 hours into high flow areas of the sump for 2.5 days before decided I wasn't seeing enough change to feel this was cyano necessitating something that was upsetting my zoas and maybe my hammer which I noticed on the last dose. I haven't done a water change since, and will do one tomorrow so hopefully this makes them happier.
Should I just chill and let this pass or is dinos something necessitating strong action to correct? I can live with the algae as my SPS all seem not to care. The only things that have seemed to care are my zoas which can have the slime grow on their tube bases and get stretched out and/or closed and unhappy looking. But if this is just going to continue until I take action, I'm game to do something about it.
Now to break out the microscope and post some pics if I can get some.
