Help save my tank!

[cybanez]

I’ve been trying everything I can think of to control this outbreak. I thought it was a dinoflagellate issue, but now everything is covered in this crap.
It started after i moved around a bunch of rocks to try to get to apitasia that I’ve got everywhere. I think I started a mini-cycle by moving too much around. It was only on the sand at that point. Now it’s covering everything. I’ve left the lights off for several days and it hasn’t done much to help. Reduced feeding, added starter bacteria, frequent water changes, etc.
I’m beyond frustrated and ready to just give up.

 

[Beachbilly]

Test your phosphates and nitrates for starters. Looks like your at the end of the nitrogen cycle. When did you set the tank up? Deep breaths!!!

 

[cybanez]

Test your phosphates and nitrates for starters. Looks like your at the end of the nitrogen cycle. When did you set the tank up? Deep breaths!!!

The tank has been established for 9 months. It was great for a while and has all of the sudden crashed.

I’ll check the chemistry again, but the most recent on 5/14 are:
NO2 - 0.0
NO3 - 5.0
NH3 - 0.25
Salinity - 1.025
PH - 8.0
PO4 - 0.25
Ca - 280
Hardness - 10

 

[KQuillan]

Any cleanup crew in there?

 

[cybanez]

Any cleanup crew in there?

Yep. 3 nassarius snail, 5 or 6 various hermits, a few turbo snails, an arrow crab, an emerald crab. And just in case I have something mismatched, the rest are: 1 clown (his chick committed suicide last week by jumping out), 1 filefish, 1 watchman goby.

 

[cybanez]

Yep. 3 nassarius snail, 5 or 6 various hermits, a few turbo snails, an arrow crab, an emerald crab. And just in case I have something mismatched, the rest are: 1 clown (his chick committed suicide last week by jumping out), 1 filefish, 1 watchman goby.

Oh and I just added a sand sifting starfish a week ago to help move sand.

 

[cybanez]

Any cleanup crew in there?

Should probably also mention it’s a 35 gallon. Maybe I’m running too slim on the CUC?

 

[slingfox]

It is difficult to tell what you are dealing with from the picture. Is it some combination of dinos, hair algae, and aptasia? Regardless of what it is, with a 35 gallon it should be fairly easy to pull out the rockscape and scrub all the uglies off outside of the tank. With rock removed you can also use that as an opportunity to sift your sand if there is a bunch of uglies there.

To get better help you need to post more about your system, including your feeding schedule, what nutrient export you have (Or other key equipment like UV), what you dose if anything, full tank picture white light, etc. The more information you provide the more likely people can help.

For the parameters posted, what test kit are you using? People mostly only need salinity, alk, nitrate and phosphate to help diagnose.

Note also that a sand sifting starfish is bad news for a 35 gallon tank. It will not be able to survive unless you plan to feed it by burying food into the sand.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Should probably also mention it’s a 35 gallon. Maybe I’m running too slim on the CUC?

You need more cuc than that for a 35. I would double your cuc

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

What do you have for filtration? How often do you change the water? Can we see a full tank picture? Do you have powerheads in the tank? How many fish in the tank? How much exactly do you feed and how often? Need more info on your system.

 

[Beachbilly]

For starters trade the Star for a small Conch. Parameters ok Po4 alittle high and your rock may be leeching it out, this happens after the saturation stage which may explain why your system seemed stable in the beginning. Everything takes up po4 including gac many hobbies disagree with that, but some do including myself. Do you have a sump or hob ffiltration? Have you considered UV sterilizer? Just a 5w should work, especially if you run it in display. Ideally a sump configuration is best but the way. To plumb it may vary between horizontal or vertical installation. If you take the rock out, you can spray it with peroxide a small section at a time, let sit for 5 min then put it back in display. The uglies will die out, but if main problem isn't fixed then it may come back. BTW if your system uses HOB filtration and you see stringy looking algae like appearance on your floss or sponge then it's definitely dinos which can happen with an imbalance in nutrients believe it or not or introduced at some point via snails or coral. At the end of the day you can always nuc the thing with Dino - X (btw dinoflagellates are a bacteria fyi if you didn't know already) or Reef Flux for nuisance algae with caution of course, as a last resort. Lastly try slowly bringing up no3 10-20ppm and lowering po4 if your using HANNA UL up to .09 ideally .03-.05 or Salfert next to 0.

 

[cybanez]

For starters trade the Star for a small Conch. Parameters ok Po4 alittle high and your rock may be leeching it out, this happens after the saturation stage which may explain why your system seemed stable in the beginning. Everything takes up po4 including gac many hobbies disagree with that, but some do including myself. Do you have a sump or hob ffiltration? Have you considered UV sterilizer? Just a 5w should work, especially if you run it in display. Ideally a sump configuration is best but the way. To plumb it may vary between horizontal or vertical installation. If you take the rock out, you can spray it with peroxide a small section at a time, let sit for 5 min then put it back in display. The uglies will die out, but if main problem isn't fixed then it may come back. BTW if your system uses HOB filtration and you see stringy looking algae like appearance on your floss or sponge then it's definitely dinos which can happen with an imbalance in nutrients believe it or not or introduced at some point via snails or coral. At the end of the day you can always nuc the thing with Dino - X (btw dinoflagellates are a bacteria fyi if you didn't know already) or Reef Flux for nuisance algae with caution of course, as a last resort. Lastly try slowly bringing up no3 10-20ppm and lowering po4 if your using HANNA UL up to .09 ideally .03-.05 or Salfert next to 0.

I have a sicce whale 500 canister filter and am currently using a small UV filter to try to fix this issue.

I will work through your suggestions. Thank you!!

 

[cybanez]

It is difficult to tell what you are dealing with from the picture. Is it some combination of dinos, hair algae, and aptasia? Regardless of what it is, with a 35 gallon it should be fairly easy to pull out the rockscape and scrub all the uglies off outside of the tank. With rock removed you can also use that as an opportunity to sift your sand if there is a bunch of uglies there.

To get better help you need to post more about your system, including your feeding schedule, what nutrient export you have (Or other key equipment like UV), what you dose if anything, full tank picture white light, etc. The more information you provide the more likely people can help.

For the parameters posted, what test kit are you using? People mostly only need salinity, alk, nitrate and phosphate to help diagnose.

Note also that a sand sifting starfish is bad news for a 35 gallon tank. It will not be able to survive unless you plan to feed it by burying food into the sand.

Thank you. I knew that when I got the starfish with the intent to take him back to the LFS once the tank seemed cleaned up. I called him a rental
I’ll add another post with full tank pics and as much info as I can get.

 

[Beachbilly]

My friend has a Tomini Flame Tang in his 35 gallon. I have one in my 85 gallon that's about the smallest Tang you can get, but it doesn't graze as much as a Sailfin or Foxface even thats a hit and miss. I put a pin Cushion Urchin in and it ate through layer of a velvet type blanket algae on my rock, then it took out all of the coraline on my rock, and started to take out a lot of coraline on my glass, and recently just took it back to lfs. I like coraline, too much more than that urchin. I think patience is your best friend in this hobby. After two years of my set up, I think it got easier in terms of nuisance algae, but then when you get coral, you have to watch other things more closely.

 

[Beachbilly]

Get yourself a lawnmower bkenny when the time is right. I think the sand dinos that I had killed one before. I have a new one now. After the dinos went away, I got it. I d those things first, chris, a microscope. This was an old clip of what are dinos, the oval shape thing swimming around in circles.

 

[commod0re]

Should probably also mention it’s a 35 gallon. Maybe I’m running too slim on the CUC?

Yes it looks like you don’t have many herbivore snails, add some ceriths and banded trochus

Also try to trim the algae down manually, when it’s long nobody will eat it