I'm not Diatoms, Dino or Hair Algae, what am I?

[EmptyWallet]

Nah nothing seemed to generate growth back then.

In the past 5 days since the last big cleanout, the brown algae growth has significantly slowed down (yay). It's hard to say which change caused the sudden slowdown in growth but for future readers it was one of the following (or combination of some/all);

* Increase salinity from 22 to 24

* Reduced the intensity of my lighting from 70% to 50% (and in Radion speak I changed from the AB+ program to 'deep natural reef' which has a much slower ramp up and ramp down)

* Started thoroughly rinsing my frozen food in RO (previously using hikari brand which claims to be low phosphorous, I was filling 1/2 glass of water then syphoning out 90% of the water before adding food and remaining 10% water to the tank)

* Increased the lighting period in my fuge to be 18 hours and run overnight and during the ramp up/ramp down period of the DT lights. Theory being the fuge should be 'copping' the brunt of the algae growth. That said the fuge is also looking pretty clean and free of algae, the chaeto about 50% covered in diatoms

* Maybe just cleaning both the DT and Fuge of heavy algae coverage at the same time, knocked the population out?

 

[mcarroll]

Nah nothing seemed to generate growth back then.

If you test, do you see different nutrient levels in the sump vs the display.

 

[EmptyWallet]

Interesting thought, i'll have to check that out. I have pretty high flow through my sump, so would be surprised if they have different nutrient levels, but you never know.

I've thought that perhaps high flow through my fuge/sump could be why the chaeto is barely/not growing, not enough 'contact time' with the nutrients passing through ???

 

[mcarroll]

I've thought that perhaps high flow through my fuge/sump could be why the chaeto is barely/not growing, not enough 'contact time' with the nutrients passing through ???

It should be the other way....more flow = more access to nutrients. This is why you find (e.g.) cyano or hair algae growing right on your powerhead. If chaeto had a way to hold on I'm sure it would do the same thing.

But that's speculation in the face of upcoming test results.

 

[EmptyWallet]

That does make perfect sense - and the proof of that is my DT rocks are covered in algae and my sump chaeto is starving. The theory of the reverse photo period or whatever they call it, is that whilst your DT algae is asleep the fuge finally gets dibs on the nutrients

 

[EmptyWallet]

which begs possibly a dumb question, does algae only consume nutrients when it is photosynthesizing / under light or does it do it 24x7?

 

[mcarroll]

The theory of the reverse photo period or whatever they call it, is that whilst your DT algae is asleep the fuge finally gets dibs on the nutrients

That theory makes sense if your nutrients are in the water.

With no nutrients in the water you're on a different script.

 

[EmptyWallet]

So it looks like that brown hair algae growth has come to a grinding halt, no new growth in days. I'm back to a diatom bloom over all the rocks that I scrubbed white a week back, but I'll take that any day! I stoped Nopox and gfo and today I tested zero nitrate and phosphate (both tank and fuge) which was most surprising. I think the chaeto is finally taking off which could explain the zero nutrients. I took the PAR numbers yesterday and will scan in the drawing of the numbers tmrw at work. The kessil h380 is insane 2200 PAR (not a typo) at the water surface

 

[mcarroll]

The kessil h380 is insane 2200 PAR (not a typo) at the water surface

That (a surface peak reading) is all we really need to know. (Wow!) How far off the water is your 380?

Unless you're saying the algae in the display tank cleared up (which of course changes things), then this is still going to encourage the algae on the rocks in the display, IMO. As odd as it may seem, chaeto taking off is not what you want happening right now. A coraline algae "explosion" would be most welcome though!

 

[EmptyWallet]

That would be nice!

My diagram on PAR numbers was a fail, couldn't get the colours to show properly on the scanner. Anywho,

The numbers (top = the top of the rocks where the worst of the algae grows);

The old light settings when the algae was rampant = top 300, middle 130, sand 50 - approx. 10hours at this, with 1hr ramp up, 1hr ramp down.

The new light settings (algae no longer growing, back to diatoms) which is a classic bell curve. Half way up the ramp up/down = top 65, middle 20, sand 10. Peak of the bell curve, top 160, middle 80, sand 30. Total light period is 10 hours, 4 hours below the 'half way number' and about 2 hours near the peak numbers.

The fuge is epic. Kessil H380 mounted so low it's almost touching the water (did this as for months it was a tiny ball sitting on the bottom some 18 inches away from the light). Top 2200, mid 1500, bottom 600 for 18 hours. The chaeto appears to have doubled in the past week

So far the approach seems to be working, the fuge is growing all the algae (starting to see the brown stuff hitting the fuge hard in the past 24 hours) and the DT is stabilising.

Now the focus is on CUC and Coralline seeding !

 

[mcarroll]

Nice!!

 

[sfin52]

How's the tank 4 months later.