Major algae breakout killing coral...throwing in the towel!

[reefknight]

Bill my friend don't give up and no I don't recommend bashing your head against the wall, not good for the wall.
How do you cool your tank?
I know you got a AC but do you force the cool air over the water surface?
Not sure if the temps has anything to do with your algae problems but lets assume this algae thrives in the low 80's.
I suggest to strip the tank and treat your rock, wash your sand.
I know it's a big job to do but IMO the best approach after battling this for months with no results.
Find a way to house your livestock and get started.
Fragging your corals and selling some off in your local club or here might give you some financial backing for what you need to have done.
Just let this sink in for a bit or not.
But don't let a the algae beat you to get out of this hobby.

Appreciate the kind words and the sense of humor at this point. I have two higher speed CPU fans mounted to acrylic that are set on top of the sump. They're controlled via Apex. When the heat was at its worse over the summer I had a box fan sitting on one side of the stand and opened the doors on each end to allow air to pass through over the sump as well.

 

[Pete polyp]

I hate to hear that. It's bad enough losing the corals, losing my fish as well would be devastating. My Darwin clowns I have had for going on 8yrs. The Mandarin in my tank has been kept by me for 3yrs, 2yrs before that by its previous owner. Not to mention my wrasses, Lineatus, Hooded, Canary and a juvie Potter's Leopard that is doing phenomenal.

Yep.... I lost 12 fish in all. The only thing that made it all the way through were the black ice snowflakes. The majority of things I lost were caused by errors on my part trying to get rid of this stuff. Too much hydrogen peroxide, kalk overdose and 2 precipitation events. I now have a blank canvas though.

 

[Pete polyp]

chrysophytes

I think we have a winner!

 

[Sabellafella]

I think we have a winner!

Man its tuff that sht is the devil nd u need a million snails to keep up with it

 

[Sabellafella]

Just when you think dino is the worst Thing youve encountered

 

[Pete polyp]

Mine never got this bad. It started on the sand and eventually moved to the rock and glass. After treating it as dino for the last 5 months my tank is almost completely free.

 

[Pete polyp]

Man its tuff that sht is the devil nd u need a million snails to keep up with it

I guess I need to add more trochus snails to my order coming in this week lol.

 

[Sabellafella]

I guess I need to add more trochus snails to my order coming in this week lol.

Lol they acually eat it supprized i had it appear in one of my tanks 5 years ago drove me crazy because there was noway for me to kill it, i dumped the sand and live rock nd started my first bb lol

 

[davidc]

Sorry ,double post....new tablet ....big thumbs......lol

 

[davidc]

Have you checked for high silicates? May not show up as high on a test , but it looks like they are there,feeding that type of algae.

 

[trido]

If you really want out, no one can talk you into staying in the hobby. If you love it, keep at it. Sometimes you just have to get dirty and work hard on your tank. I recently put ALL of my corals into cooler and tubs on the living room floor and nuked 70% of the LR in my tank with Muriatic acid in order to kill the 300 majano anenomes. It took over 12 hours in one day but a month later I am thrilled that I did it. You can use this opportunity to reaquascape your tank the way you want it. Take each rock out to the driveway, scrub it down with the garden hose and deck brush. If you really want dip it into a light bleach solution to kill everything Then dip it in some tank water or RO and dechlorinator. You surely don't want to do 100% of your rock at one time but you can do 25-30% at a shot without killing off your fish and remaining corals. When your done, load your tank heavy with cleaner snails to keep it from coming back.

 

[Pete polyp]

What's weird with mine is that it will completely disappear overnight just to return within a half hour of the light being on. Mine was that scummy looking stuff in spots at one time and I went after it with a brush and siphoning. It turned more into a film than anything else a couple months ago. Now it's just a little film in a few places.

 

[reefknight]

What's weird with mine is that it will completely disappear overnight just to return within a half hour of the light being on. Mine was that scummy looking stuff in spots at one time and I went after it with a brush and siphoning. It turned more into a film than anything else a couple months ago. Now it's just a little film in a few places.

Yes, exactly what mine will do. Mine does the same exact thing! After doing the lights out period I had most all of the stringy stuff gone. There was just a dusting of this crud. When ramping the light period back up, it began increasing. It wouldn't look that bad in the morning but by evening it was everywhere again.

 

[reefknight]

Have you checked for high silicates? May not show up as high on a test , but it looks like they are there,feeding that type of algae.

No, actually I have not tested for silicates. I used to have a kit. I'm not positive if I still have it and if I do, it's more than likely expired. I know that I have checked my RO system and its testing 0 TDS.

 

[Pete polyp]

I have been doing manual removal, uv sterilizer, skimming, hydrogen peroxide, lights out and kalk dosing. I went all out on this junk. I wonder if algae x/dino x will work

 

[reefknight]

No, it won't. I have used better than half of a 500ml bottle on my tank. It hasn't done anything for it. I know that it has worked for others and I'm not knocking the product. It just didn't work in this scenario.

 

[Pete polyp]

Well that stinks. I almost forgot. About a month ago I switched water sources. And honestly that's about when things started looking better

 

[melev]

That's it! I have battled this algae since mid summer and it has finally won. It began during the dog days here in the south. House HVAC was not keeping up as well as it should have and tank temp was hovering 79-80. Began seeing patches of what could have been diatom or cyano. Parameters throughout have been pretty steady as I run a doser. Run GAC and Rowaphos in reactors and an Alpha 200 skimmer.
Salinity - 35ppt
Alk - 8.5 - 9dKh
Ca - 420-450
Mg - 1350-1500
PO4-0.06-0.15
NO3 - 2-3ppm

When the algae began to appear, started running more GFO and more w/c's when felt they were called for. Seemed to make it worse at times. Backed off the w/c percentage and fed less and kept up all other practices. Temperature was still a problem throughout all this, and remains to be it 81 degrees in GA today! Run a dose of Chemi Clean, doesn't get rid of all, but some of the problem. Takes about a week to get the skimmer to kick back in thanks to it. Still noticing that things aren't clearing up and are returning. Some filament type algae is beginning now similar to hair, that has never been here. So start up a round of Algae Fix for a couple of weeks. This help but makes a bunch of corals mad. Weather is beginning to get cooler, I leave town for a couple of weeks and the wife is in charge. She opens the window next to the tank and floods it with natural light! Come home and now I'm well past square one...
I now have algae that appears to be dino's. Order Fauna Marin Dino X, and run several treatments of it. I've had others have it do miracles. Not for me! Do four days of black out waiting for the Dino X to arrive, that reduced it, but was not helping coral health. It ticks off the corals even more and I lose a few prized acro's. During this time I am still maintaining w/c's and all parameters. Go more aggressive with the GFO, nothing. I have attempted adding peroxide in small amounts to eradicate small areas of algae population, but it hasn't been effective. I slowly brought the lights back up from the black out period and as I increased them, so did the algae.

Today, I removed the surviving corals to another tank that has been set up for quite sometime. It was to be my teenage sons, but he hasn't had time for it. So it's dads hold this or that tank. That 30 cube is stuffed to the brim with what is holding on at the moment. There are several large colonies that cannot come out that are anchored to several pieces of rock.

This algae appears to be Lyngbya or maybe Calothrix from viewing the photos on ReefCleaners website. I have all but nuked it and it will not die. Considering siphoning sand and scrubbing rock in saltwater bath. All of my fish are still in the display though. In over twenty years of marine keeping this one is making me want to bash my head into the wall! :mad:

I run my reef at 79-80 all summer every year. 78-79 in the winter.

Reading through the comments, I saw you mention a number of products you used to help alleviate the situation, but I didn't read anything about manual labor. Physically reaching in and ripping as much of this out of the tank as you can, daily until the volume is lessened. Or about adding a clean up crew to help mow down algae when your hand isn't in the tank doing it yourself.

Lots of good tips were offered to you so far. You do need to take a day or two to basically attack it and get this managed. I like the idea of a "tank rescue crew" that shows up and works with you for hours to address everything, cleaning up equipment, locline, pumps, the sump, the tank's walls and top trim; just a mega spring cleaning. But if you don't have such a crew available, it's up to you naturally.

 

[reefknight]

I run my reef at 79-80 all summer every year. 78-79 in the winter.

Reading through the comments, I saw you mention a number of products you used to help alleviate the situation, but I didn't read anything about manual labor. Physically reaching in and ripping as much of this out of the tank as you can, daily until the volume is lessened. Or about adding a clean up crew to help mow down algae when your hand isn't in the tank doing it yourself.

Lots of good tips were offered to you so far. You do need to take a day or two to basically attack it and get this managed. I like the idea of a "tank rescue crew" that shows up and works with you for hours to address everything, cleaning up equipment, locline, pumps, the sump, the tank's walls and top trim; just a mega spring cleaning. But if you don't have such a crew available, it's up to you naturally.

You're correct Mark, I didn't mention manual efforts or CUC. I use a turkey baster every few days to blow off the rocks and use a net to scoop out what I can. I also turn my Vortechs to constant and about 85% for about an hour. I will again use a net to scoop out the particles that are floating. I switch between a fine net and brine shrimp net to skim out what is able. I also change filter socks every couple days. I pluck and pull at what can be and have siphoned the sandbed.

My CUC is rather anemic. I keep a small crew to begin with as a preference. I do have a few Scarlet Reef crabs and a couple of Nassarius snails and a Peppermint shrimp. There were a few more crabs and snails. The issue is my Canary wrasse, he rather enjoys picking them off from time to time. I have a Fowler's Surgeon and also a Magnificent foxface as herbivores to assist in algae removal. They just will not attack this type of algae.

I did commit today to keep marching forward. A good friend of mine that I actually got into reefing, has offered to replace what I have lost. We have openly traded corals all along. I went to my LFS and bought what few snails that they had and a conch. Blew off more of the rock, glass and substrate today. Water change tomorrow and will siphon the sandbed heavily to remove waste. Will also be brushing the rock and siphoning as I do so. More than likely, next weekend, rock will come out and be brush heavily in saltwater bath. Areas that are really infested I'll probably hit with peroxide.

Keep the thoughts coming guys.

 

[FlyinBryan]

I had the same problem in my tank!! It just wouldn't stop. So I started over. This time I added the ceramic bio-balls from BRS. No problem with this tank!