Help fighting Algae and now ? Dino

[Alaa]

Sorry for the long post but in a bad situation and advice is needed.

This is my first saltwater tank. I live in Kuwait, there is only few saltwater LFS, so I have to buy many items online or a lot of DIY.

Setup (Almost 9 month)
40GB with 10G sump, BMC Curve 5 skimmer, 2 Jebao w25 wave makers,
Two Little Fishies Phosban reactor (started on 4th Jan)
Marine color bio pellet reactor (started on 6th march)
DIY 100 W LED (2 chips 6 RB and 4 Cool W each)
in the sump

Seachem Purigen, Bio balls (4 small bags),
2 Marine pure 1 Inch blocks​

Life stock

2 cleaner shrimp (7 months old now)
2 Zoas (the oldest [5 months] closed for 4 days now and did not respond to Iodine dip)
1 Hummer
1 Torch
1 Acans (completely dried and died 2 days ago)
1 Elegance (added 7 days ago)

8 snails (added 7 days ago)
2 clown, 1 wrasse, 3 fire fishes (all added 5 days ago)​

No fish for 5 and half months as my 2 Antheias and clowns had Ich and didn’t make it in QT.

I started to have algae troubles 5 months ago, with high nitrate (20) and phosphate (.3-.5) so I decided to fight back and did manual cleaning and 10-15% WC weekly with no change so I added GFO in January and changed my tank florescent light to the LED. Still having algae (mostly brown and few GHA) I decided to take nitrate down so I started bio-pellet reactor (gradually build up over 2 months) and continued with weekly 20% WC after manual cleaning of glass, rocks, and gravel vacuum. Also changed from phosgaurd to Rawphos and added PhosZorb.

I got results and lowered my nitrate to 2-5 and phosphate to near zero (using API and Seachem test kits), was happy with the readings but not seeing effects on algae growth. 2 week ago I scrubbed all rocks in buckets using tank water (for the 3 time in 5 months), did 3 days complete blackout, and added Chaeto to the sump while stopping GFO and bio-pellet reactors, around 75% WC thinking this is it.
After returning lights there were no algae, both nitrate and phosphate really low (2 and almost zero), was happy again but as you might have figured out, not for a long time, algae started to show again, I was advised it is time for more life stock so went to LFS and got 8 snails, 2 clown, 3 fire fish, 1 wrasse and added them to the tank. 3 days ago one Zoa stopped opening (1 day after I added the Elegance) and the Acans was markedly shrieked. Last night I think I detected Dino (air bubbles on rocks and on top of hair algae that disappeared with lights off).

Feeding was 1-2 a week a since only 2 shrimps, and was trying to lower nitrate, coral food every 2 weeks. After I added fish I feed once daily and 3 times coral food trying to save the dying Acan.

Tank parameters

Salinity 1024, Temp 25.3 C, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate went 10-15, Cal 430, Phosphate less than 0.05, Ph 8.1

KH 8, Mg 1050.

No regular dosing or additions except sometimes API stress zyme after WC, and purple up if Ca was to the lower side

After a lot of readings I think the aggressive GFO and biopellets reactor were a bad ideas, can’t comment on Chaeto yet (it might have brought the Dino on it), more patience was required.

Now if it is dino as I think the next action should be

1- It has gone too far, restart this one or better yet get a bigger tank.

2- There is still hope, the tank can be saved

a. Stop protein skimmer ?
b. Remove all snails.
c. Dose phosphate (if I can find at LFS).
d. Dose hydrogen Peroxide.
e. Another course of total darkness.
f. Frequent cleaning and stop WC.​

I need your input on this plan (no. 2 I hope),

do I keep corals in the tank or remove to QT,
also If I cant find phosphate dosing at LFS I can get potassium phosphate from my hospital, will this be OK to use.
consider UV what about TMC vecton V2 600 25 W.​

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[EmdeReef]

Looks like hair algae more than dinos to me.

Fluconazole may help if you want to go the chemical route but honestly I would just let the tank run a few weeks and stabilize for a bit first then re-*****.

You should aim to have some nitrates and phosphates, it’s not good to strip down both or have too much of the one and too little of the other. Keep the two balanced for a while then you can try biopellets again and/or gfo. Although 10 nitrates should be ok for most tanks.

 

[Alaa]

Looks like hair algae more than dinos to me.

Fluconazole may help if you want to go the chemical route but honestly I would just let the tank run a few weeks and stabilize for a bit first then re-*****.

You should aim to have some nitrates and phosphates, it’s not good to strip down both or have too much of the one and too little of the other. Keep the two balanced for a while then you can try biopellets again and/or gfo. Although 10 nitrates should be ok for most tanks.

Thanks for the response
Was dealing with it as hair algae till started to show the air bubbles 2 days back, isn't this more with early dino outbrake
Will try to increase phosphate a little and see

 

[Neoalchemist]

Thanks for the response
Was dealing with it as hair algae till started to show the air bubbles 2 days back, isn't this more with early dino outbrake
Will try to increase phosphate a little and see

This is different from a dino bloom. Every tank I've ever run has seen a few dinos here and there. The bad blooms happen when the dinos wipe out all of their competition or there was never much competition to begin with. Just make sure you have a healthy balance of nutrients and some manual removal and it should work it's way out. 15ppm no3 and around .08 are decent numbers for this fight. A powerful U.V. Might be next if things get worse. But you need to i.d. The species of dino to make sure because u.v. doesn't work for all species.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

I see what your saying about the concern over Dino. in the first pix it does appear to have some qualities of Dino. The other pix don’t worry me so much that a good cleaning and CuC cant battle.

Numbers look good, raising mag has been know to help battle Dino, but there are so many strains hard to say. I wouldn’t look to add more Po4 as it will just fuel it. Coral should be ok unless it becomes invasive.

Can’t comment on dosing, never done that. Keep skimming in my opinion, you nitrate is in the zone I would feel comfortable with. Using UV is a common factor in a lot of successful battles. A few day black out would be ok, but needs to be total and run an air stone or heavy skimming to keep O2 up. If it is Dino and starts dying off it could release some nasties and being covered may affect O2 exchange.

I would start with the least invasive and go from there. Cleaning, UV, beef up the CuC, maybe add some more pods, reduce lighting a bit before trying black out. Basically try to kill the termites and not blow up the house to get rid of them

Hope you have a good night, oh, and maybe reset and go bigger like you said :)