Hair algae and cyano?

[Afkomjorgen]

Hello!
This is starting to crop up and hoping for an ID to make a plan to get rid of it
Green stuff is on the rocks and is green/brown. Comes off in tuffs.
Pink stuff is on rocks and in clumps into patches in the sand.
Our CUC needs to be replaced, so we only have a handful of large snails, a couple of narcissi’s snails, and two elephant slugs who don’t seem that interested in eating it. We have 2 small hermits at this time.
Tank is 48 gallon reef.
Our heater also started working poorly so it’s been replaced but there may have been some time where the temp was off.
Additionally about 2 weeks ago we had a 24 hour power outage.
Macro algae in the tank is growing great, except that the hair algae keeps growing on it and I have to remove it.

mostly the problem is in the DT only,
There was almost none of these in the sump.

lastly, our coralline algae has never grown better then It has in the last couple of months. Unsure if it’s connected.

- also meant to add, we are currently doing manual removal weekly and buying a new army of cuc in a week.
Thanks!

 

[Dan_P]

Looks like hair algae and cyanobacteria on the sand.

Just a thought. Large amount of algae growth could deplete trace elements. If your favorite macro algae is looking weak and overgrown, it might need trace elements.

 

[Katherine Corals]

Both! You need to physically remove as much as possible of the Algae. What are your PO4 levels at?
I recommend if they are high, you run a ChemiClean treatment, and syphon as much of the sand bed as possible. If PO4 are low, Still syphon out and clean the sand bed, but add NeoPhos SLOWLY until levels become detectable. This is where it is important to remove the hair algae, because if not, they will absorb and suck up your Phosphate levels in the tank.
Hope this helps friend!

 

[MrGisonni]

Looks like cyano and some type of green tuft algae. Don't worry so much about the tuft algae but siphon back the cyanobacteria. Check your nutrients.

 

[Afkomjorgen]

Looks like hair algae and cyanobacteria on the sand.

Just a thought. Large amount of algae growth could deplete trace elements. If your favorite macro algae is looking weak and overgrown, it might need trace elements.

Both! You need to physically remove as much as possible of the Algae. What are your PO4 levels at?
I recommend if they are high, you run a ChemiClean treatment, and syphon as much of the sand bed as possible. If PO4 are low, Still syphon out and clean the sand bed, but add NeoPhos SLOWLY until levels become detectable. This is where it is important to remove the hair algae, because if not, they will absorb and suck up your Phosphate levels in the tank.
Hope this helps friend!

Looks like cyano and some type of green tuft algae. Don't worry so much about the tuft algae but siphon back the cyanobacteria. Check your nutrients.

Thank you!
Tested parameters today. We did a small water change yesterday while cleaning up the algae.
salinity 1.026
Nitrates 30+ ppm
Nitrites 0
Ph 8
Kh 8 / 143
Cal 430
Phos 0.05

I know nitrates are high but we’ve been battling them down for the last 4+ months from over 80ppm. The tank seems to like being a little dirty, although if that’s the cause of the new algae I’d be shocked why it didn’t start sooner.
Skimmer hasn’t been working 100%, I’m working on 3-d printing it a base to stand on in the sump. Last resort, may need a new one. I will start another thread for help troubleshooting it thus

for phos levels - we have fish and mostly grow euphyllia, mushrooms, leathers, and cloves and pavona. We have 2 anemones.

I used to dose trace elements but got lazy and stopped - we don’t have a doser. I’ll start up again on that.

forgot to say - tank is 3 years old, 1 year since transition to larger tank and fish additions.

do you recommend I maintain P04 levels or reduce at this time?
better to remove the affected sand and clean it ( how would you recommend ) and put it back or to remove and replace with new sand?

 

[djf91]

I would siphon the sand bed really good to get as much detritus out as possible. That helped me round the corner on cyano and GHA recently.

 

[Katherine Corals]

Thank you!
Tested parameters today. We did a small water change yesterday while cleaning up the algae.
salinity 1.026
Nitrates 30+ ppm
Nitrites 0
Ph 8
Kh 8 / 143
Cal 430
Phos 0.05

I know nitrates are high but we’ve been battling them down for the last 4+ months from over 80ppm. The tank seems to like being a little dirty, although if that’s the cause of the new algae I’d be shocked why it didn’t start sooner.
Skimmer hasn’t been working 100%, I’m working on 3-d printing it a base to stand on in the sump. Last resort, may need a new one. I will start another thread for help troubleshooting it thus

for phos levels - we have fish and mostly grow euphyllia, mushrooms, leathers, and cloves and pavona. We have 2 anemones.

I used to dose trace elements but got lazy and stopped - we don’t have a doser. I’ll start up again on that.

forgot to say - tank is 3 years old, 1 year since transition to larger tank and fish additions.

do you recommend I maintain P04 levels or reduce at this time?
better to remove the affected sand and clean it ( how would you recommend ) and put it back or to remove and replace with new sand?

I wouldnt reduce your phosphates any lower with having a LPS/softie dominate tank. Personally, I think your NO3 are at a good level being at 30. I would begin to raise your PO4 to a level that would match your NO3 in accordance to the redfield ratio, in this case being 0.3.
Feel free to check out my build and the parameters I like to keep

 

[Afkomjorgen]

I wouldnt reduce your phosphates any lower with having a LPS/softie dominate tank. Personally, I think your NO3 are at a good level being at 30. I would begin to raise your PO4 to a level that would match your NO3 in accordance to the redfield ratio, in this case being 0.3.
Feel free to check out my build and the parameters I like to keep

Thank you!
I’m interested to hear this prospective since a lot advice I hear comes from tanks that run really clean or sps dominated.
Would the best way to increase P04 be through supplements? We recently switched to a RODI system to lower P04 and lower nitrates in the water per suggestion. Not regretting that choice, since we needed to make that jump eventually anyways. I see that you run alkalinity at about 8. Ours is about 8 now but I was thinking of trying to raise it to 9 or 9.5 to see if it makes our anemones happier. Will raising P04 affect nitrate or dkh? Is ok to raise dkh and p04 simultaneously?
Thanks!

 

[Afkomjorgen]

Siphoning the bed today. Alk is up to 9dkh ( sorry, API test numbers are weird, gonna upgrade soon )
I understand that alk changes fast. Any adverse effects to bringing it higher than 9, if 9 is my goal? Do I need to dose trace minerals every day to keep alk up?

 

[Katherine Corals]

Thank you!
I’m interested to hear this prospective since a lot advice I hear comes from tanks that run really clean or sps dominated.
Would the best way to increase P04 be through supplements? We recently switched to a RODI system to lower P04 and lower nitrates in the water per suggestion. Not regretting that choice, since we needed to make that jump eventually anyways. I see that you run alkalinity at about 8. Ours is about 8 now but I was thinking of trying to raise it to 9 or 9.5 to see if it makes our anemones happier. Will raising P04 affect nitrate or dkh? Is ok to raise dkh and p04 simultaneously?
Thanks!

Ok, so the answer to this question is kind of tricky I hope I can explain it well enough to understand..
From personal experience, I have tried alkalinity at 9.0 and I didnt notice any real benefit to it compared to the 8.3 that I strive for today. What is important is the golden rule : "Stability". For me, stability is easiest maintained at alk of 8.3 and I notice more alkalinity absorption throughout the week at levels of 8.3 compared to the 9.0. Meaning, that corals are absorbing more alkalinity, growing faster, because they were happiest at that level.
So, to answer your question in "will raising the alkalinity also raise PO4 simultaneously". These two elements are not correlated, however, happier corals absorb alkalinity at a faster rate, and thus will also absorb PO4 (Nutrients) for increased growth. So as more alkalinity is absorbed, more PO4 will be absorbed.

 

[Afkomjorgen]

Thank you, that was a perfect explanation! I appreciate it.
I’ll go slow and watch how my tank reacts to the changes.
cyano came back over the last couple of days so I plan to manually remove today and siphon some sand. CUC reinforcements on their way next week.