HELP! What the H... Is this stuff? It's driving me crazy and I can't get rid of it!

aquadog · Oct 30, 2020

I have a reef tank that most likely has either brown diatoms or dinoflagellates growing on the gravel/sand. Tank is at least a year old. Tests indicate excellent water quality with the possible exception - API kit shows nitrate @ 0 & phosphate checker shows it @ 0.03 so maybe too low? meaning many believe these levels can cause dino problems. Also the water used is RODI with a silica blaster di resin. Light is Kessil/black Box for 10-12hrs/day. The brown algae is only on the gravel and very bottom of glass but not on any of the rocks. Been growing for several months now and is getting worse. How do I get rid of this??? Thank you in advance.

Ron Reefman · Oct 31, 2020

Does it blow off the bottom if you use a turkey baster?

Could it be cyanobacteria?

Brandon3152134 · Oct 31, 2020

I would turn down your photo period, 12 hours is alot if your battling algea. My guess is your sandbed is never stilled so after a year the cyanobacteria(that's what it looks like at least) started growing from the excess nutrient. If this is the case I would blow up the sand with a turkey baster while doing a water change. After a few water changes it might clear up.

aquadog · Oct 31, 2020

Ron Reefman said:
Does it blow off the bottom if you use a turkey baster?

Could it be cyanobacteria?

No. I don't think it's cyano. It's very much growing on the gravel and will not come off if hit with a turkey baster. However, I have not hit it with chemiclean or erythromycin so maybe it could be a bacteria? I'm pretty sure it's dinos. I even have a microscope but probably wouldn't know what I was looking at so wouldn't be able to identify. Thanks for your response!

JGT · Oct 31, 2020

aquadog said:
No. I don't think it's cyano. It's very much growing on the gravel and will not come off if hit with a turkey baster. However, I have not hit it with chemiclean or erythromycin so maybe it could be a bacteria? I'm pretty sure it's dinos. I even have a microscope but probably wouldn't know what I was looking at so wouldn't be able to identify. Thanks for your response!

Manually remove/siphon out, check NO3 and PO4 are in range, lessen feeding, shorten light intervals, add CUC if you don’t have. Be patient. Will take time to eradicate.

aquadog · Oct 31, 2020

Brandon3152134 said:
I would turn down your photo period, 12 hours is alot if your battling algea. My guess is your sandbed is never stilled so after a year the cyanobacteria(that's what it looks like at least) started growing from the excess nutrient. If this is the case I would blow up the sand with a turkey baster while doing a water change. After a few water changes it might clear up.

Thanks Brandin. I don't think it's cyano but I am not at all opposed to treating it as if it were. I'd rather be doing something than nothing at this point. And yes I should probably reduce the photoperiod. Thanks for the suggestions. I probably need to take new photos using regular white lights because they appear too blue.

Ron Reefman · Nov 1, 2020

Get it under your microscope and get a photo of it. Then post that here. There are people here who probably could ID it for you!

Topekoms · Nov 1, 2020

It dinos I would bet. Looks to be bubbles in it

SMSREEF · Nov 1, 2020

It looks like cyano to me as well. But microscope pic would be best ID.

I would suction it out, with the sand it’s attached to. Then vacuum sand that is left in The tank.

You can rinse the little bit of sand you suction out with normal tap water to clean it, then use RODI for a couple final rinses and put the sand back in.

What are your nitrate and phosphate levels?
Do you have any CUC to turn the sand and eat algae down there?

SMSREEF · Nov 1, 2020

Topekoms said:
It dinos I would bet. Looks to be bubbles in it

There are quite a few microbes that create bubbles.
This article has some good pics of different cyano

Algae, Cyanobacteria: Red/Brown/Black & Dinoflagellates

Welcome to AquaCorals! The largest Tank Raised Soft Coral Aquaculture facility in the US! Over 100 Soft Coral species are grown on "Real Rock" here

www.aquacorals.com

Here is a pic of diatoms growing on one of my macroalgae

brandon429 · Nov 1, 2020

The sand should not be mass disturbed in the tank, that can kill the entire system with that much compounding waste in place.

how are sandbeds like that looking here though

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Not only do I love that job, I did it in my vase :) so it’s been modeled already/ done your job is just bigger. I’m going to link a thread where nobody listens regarding aiptasia removal, apply this to your mushroom tank. the sand cleaning is already covered here / ridding newly cleaned rocks...

www.reef2reef.com

the very first work thread linked there, Jon’s, is 120 gallon system so there’s no problem working large tanks if the reefer truly is resolved to win.

brandon429 · Nov 1, 2020

Two neat aspects of that large collection of works:
we never take time to identify an organism, waste of time as all the fix steps are the same. for each possible sandbed invaded, action steps were the same, same steps even if just moving a reef to a new home which had no invasion.

we never asked for one param reading, those don’t matter either.

there is one cause for the above condition: simply permitting it. Not permitting it using the order of ops we like sure has an excellent chance of a clean system the after pics show.

a third neat aspect of the thread is using rip cleaning to align the tank back to uninvaded, then if you start to get grow back then fixes you put in place like new pods ordered, or bottled fixes, have a better chance since there’s less target mass. Deep cleaning helps in every possible way. If deep cleans caused dinos (they say not to do water changes, but we do 100% water changes) then the thread above would be solid pics of dinos after each rip clean, but those are just happy reefs.

dont go off my summary of the thread, there are two hundred jobs in one file you can self inspect, message one of them for follow ups see if they are happy. Patterns seal the deal. Never siphon our your sandbed while the tank is full, that can kill it like stick stirring.

*not everyone wants to do manual cleaning, in fact the majority just don’t want to do the work. You can try parameter alteration, but that’s always risky for bleaching corals, causing counter invasions, and taking months if any to work.

that above, your reef looks new by five pm.

Brandon3152134 · Nov 1, 2020

If you want a new sandbed you have to syphon the bad sand out and replace it with new fresh rinsed arrgonite sand. I would not attempt to rinse established sand and replace it. that would throw the entire tank into a cycles of algeas and crazy swings. The amount of microscopic creatures in your sandbed is unfathomable and to release that into your water column is asking for a crash.

aquadog · Nov 1, 2020

Ron Reefman said:
Get it under your microscope and get a photo of it. Then post that here. There are people here who probably could ID it for you!

SMSREEF said:
It looks like cyano to me as well. But microscope pic would be best ID.

I would suction it out, with the sand it’s attached to. Then vacuum sand that is left in The tank.

You can rinse the little bit of sand you suction out with normal tap water to clean it, then use RODI for a couple final rinses and put the sand back in.

What are your nitrate and phosphate levels?
Do you have any CUC to turn the sand and eat algae down there?

Thanks for your reply!
So the phosphate level is 0.03 (Hanna Checker) & the nitrate is 0 (api). It's a very small tank (40 breeder) so there are only 2 or 3 zebra turbo snails and 10-20 tiny blue leg hermit crabs. The sand is actually crushed coral. It seems to be a mixture of large & small pieces.

SMSREEF · Nov 1, 2020

aquadog said:
Thanks for your reply!
So the phosphate level is 0.03 (Hanna Checker) & the nitrate is 0 (api). It's a very small tank (40 breeder) so there are only 2 or 3 zebra turbo snails and 10-20 tiny blue leg hermit crabs. The sand is actually crushed coral. It seems to be a mixture of large & small pieces.

Cyano tend to create the mats you see, often in low nitrate conditions. Although low phosphate and nitrate are recipe for Dino’s too.

Microscope pic would help with best plan. Because even the different Dino’s have different treatment paths.

If it’s cyano, you can get a bunch of cerith snails. They are small and get into smaller spaces. Your hermit army may decide they want one of their shells but my hermits leave them alone unless one is really weak.
You also can try increasing flow after you manually remove the cyano. You can Increase nitrate so it’s not 0 with more feeding, turn skimmer off or dose nitrate.

Here is a good BRS video on the subject

Ron Reefman · Nov 1, 2020

Somebody else here said:
If you want a new sandbed you have to syphon the bad sand out and replace it with new fresh rinsed arrgonite sand. I would not attempt to rinse established sand and replace it. that would throw the entire tank into a cycles of algeas and crazy swings. The amount of microscopic creatures in your sandbed is unfathomable and to release that into your water column is asking for a crash.

I'm not going to argue this with him, but he is just so wrong.

Sand that is removed and washed is perfectly OK to use again. I've done it about 5 times over the past 20 years to set up new tanks or re-build old tanks. Never had any issues.

SMSREEF · Nov 1, 2020

Ron Reefman said:
Somebody else here said:
If you want a new sandbed you have to syphon the bad sand out and replace it with new fresh rinsed arrgonite sand. I would not attempt to rinse established sand and replace it. that would throw the entire tank into a cycles of algeas and crazy swings. The amount of microscopic creatures in your sandbed is unfathomable and to release that into your water column is asking for a crash.

I'm not going to argue this with him, but he is just so wrong.

Sand that is removed and washed is perfectly OK to use again. I've done it about 5 times over the past 20 years to set up new tanks or re-build old tanks. Never had any issues.

I Agree Ron
I meant only the pieces with cyano attached, not the whole sandbed. I’ve done this kind of targeted cleaning many times and never had an issue (when I was dealing with cyano in my 10 gallon, and when I had chrysophyte in my 60 cube). It ends up being less than a cup of sand which is pretty insignificant.

But yes, a rip-clean of whole sandbed is kinda like taking an atomic bomb to a problem that could easily be solved with more targeted strategy.

There also is an option to rinse the cyano sand/crushed coral in saltwater to remove the cyano. It will be more expensive but give greater peace of mind.

@aquadog do you clean the sandbed when you do water changes?

aquadog · Nov 1, 2020

SMSREEF said:
I Agree Ron
I meant only the pieces with cyano attached, not the whole sandbed. I’ve done this kind of targeted cleaning many times and never had an issue (when I was dealing with cyano in my 10 gallon, and when I had chrysophyte in my 60 cube). It ends up being less than a cup of sand which is pretty insignificant.

But yes, a rip-clean of whole sandbed is kinda like taking an atomic bomb to a problem that could easily be solved with more targeted strategy.

There also is an option to rinse the cyano sand/crushed coral in saltwater to remove the cyano. It will be more expensive but give greater peace of mind.

@aquadog do you clean the sandbed when you do water changes?

Yes I have performed a gravel vac or two during the course of this tank. There were no problems for months & months. It was the easiest tank I'd ever set up! Then a very small section of gravel began to turn brown. As the months past, it spread to the rest of the gravel. I have never actually removed, rinsed and returned the gravel in this tank. I can certainly give it a go but this stuff is different than cyano. Unless I hit it with some bleach, I dont think it's going anywhere. The pictures are terrible! I'll post better ones as soon as I can. This stuff is like reddish brown algae that appears to be growing in the pores of the gravel.