Need help! 2 and half months in to reef keeping long dark red almost black algae issue!

ReefBoy8

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Hi everyone, Can anyone help and tell me if I should be worried? Im 2 and half months in to reef keeping (pretty early on still I know) hence why I need the help, but a few days ago I started noticing long dark red almost black algae growing on my sand and live rock? And there’s quite a lot in the one area of my tank.. does anyone know what this is and if I should be worried? If anyone knows the cause or if it’s just part of the stage I’m in I would like a little bit of advice thanks pic attached at bottom >

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polpo

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@ReefBoy8, in order to get the best advice, most folks are going to ask what your tank parameters are at. Do you have the latest? Typically you will get diatoms (brown) when you start out but not pink algae.
 

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Hi everyone, Can anyone help and tell me if I should be worried? Im 2 and half months in to reef keeping (pretty early on still I know) hence why I need the help, but a few days ago I started noticing long dark red almost black algae growing on my sand and live rock? And there’s quite a lot in the one area of my tank.. does anyone know what this is and if I should be worried? If anyone knows the cause or if it’s just part of the stage I’m in I would like a little bit of advice thanks pic attached at bottom >

image.jpg

Cyanoalgae
expected in a new tank, on a water change siphon out as much as you can, and add some more flow should go away
 
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ReefBoy8

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@ReefBoy8, in order to get the best advice, most folks are going to ask what your tank parameters are at. Do you have the latest? Typically you will get diatoms (brown) when you start out but not pink algae.
Thankyou for your reply polpo and sorry for the late reply, been extra busy lately.. so my answer to the testing of recent is that I’ve not tested everything but I will give you a list of the last tests I done which is as follows.. Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrates between 5 ppm and 10 ppm Phosphates 0.25 (I must add this is using the API test kit and as a better example as all tests are different on the API test chart 0.25 is actually 1 graduation up from 0 phosphates. (I actually get really confused using the API phosphates test kit hence why I’ve tried to explain it better) and last but not least.. salinity 35-36 ppt Calcium 440-450 ppm Ph 7.8 - 8.0 I think the only tests I have tested yet is alkalinity (DKH) and magnesium hope today can give me some better advice thanks
 

mdb_talon

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What you describe sounds like Cyanobacteria. Not really an algae.

Easily to eliminate via chemical means, but usually come back if reason for it is not fixed. Sometimes can be caused or made worse by lack of flow or excess nutrients. It is fairly common in new tanks especially because lack of competition from other bacteria and algae allows it to get a foothold
 
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ReefBoy8

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What you describe sounds like Cyanobacteria. Not really an algae.

Easily to eliminate via chemical means, but usually come back if reason for it is not fixed. Sometimes can be caused or made worse by lack of flow or excess nutrients. It is fairly common in new tanks especially because lack of competition from other bacteria and algae allows it to get a foothold
Thankyou mdb_so what would you suggest I do about it as I’ve added a new wave maker ive removed a lot of it manually by hand and it seems to still be coming back might I add it’s not as bad as it was but I am removing as much as I can as soon as I see it starting to creep back up. I have to say it’s a hard one to tackle, I’ve also just started dosing Red Sea no p o x algae management 1 ml a day but I only started this 3 days ago so can’t give an update on how or if that will do anything good for it as of yet but going to keep dosing and see if that helps! thanks for any more advice..
 

mdb_talon

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Thankyou mdb_so what would you suggest I do about it as I’ve added a new wave maker ive removed a lot of it manually by hand and it seems to still be coming back might I add it’s not as bad as it was but I am removing as much as I can as soon as I see it starting to creep back up. I have to say it’s a hard one to tackle, I’ve also just started dosing Red Sea no p o x algae management 1 ml a day but I only started this 3 days ago so can’t give an update on how or if that will do anything good for it as of yet but going to keep dosing and see if that helps! thanks for any more advice..

I would stop the carbon dosing for now. Its basically a fuel for bacteria. I have seen many people report it making cyano problems worse. I cant prove it but seems logical to me.

Cyano is not that uncommon in a 2 month old tank. Like many nuisance algae/bacteria/etc it can often proliferate best when their is a lack of competitors. The last DT i setup had the same issue a few months in. I used DR Tims waste-away with the thought being it adds bacteria i want in there to compete with the cyano. It seemed to slow it, but not get rid of it.

Next thing i did was use chemiclean. It does a great job of getting rid of it at least in the short term. Then i started dosing the waste-away with the hopes of speeding up colonization of bacteria that eould be competitors to cyano. It did not come back.

Many people frown on the use of chemiclean as being just a bandaid. I understand the sentiment, but everytime i have used it the cyano does not come back in that tank(at least for years and usually related to lack of tank upkeep at that time).
Your nutrient levels dont seem crazy high i think trying the chemiclean gives you a good chance of success. Maybe try to reduce the phosphate(i used lanthium chloride in the past into a 5 micron filter sock and never had an issue). Cheap and easy(but easy to overdose go very slow if you use it).
 

nicksreefs

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Hi there,

lots of good advice above! can't comment on chemical treatments however had SERIOUS outbreak not too long ago (covered the rock was floating in thick globules in short: arrrgg.)

So i turned to the net - read loads of info on others' experience and what worked for them (every tank is different)

Also read up on what cyanobacteria is... basically in school biology terms "primordial ooze" the goop that gave off oxygen as a waste product. (ugly to look at but actually pretty cool when you think about it)

so i boiled down the common things that definitely wouldn't hurt my tank from all of the different approaches. Guessed that cyano probably wouldn't like high levels of its own waste (oxygen) and ended up with:
increase the flow and oxygen... significant improvement in a few days and completely gone in a few weeks!

(had a bit appear in my newest tank - had good flow and an airstone running already - so looked at it to see why the above wasn't working here... turned out i just needed to adjust the angle on the wave maker!)

however you go: good luck and hope it clears soon!
 

Blake423

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Looks like Cyano, which is not algae, it is bacteria.
My tank is about 2 months old now, have Cyano on sand bend about 2 weeks ago.
Nitrate and phosphate are very low too.
Because the tank is very new and nutrients very low, I think this is because cyano outcompeting beneficial bacteria.
So I dosed Seachem Stability again to help to grow beneficial bacterial and then I did water changes twice a week, siphoned/cleaned the sand bed and rocks, increased the flow and get a sand sifting starfish.
Now cyano are almost gone.

Hope this is helpful :)
 

SantaMonica

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Common for very new rocks and sand. Meanwhile you can familiarize yourself with export...

What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.

So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients comes from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.

Then, the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on the rocks consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks from when they were new. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crews, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

So whenever you have algae or cyano "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients out of your tank compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then after a year, there is a problem).

So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals :)
 

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