Big problem

[rmiles54]

Just wondering if anyone has anything I could try? Tank is going on 2 years old. All parameters are within range. I've stopped water changes because they seemed to fuel the fire. I'm thinking the problem originated from an exhausted RO membrane. Waiting on new to arrive. Around mid May I began seeing patches of red slime, I assumed to be cyano. Cheri clean treatments along with carbon/GFO and it was gone. Would start to comeback about every 2.5-3 weeks. Repeated treatment. After about the 3rd time I began getting rapid growth of what looked to be GHA. I did a 3 day blackout followed by some peroxide dosing. I didn't dose during the black, was still in the peroxide research stage. After about a week of dosing things looked to be slowing down. Glass was staying clean and growth stalled. I manually removed everything I could. 3 days later even worse than before. I stopped the peroxide because I didn't feel it was doing anything. I installed a UV and began dosing Red Sea NOPOX. After 5 days this can out of nowhere. I've had a tank for a long time and never ran across this problem before. This stuff is spewing this slime to the point it's free floating. It's in the sump. Randomly the skimmer also overflowed last night. I'm not sure what is going on. Corals not touched by this stuff still look good and fish seem to be swimming around it like an obstacle course.

I have a video but can't figure out how to post it!! If anyone has any ideas please chime in.
Thanks

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Eww. Bummer.

Stop the no pox. It's food basically.
Def wait till you have good water to go any further.

It look like gha mostly. I think the no pox is fueling the slime / bacterial colonies.

If it were me, I'd scrub it in the tank and do a bunch of water changes first with good water.

Can you get a picture of the green algae to we can confirm it's gha?

I wouldn't reccomend much past that right now till you get it at least a little bit stable. Then there's a few things you can try.

I would def get come more cuc grazers on the way. Manual removal and the cuc will help, plus what ever method comes next.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Holly Mother of Dino... Whoa. Definitely change RO/DI, do a waterchange, manually remove all that stuff, (both dino and algae. )Check your bulbs, because it seems like you're running t5 those might be too old . Your corals look good though. Get some chaeto in the sump, and add a powerful light for it. If you are like me, and your windows are shut and you're running AC 24/7, CO2 in your room can be elevated and it will contribute to the problem, probably won't cause the problem on its own. Get your calcium and alkalinity in line, because it seems like your coralline nonexistent because otherwise green algae would not outcompete it for space like that. Good luck.

Edit : add a skimmer, dose good bacteria, and do a large water-change.

 

[rmiles54]

Eww. Bummer.

Stop the no pox. It's food basically.
Def wait till you have good water to go any further.

It look like gha mostly. I think the no pox is fueling the slime / bacterial colonies.

If it were me, I'd scrub it in the tank and do a bunch of water changes first with good water.

Can you get a picture of the green algae to we can confirm it's gha?

I wouldn't reccomend much past that right now till you get it at least a little bit stable. Then there's a few things you can try.

I would def get come more cuc grazers on the way. Manual removal and the cuc will help, plus what ever method comes next.

I added almost a 100 snails and crabs mid July, they all seem to be dying off. I will stop the nopox. I was thinking about a 3 day blackout, any thoughts on dosing peroxide during blackout? Plus that's about how many days it'll take to get my new RO filters in. I plan on removing as much as possible when I do water change, should I look at removing what I can prior? This stuff really exploded starting around noon today, no slime prior.

 

[rmiles54]

Holly Mother of Dino... Whoa. Definitely change RO/DI, do a waterchange, manually remove all that stuff, (both dino and algae. )Check your bulbs, because it seems like you're running t5 those might be too old . Your corals look good though. Get some chaeto in the sump, and add a powerful light for it. If you are like me, and your windows are shut and you're running AC 24/7, CO2 in your room can be elevated and it will contribute to the problem, probably won't cause the problem on its own. Get your calcium and alkalinity in line, because it seems like your coralline nonexistent because otherwise green algae would not outcompete it for space like that. Good luck.

Edit : add a skimmer, dose good bacteria, and do a large water-change.

Alk has been a constant battle, AC ran and sealed up home. Was dosing to keep in line. Coralline wasn't really heavy on the rocks since getting wet. (Marco rocks) the side glass and overflows are covered but strangely the middle 2-3 ft of the back glass has hardly any. I have a skimmer running in entrance chamber of the sump and lighting is 3 - AI Hydra 26's. I'm looking at blackout for a few days. Should I dose over the blackout. I'm not expecting it to get rid of everything but hopefully makes it manageable so I can manually remove. Would it be safe to dump a bunch of chaeto after dosing all the nopox ?

 

[Greg79]

You may have a heavy excess of organics causing gha and white stuff looks like some sort of bacteria bloom
It might be from a lot of clean up crew dying
I'd definitely run carbon and set up right flow thrue your uv, manual removal

 

[rmiles54]

You may have a heavy excess of organics causing gha and white stuff looks like some sort of bacteria bloom
It might be from a lot of clean up crew dying
I'd definitely run carbon and set up right flow thrue your uv, manual removal

I'll double check the UV flow. I didn't think about clean up crew death... carbon during blackout ?? I say that meaning should I change anything else or patient for 3 days.

 

[rmiles54]

I think I got this right. This slime stuff is crazy.

 

[rmiles54]

The crescent looking grey thing is in the middle of my sump . It looks like a tornado from the bottom up to the water level.
The second pic is intake slimmer section, the foam all over has been there since the skimmer randomly overflowed last night. Not sure why it hasn't disappeared.

 

[Theo15]

Have you tried phosgaurd from seachem that stuff is amazing ?

 

[Greg79]

white slime looks like bacteria bloom probably from nopox-should be gone soon
Gha if they grow to this size probably best way would be manual removal or take rock out one at a time scrub it and spray with peroxide
If you gonna try to strip your water from nutrients to the point they'll die your softies and lps would probably die too

 

[Tim Olson]

I've been struggling with GHA as well, so I'll throw in my 2 cents for you to consider. I've tried pretty much everything that folks have suggested and these are the one's that seem most effective, but take them with a grain of salt, since I haven't solved the problem yet.

• Water changes - I've been doing 20% water changes every week, including siphoning out a bunch of GHA. If I left it in the tank, I think the problem would be even worse, since it would be rotting away, I think.
• Optimize skimmer - It looks like you're already doing that, but it's still worth mentioning
• Carbon Dosing - This really seems to help the skimmer pull out more skimmate. BTW, I use vinegar dosing at about 0.5ml/gal per day.
• GFO - I've been using the high capacity GFO from BRS, but just switched to ROWAphos last week, which hopefully will work a little better.
• Refugium - I just added a 10 gallon refugium to my system, which hopefully will solve my GHA problem, along with the other measures.
• Most people also suggest feeding less, but that is often difficult, depending on what types of fish you have.

I hope this helps a little. All the best.

 

[rmiles54]

white slime looks like bacteria bloom probably from nopox-should be gone soon
Gha if they grow to this size probably best way would be manual removal or take rock out one at a time scrub it and spray with peroxide
If you gonna try to strip your water from nutrients to the point they'll die your softies and lps would probably die too

I do not want to kill corals, my wife would kill me. lol I'm gonna run the 3 day blackout, by that time i should receive new RO membranes to start running water changes. I will go manual and pull out. Do I just spray a tank water/peroxide solution or just peroxide? Is it ok to spray the rocks covered in zoa? I will also rescape to try and clean up the 2 spots I found to have minimal flow.

 

[rmiles54]

Have you tried phosgaurd from seachem that stuff is amazing ?

I have not, unfortunately for me the closest LFS is 2 hours away. I might be making a trip later this week and will keep this in mind thanks.

 

[Theo15]

I have not, unfortunately for me the closest LFS is 2 hours away. I might be making a trip later this week and will keep this in mind thanks.

Order online it's cheaper

 

[Greg79]

I do not want to kill corals, my wife would kill me. lol I'm gonna run the 3 day blackout, by that time i should receive new RO membranes to start running water changes. I will go manual and pull out. Do I just spray a tank water/peroxide solution or just peroxide? Is it ok to spray the rocks covered in zoa? I will also rescape to try and clean up the 2 spots I found to have minimal flow.

Spray rocks only with 3% peroxide outside the tank and let it sit for couple minutes like this

 

[rmiles54]

I've been struggling with GHA as well, so I'll throw in my 2 cents for you to consider. I've tried pretty much everything that folks have suggested and these are the one's that seem most effective, but take them with a grain of salt, since I haven't solved the problem yet.

• Water changes - I've been doing 20% water changes every week, including siphoning out a bunch of GHA. If I left it in the tank, I think the problem would be even worse, since it would be rotting away, I think.
• Optimize skimmer - It looks like you're already doing that, but it's still worth mentioning
• Carbon Dosing - This really seems to help the skimmer pull out more skimmate. BTW, I use vinegar dosing at about 0.5ml/gal per day.
• GFO - I've been using the high capacity GFO from BRS, but just switched to ROWAphos last week, which hopefully will work a little better.
• Refugium - I just added a 10 gallon refugium to my system, which hopefully will solve my GHA problem, along with the other measures.
• Most people also suggest feeding less, but that is often difficult, depending on what types of fish you have.

I hope this helps a little. All the best.

Thanks for the info.. do you know if it's safe to add chaeto for a fuge section while all this is going on? I did start feeding less when the GHA looking fur started multiplying. I started a blackout when lights went out yesterday. Add fuge after blackout is complete? Also I have a black box full spectrum LED, would that be sufficient for chaeto and how long to run light?

 

[rmiles54]

Spray rocks only with 3% peroxide outside the tank and let it sit for couple minutes like this

Should I do this now or wait the couple days for membranes to do waterchange

 

[Tim Olson]

Thanks for the info.. do you know if it's safe to add chaeto for a fuge section while all this is going on? I did start feeding less when the GHA looking fur started multiplying. I started a blackout when lights went out yesterday. Add fuge after blackout is complete? Also I have a black box full spectrum LED, would that be sufficient for chaeto and how long to run light?

Good questions ... From my perspective, I don't know if there's ever a bad time to add a fuge/chaeto. It seems that during the blackout might be the best time to add it, since the GHA will be dying off and dumping the nutrients into your system. That assumes you have enough and the right kind of lighting (see most recent video link below). It sounds like your LED might work, at least to get started. On the length of time the light should be on, I've always ran my light 24/7. This will elevate the pH, hopefully, throughout the day vs. just during the night.

Also, BRS has been doing a study on chaeto and refugiums that is worth looking at. The most recent video they did highlighted that the better the lighting the better the results and this is a link to all their refugium videos. Also, here a link to the Reef2Reef discussion on the topic

Hope this helps

 

[Greg79]

Should I do this now or wait the couple days for membranes to do waterchange

If you think its rodi causing problem you can wait