Help!

[robwcormack]

I have been battling some sort of hair algae. I have bought a microscope and here is the 400x view. Looks like GHA to me. BUT, I have tried everything to get rid of it. Nothing will eat it. Had a lawnmower blenny and sea hare starve with this stuff plentiful. My foxface and whitetail bristle tooth won’t touch it, all different types of snails, hermits, pitho, conch. None of them. I remove it time after time. Tried fluxRx twice that didn’t work. Tried blackouts multiple times. Algaefix marine no help. Then I thought maybe the reefmat removed the fluxRx before it had a chance to work so I took the reefmat out and took the cup off the skimmer 9 days ago and am trying running it again with algaefix at the same time. Ran with no skimmer or filters for a week and a couple days ago put in filter socks and cleaned sump completely and started skimmer back. Ran GFO in reactor for a few days but Parameters show 0.0 phosphate and 1.0 nitrate with Hanna checkers so I turned reactor off. Even bought Hanna calibration kit for each. Only running lights 6 hours a day. Have left UV off for a month or so. 20-30% water changes weekly. I’m at my wits end. Replaced all RODI filters, then bought a whole new RODI system. I’ve got Cyano starting, especially in sand next to glass below top layer. Got what looks like maybe Dinos starting on top of sand as well which disappears at night.

 

[Lasse]

In the aquarium - does it form a mat and/or looks slimy??

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Can we see a full tank picture? That will help us.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Wow, you have certainly tried a lot of things. Hopefully these fine reefers can help.

 

[robwcormack]

In the aquarium - does it form a mat and/or looks slimy??

Sincerely Lasse

No. The only thing close to that is that it does tend to grow all around my zoas ad gets kind of thick and matted around the bases. Zoas are all stretched up a bit presumably due to the lights being cut back so much for so long. I’ve only been running lights for 6 hours a day for months now and have the intensity dialed down too

 

[robwcormack]

Can we see a full tank picture? That will help us.

I’ll get some this evening. Lights don’t come up till 2:30P and go down at 8:30

 

[Lasse]

Not like this?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[robwcormack]

Not like this?

Sincerely Lasse

No not at all

 

[EnterName]

You have already tried excessive filtering so I want to suggest a different approach:

Randy often mentions that there are plenty of great looking tanks without algae issues that have what most people would consider "high" nutrient levels. Algae needs more than nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) to grow. Carbon (C), as well as Iron (Fe) and other elements can become a limiting factor, as well. (See Randy's Thoughts on Nutrient Target Ranges)

Algae growth could be more of an indicator for something being wrong with the water chemistry/biology than an indicator for too high nutrient levels. I would try to bring nutrient levels up to desired levels using for example ammonia and phosphate dosing. This gives you a lot of control over nutrient levels and doesn't require overfeeding which might cause other problems in the long run and has a very delayed effect that is hard to control and estimate properly.



I very recently had a similar algae issue (anecdotal evidence incoming):
I upgraded to another tank and didn't want to transfer the sand. I also used activated carbon to remove chemicals that might have been introduced through the new piping, silicone/glue, plastic, etc.

This led to nutrients bottoming out, bacteria to die (bio-film on the water surface), and dinos starting to appear.
The previous tank always had low nutrient levels so removing the sand and filtering excessively was simply too much. As soon as I had made sense of what was happening, I started dosing ammonia and phosphate and got an ICP test done. The test showed that everything was fine besides Strontium (Sr) being low and the obvious nutrient issues. I simply prepared nutrient solutions and added the missing Sr over a few days and corals were opening fully again, gaining color, and dinos, as well as green algae (see image below) stopped growing all together.

(DIC Microscopy Focus-Stack Image of the nuisance algae)​

 

[Kooma]

You have already tried excessive filtering so I want to suggest a different approach:

Randy often mentions that there are plenty of great looking tanks without algae issues that have what most people would consider "high" nutrient levels. Algae needs more than nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) to grow. Carbon (C), as well as Iron (Fe) and other elements can become a limiting factor, as well. (See Randy's Thoughts on Nutrient Target Ranges)

Algae growth could be more of an indicator for something being wrong with the water chemistry/biology than an indicator for too high nutrient levels. I would try to bring nutrient levels up to desired levels using for example ammonia and phosphate dosing. This gives you a lot of control over nutrient levels and doesn't require overfeeding which might cause other problems in the long run and has a very delayed effect that is hard to control and estimate properly.



I very recently had a similar algae issue (anecdotal evidence incoming):
I upgraded to another tank and didn't want to transfer the sand. I also used activated carbon to remove chemicals that might have been introduced through the new piping, silicone/glue, plastic, etc.

This led to nutrients bottoming out, bacteria to die (bio-film on the water surface), and dinos starting to appear.
The previous tank always had low nutrient levels so removing the sand and filtering excessively was simply too much. As soon as I had made sense of what was happening, I started dosing ammonia and phosphate and got an ICP test done. The test showed that everything was fine besides Strontium (Sr) being low and the obvious nutrient issues. I simply prepared nutrient solutions and added the missing Sr over a few days and corals were opening fully again, gaining color, and dinos, as well as green algae (see image below) stopped growing all together.

(DIC Microscopy Focus-Stack Image of the nuisance algae)​

Love this.

There is definitely more to algae outbreaks than phos and nitrates. I run a system that is over 1.5 phos and 90 nitrate, and have absolutely zero hair algae or other types. All I’m dealing with lately is some cyano as I work to bring those levels down with vinegar dosing, which is working really well.

Maybe we should put a thread together focused on cup results and algae, I’d love to find out more info about it.

 

[Michael Hughes]

All I’m dealing with lately is some cyano as I work to bring those levels down with vinegar dosing, which is working really well.

I know this a different topic than the OP asked about, but Stomatellas will absolutely destroy cyano. They love the stuff.

 

[Lasse]

No not at all

I look forward to seeing your current photos. Please take them under white light.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[robwcormack]

No not at all

I look forward to seeing your current photos. Please take them under white light.

Sincerely Lasse

So I have XR30 Blues and I cand figure out how to get Möbius to turn white. Obviously when it’s not white it’s a little harder to tell but this was what I got.

Have to give an iCloud link because I can’t resize pics to fit on here.

iCloud Photos - Apple iCloud

View, organize, and share photos and videos with iCloud Photos on the web. Changes will sync across your devices with iCloud.

share.icloud.com

 

[Lasse]

Its more or less impossible to say what it is. If we start with the fluffy ones. I can´t rule out cyanobacteria with help of these pictures or your microscopic photo. Your history strongly suggest cyanobacteria of some form - there is a lot of different species - not all forms mats.

The yellow brown sand indicate dinoflagellates or diatoms - what speaks against diatoms is your whitetail bristle tooth - these fishes use to love diatoms. If the bristle tooth eat it - surly diatoms IMO.

Your concentration of nutrients also suggest cyanobacteria and/or dinoflagellates/diatoms - IMO

Keep in mind that Hanna Checker HR has an accuracy of ± 2 ppm if it is that you use.

If I was in this situation I would test to stop the chemical treatments, rise the nutrient concentrations to at least 0.06- 0.1 PO4 and > 4 in NO3. Perform a mechanical cleaning and stop WC for a couple of weeks/months. Start both skimmer and UV-C. I would also introduce enough of CUC (if you not already have it) and go whiter in light and for 12 hours a day. If it too much - just go down in intensity but you must have enough light on order to let competitive eatable organisms establish themself.

To be clear - what you have done till now is inside the aquarist toolbox - have not helped - you need to go outside it IMO.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[robwcormack]

I just realized in that really long first post I left out another potentially key bit of info that I had actually posted in another post somewhere. I had been using a 44 gal brute for mixing water and after mixing would pump the water thru a hose into the house to my tank. I had connected the hose to that submersible pump with a stainless steel hose clamp(which was only used when pumping water in and then taken out of the brute til next time). When I built my new mixing station, I was going to use the same hose and noticed that while the clamp ring itself was stainless apparently the screw that tightens the clamp was not. It was noticeably rusted despite spending very little time submerged in the brute. That set off an alarm in my head. I had used one of those same clamps for the hose on my UV pump which had been submerged in my sump for months. Go in to check and sure enough it was rusted to the point when I touched it a large portion of it pretty much disintegrated. I immediately took out what I could, did a water change, and the next day put in some carbon and cuprisorb for several days prior to starting the fluxRx treatment discussed above. What I forgot to mention was when I cleaned my sump this past Sunday I found 3 little chunks of rusted remnants. I’ve read iron is like gas on a fire for hair algae. Wondering if some has been absorbed into my rock work (which started as base rock seeded with Fritz turbo start twice) and is leaching? Not sure exactly how that works. So my thought process is that the 2 weeks on this round of fluxRx is over on Monday. Thinking to let it go til then as the stuff does seem to be dying, and then put the cuprisorb back in and start my UV back as well as carbon and leave the GFO reactor off. Take the filter socks back out and put reefmat back in. Kinda hesitant, but open to trying dosing nitrate and phosphate slowly as I already have them hooked up to my dosing pump (did that before to keep those levels steady while getting established). Maybe the fluxRx and algaefix will kill off the majority of what’s left by Monday and then the cuprisorb and carbon will remove any excess iron over a period of time and hopefully the UV will eradicate the Dinos and cyano before they take hold. Does this sound like a good plan taking the additional info into consideration?