Albertan22
Well-Known Member
Short version, my sand bed is being taken over by a red/rust coloured algae (though looks greener under whites when I was taking pics) and it is starting to climb some of the rockwork at the base. I had a little of it in the back most of the summer and was watching it. I left on vacation for 2 weeks and left the tank with a tank sitter, came home and nutrients were elevated (N:10, P: 0.15) from where they had been (N:5, P: 0.05). These values aren't crazy by any means, in fact would be normal for an established tank but I was trying to keep them a bit lower while the tank matures. That said, the red on the sand had expanded a lot while I was away. I assumed Cyano and tried a Chemiclean treatment, it did nothing so I assumed I misdiagnosed the problem. During the Chemiclean treatment my nutrients climbed a little more as I had shut down my AWC and the skimmer wasn't functional (going crazy). It took a couple weeks to get the skimmer back under control. During this time the bloom of whatever it is has spread through the entire sandbed.
Tank Stats and Parameters:
180g mixed reef with 75 gallon sump running since Feb 2020
Tank was an upgrade, 60% of the rock came from my last tank that was running 10 years and had no issues at time of breakdown
I have an in sump refugium with chaeto that is fairly healthy and has a good copepod population
Salinity 1.026 SG
Temperature 77.5F to 78.5 F
Alk 7.9
Cal 400
Mag 1320
Nitrate 10
Ammonia/Nitrite not tested
Phosphate 0.10
pH 8.0 (typically lower but added a CO2 scrubber this week)
Auto water change system changes (1% system volume daily [2 gallons])
Dosing Alk and Cal via dosing pump
Was dosing 6ml/day acropower but stopped about a month ago
N/P records
Current photo under whites
I have siphoned the sand bed several times in the past couple of weeks, once into a pail, and the rest into my filter socks in the sump. I have removed a bunch of cloudy detritus from the depths of the sandbed and now when I vac the water is fairly clean. Algae seems to clump up and not get sucked up the gravel vac tube, it ends up buried in the sand. The gravel vac leaves me with a white sandbed but the red returns in a matter of hours. I read through some of the dino threads and broke out my 1980's era fisher price microscope and took a sample of the sand, this is what I found:
Apologies for the poor photograph, it's hard to get a good photo with a cell phone lens pressed up to a 40 year old toy microscope! I went to www.algaeid.com and based on what I saw and the movement, I believe the dots may be Amphidinium sp. Does this make any sense to anyone? It seems to be living interspersed with what is probably green hair algae and at elevated nutrient levels? The infestation/bloom has taken off since my nutrients jumped when I went on vacation. This seems the opposite of what dino's should do so I'm at a bit of a loss. Maybe the sand naturally has Amphidinium but that's not my actual problem? I don't see anything there that looks like it might be diatoms. I'm not sure what to do other than to nurse my nutrients down a little bit. My previous targets were P: 0.03, N: 5 and the tank seemed to be living happy there. I have been playing around with adding more flow, the tank is still only running the two MP40's I had on my 120g. I would love to hear some opinions on the matter on what this might be and if I am on the wrong track of trying to bring nutrients down a bit.
Tank Stats and Parameters:
180g mixed reef with 75 gallon sump running since Feb 2020
Tank was an upgrade, 60% of the rock came from my last tank that was running 10 years and had no issues at time of breakdown
I have an in sump refugium with chaeto that is fairly healthy and has a good copepod population
Salinity 1.026 SG
Temperature 77.5F to 78.5 F
Alk 7.9
Cal 400
Mag 1320
Nitrate 10
Ammonia/Nitrite not tested
Phosphate 0.10
pH 8.0 (typically lower but added a CO2 scrubber this week)
Auto water change system changes (1% system volume daily [2 gallons])
Dosing Alk and Cal via dosing pump
Was dosing 6ml/day acropower but stopped about a month ago
N/P records
Current photo under whites
I have siphoned the sand bed several times in the past couple of weeks, once into a pail, and the rest into my filter socks in the sump. I have removed a bunch of cloudy detritus from the depths of the sandbed and now when I vac the water is fairly clean. Algae seems to clump up and not get sucked up the gravel vac tube, it ends up buried in the sand. The gravel vac leaves me with a white sandbed but the red returns in a matter of hours. I read through some of the dino threads and broke out my 1980's era fisher price microscope and took a sample of the sand, this is what I found:
Apologies for the poor photograph, it's hard to get a good photo with a cell phone lens pressed up to a 40 year old toy microscope! I went to www.algaeid.com and based on what I saw and the movement, I believe the dots may be Amphidinium sp. Does this make any sense to anyone? It seems to be living interspersed with what is probably green hair algae and at elevated nutrient levels? The infestation/bloom has taken off since my nutrients jumped when I went on vacation. This seems the opposite of what dino's should do so I'm at a bit of a loss. Maybe the sand naturally has Amphidinium but that's not my actual problem? I don't see anything there that looks like it might be diatoms. I'm not sure what to do other than to nurse my nutrients down a little bit. My previous targets were P: 0.03, N: 5 and the tank seemed to be living happy there. I have been playing around with adding more flow, the tank is still only running the two MP40's I had on my 120g. I would love to hear some opinions on the matter on what this might be and if I am on the wrong track of trying to bring nutrients down a bit.
