Help needed with algae

sebastiaan1985

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Hi all,

For the past months I have been struggling with algae.
At first I thought it was cyano, but now I’m starting to doubt if my assumption was correct.

Started the tank 5 months ago, with dead rock and live sand. Some macroalgae in reverse schedule in sump.

Tried light out, increasing flow and also cyanoclean from KZ.

Kh: 7.96
Ph: between 8.05 and 8.28
Ca: 428
Mg: 1360
No3: undetectable
Po4: undetectable

cf136a3460693e48f29101890304a28c.jpg

fbaa7e74921f1f8983df2b7725b1fcc1.jpg


Please help!
 

Brew12

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This looks like dino's to me. Is it brownish and stringy that makes a lot of bubbles? And does it die back overnight and grow quickly again the next day?
 

rtparty

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Undetectable NO3 and PO4 is your problem here along with the dead rock. Not that dead rock in and of itself is a problem, it's not. It's the lack of information and education on how to properly seed and start a tank with dead rock.

(Mike Paletta's latest YouTube video was absolutely cringe worthy to watch because of the lack of basic education on what his real issues were.)

Sadly, I only slightly understand this because of my current issues and what I went through. I'll try to get a link to my thread that will answer a lot of your questions.


https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/324861/
 
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sebastiaan1985

sebastiaan1985

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This looks like dino's to me. Is it brownish and stringy that makes a lot of bubbles? And does it die back overnight and grow quickly again the next day?

It had the same colour as rust... so bit red-brown... does die off a bit a night, but not completely.
And yes, it is stringy and forms bubbles..
 
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sebastiaan1985

sebastiaan1985

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Undetectable NO3 and PO4 is your problem here along with the dead rock. Not that dead rock in and of itself is a problem, it's not. It's the lack of information and education on how to properly seed and start a tank with dead rock.

(Mike Paletta's latest YouTube video was absolutely cringe worthy to watch because of the lack of basic education on what his real issues were.)

Sadly, I only slightly understand this because of my current issues and what I went through. I'll try to get a link to my thread that will answer a lot of your questions.


https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/324861/

So adding some live rock in sump would improve?
Did use live sand for seeding, with the addition of several kinds of commercial bacteria... did have some peaks of nitrate and phosphate, but those went down past few weeks.

Thanks for the link! Will go through it...
 

Brew12

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It had the same colour as rust... so bit red-brown... does die off a bit a night, but not completely.
And yes, it is stringy and forms bubbles..
What are you doing for nutrient control?

Typically, dino's form in systems that are phosphate limited but have available nitrates. It isn't unusual to see dino's in systems that have too much GFO being used.
 
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sebastiaan1985

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What are you doing for nutrient control?

Typically, dino's form in systems that are phosphate limited but have available nitrates. It isn't unusual to see dino's in systems that have too much GFO being used.

As I am unimaginable triton, I am using a refugium and GFO. Although the GFO has been offline for two weeks (still no nutrients detected but am assuming a false negative).

Running a fairly large skimmer as well.
 

Brew12

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As I am unimaginable triton, I am using a refugium and GFO. Although the GFO has been offline for two weeks (still no nutrients detected but am assuming a false negative).

Running a fairly large skimmer as well.
Have you noticed that the macro algae in your sump has stopped or slowed in growth?
 

rtparty

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So adding some live rock in sump would improve?
Did use live sand for seeding, with the addition of several kinds of commercial bacteria... did have some peaks of nitrate and phosphate, but those went down past few weeks.

Thanks for the link! Will go through it...
If you can find clean, good live rock it will certainly help. With dead rock you MUST be the one to help introduce the good algae and bacteria we need. Then keep it alive and thriving while the cyano and dinos set in. If you have enough good algae/bacteria, they'll eventually out compete the dinos for food and you won't keep having blooms.

First thing is first though, you need to ID what you have with a $10 toy microscope. Second, you need to start dosing nitrate and phosphate. My thread goes over that with help from smarter individuals than I
 

Brew12

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If you can find clean, good live rock it will certainly help. With dead rock you MUST be the one to help introduce the good algae and bacteria we need. Then keep it alive and thriving while the cyano and dinos set in. If you have enough good algae/bacteria, they'll eventually out compete the dinos for food and you won't keep having blooms.

First thing is first though, you need to ID what you have with a $10 toy microscope. Second, you need to start dosing nitrate and phosphate. My thread goes over that with help from smarter individuals than I
Adding some live rock is a good idea but may not be necessary. With a Triton setup the macro algae should have brought in much of the necessary bio diversity that is needed.

In an aquarium, we are trying to maintain living reefs. This means they are designed to support life. We only have an illusion of control over which life makes it into our tanks. The smaller the life, the less control we have.

What we can do is try and create the conditions to give more desirable types of life a better change to thrive over the undesirable types.

Dino's do best in a system with nitrates but very low phosphates.
Cyanobacteria do best in a system with phosphates but very low nitrates.
Algae does best when both nutrients are balanced.
The only other option is to try and keep all nutrients out of the tank but that makes supporting coral difficult.

My goal is to try and keep both phosphates and nitrates balanced in the system. I don't necessarily care if I get a oppm reading as long as it is algae that is consuming them. Of course, I don't want algae making a mess of my DT so I run a high power fuge light to get it to grow there instead. A high quality fuge light is critical for using fuge based nutrient exports. The nutrients in all of your water will roughly be the same. If you are running high powered lights on your display tank the algae in your DT will grow faster than the algae in your fuge which is not what we want. To counter this you need to run lights that are designed for plant, not coral, growth. They also need to either be strong enough to compete with the DT lighting or close enough to the algae that it gets competitive PAR/PUR values (this is how algae scrubbers work with low powered light).
 
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sebastiaan1985

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If you can find clean, good live rock it will certainly help. With dead rock you MUST be the one to help introduce the good algae and bacteria we need. Then keep it alive and thriving while the cyano and dinos set in. If you have enough good algae/bacteria, they'll eventually out compete the dinos for food and you won't keep having blooms.

First thing is first though, you need to ID what you have with a $10 toy microscope. Second, you need to start dosing nitrate and phosphate. My thread goes over that with help from smarter individuals than I

Guess I will have to take a sample to work and check on microscope. Should be able to make a picture as well.
Already sourcing fresh live rock, should help the balance.
 
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sebastiaan1985

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Adding some live rock is a good idea but may not be necessary. With a Triton setup the macro algae should have brought in much of the necessary bio diversity that is needed.

In an aquarium, we are trying to maintain living reefs. This means they are designed to support life. We only have an illusion of control over which life makes it into our tanks. The smaller the life, the less control we have.

What we can do is try and create the conditions to give more desirable types of life a better change to thrive over the undesirable types.

Dino's do best in a system with nitrates but very low phosphates.
Cyanobacteria do best in a system with phosphates but very low nitrates.
Algae does best when both nutrients are balanced.
The only other option is to try and keep all nutrients out of the tank but that makes supporting coral difficult.

My goal is to try and keep both phosphates and nitrates balanced in the system. I don't necessarily care if I get a oppm reading as long as it is algae that is consuming them. Of course, I don't want algae making a mess of my DT so I run a high power fuge light to get it to grow there instead. A high quality fuge light is critical for using fuge based nutrient exports. The nutrients in all of your water will roughly be the same. If you are running high powered lights on your display tank the algae in your DT will grow faster than the algae in your fuge which is not what we want. To counter this you need to run lights that are designed for plant, not coral, growth. They also need to either be strong enough to compete with the DT lighting or close enough to the algae that it gets competitive PAR/PUR values (this is how algae scrubbers work with low powered light).

Currently I am feeding a bit more, to see if I can get Nitrates and Phosphates to be detectable. Since I currently have a lot of algae, I am certain that the algae is consuming most of them, so giving me a false reading.
I am going to put a small amount of fresh live rock in the sump, just to add to the bio-diversity, which in time will increase stability.
Have been dosing ZeoBak and Cyanoclean from KZ, to add some bacteria as well, but some more and more diverse seems like a proper next step.

Hopefully I will able to use the microscope tomorrow, so I can identify what is going on.
 

rtparty

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Overfeeding isn't the best way to raise N and P since it raises all nutrients and we want to specifically target raising N and P. My thread goes over all of that towards the end.

@mcarroll and @reeferfoxx were huge helps. My tank is now 90% rid of all dinos and no cyano. My UV will be hooked up tomorrow finally and I will eradicate the rest of the dinos.
 
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sebastiaan1985

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Overfeeding isn't the best way to raise N and P since it raises all nutrients and we want to specifically target raising N and P. My thread goes over all of that towards the end.

@mcarroll and @reeferfoxx were huge helps. My tank is now 90% rid of all dinos and no cyano. My UV will be hooked up tomorrow finally and I will eradicate the rest of the dinos.

Was feeding a lot less to get nutrients down, so now I am feeding a bit more, but still on a conservative side.
Hope they can pitch in, cause corals are having trouble at the moment...
 
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