Need Help with Algae

[chinw76]

I have been having an ongoing problem. I keep getting a green and sometime brown stuff on my sand. Currently it is green, growing some hairs and there are bubble starting to form. I will give you a little history. This has been an on going problem. When I had the skimz cheato reactor, I had no problems with my sand. I would add pods to my tank and feed with phyto. The cheato kept dying, I would get new cheato and try again. I was doing 50% water changes at this time because of the cheato raising my nutrients because it would melt down. I then switched to bio pellets and ran some gfo. I ran gfo when using cheato because it would climb. Since using biopellets, I have been having issues with my sand. I run 3/4 of the amount of pellets required for my tank. I have a red sea reefer deluxe 250. When I would do a weekly water change, and add mb7 to my tank, I would get an outbreak on my sand that looked like diatoms. After a few days it would go away. If I did another water change, it would come back. I kept my nutrients low, phosphates close to zero, but not zero around .02 to .03, and nitrates around 3-5ppm. Sometimes the nutrients would drop and I would dose phosphate and nitrates. I talked to Brs a few times, and talked to the LFS. The LFS was clueless. When I would treat with chemi clean, after 2-3 days it would go away and I would do a water change and it would come back.
I played this cycle a couple times. When an outbreak would occur on the sand bed, my pumps in the DT would get brown on them also. I have tried to raise nutrients in June when I thought I had dino. I had a small spot of brown on my sand and it went away to bring the green algae/cyano on my sand. I contacted BRS and they thought it might have been my RODI water. They thought silicants were getting threw my system. I upgraded to their pro series DI resin and installed 2 of their units to run through 2 cation cartridges, 2 Anion cartridges, then 2 mix bed resins. I ran chemi clean for 3 days and the sand was clear. I then did a 50% water change and my sand bed stayed clean. It was good for a few days, then I got my pods from algae barn. I added pods to my tank and started to dose phyto to my tank at 15ml a day to feed the pods. I started to get a little diatoms on the sand, then hours later it would go away. Then it wouldn't go away one day, so I stopped dosing phyto to the tank. I did a 20% water change and that did not help. I talked with BRS again, and they suggested to run Fluconazole.
I started treatment on Tuesday and since then, the sand is getting worse and covering more and more of my sand. Today I just turned on my skimmer, carbon and gfo are off. I have uv back on because my glass is getting messy. I read and herd that a sand sifting star fish will kill your sand bed. So I took that back to the LFS the other day and bought new sand. I will eventually replace my sand bed. Now I don't know what to do, I have fluconazole in my system, it doesn't seem to help, and I want to go back to chemi clean. What do I need to do? Do I do a large water change, run carbon to get fluconazole out of my system then start chemi clean? Any advice?

Parameters are:
Salinity - 1.025
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 3ppm
Phosphate .061ppm
Cal - 482
DKH - 9.2
Mag - 1320

All corals are thriving, but since starting fluconazole on Tuesday, the green on the sand went from one corner of the tank and is now covering most of my sand. As I was writing this, I see my blue hippo tang is picking at the sand and eating it. I cleaned my maxspect gyres and today they are getting covered in brown.

P.S. - Including picture of my tank before the outbreak and of my water system.
Thank you in advance!

 

[chinw76]

By the way, I use all hanna checkers. Use Ultra Low phosphate checker. Nitrate test kit is nyos, ammonia and mag test are red sea. Here is a pic of my charting so far.

 

[chinw76]

I forgot to mention, I had these problems with instant ocean, in fact a fresh batch of instant ocean measured .5ppm of ammonia, my ro water had 0. I went to red sea blue buck salt for the last month.

 

[Travis Stewart]

Just a thought here, but what are you mixing your water in for water changes. Since you said it came back after, I’m curious if the bucket you’re using to mix in is leaching PO4. Have you tested parameters on your water change water before putting into tank. May be a good idea

 

[chinw76]

Just a thought here, but what are you mixing your water in for water changes. Since you said it came back after, I’m curious if the bucket you’re using to mix in is leaching PO4. Have you tested parameters on your water change water before putting into tank. May be a good idea

I am using a food grade 55 gallon container. New salt test good, there is no issues there. I haven't had a phosphate problem. After installing the filters from brs, I did a water change after running chemi clean. The problem went away and only came back when I added phyto to my tank. I pump pre heated water to my tank. I haven't used a bucket. I have one container with 50 gallons salt water and another 50 gallons of rodi water on hand. I can pump rodi water from one container into my salt mixing container. I drain and fill with one line from my basement to my sump. I also run my biopellets into the inlet of my skimmer.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

@chinw76 how long has this tank been up and running?

 

[chinw76]

It has been running since december. Only the last couple months I have been having issues with it. I have done a water change Sunday night @ 50% to remove the reef flux from the system. I dosed chemi clean Monday morning. In the process of doing the water change on Sunday, I sucked off the top layer of my sand bed. I will do another water change Thursday morning because of the chemi clean. I will also then replace 1/4 of my sand bed with new sand. Brs told me I can replace 1/4 of the sand bed every 3 days.

 

[chinw76]

So far after removing the top layer of sand, cleaning my maxspec gyres, and water change, the tank looks good 24 hours later so far. I also reduced lights by 25% intensity.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

It has been running since december.

Ok...you've got a lot of good equipment, so you have that going for you. It's possible that you're chasing issues. This is where you need to take a step back and do nothing to the system at all besides feed and maybe do some small water changes (10% weekly, or less) and just allow things to progress naturally.

Read #15 here: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/eb/

I wouldn't say that BRS or your LFS is having you jump through hoops - they're just trying to help, and many times, they don't have the time to really dive into the nuts and bolts of your system and ask enough questions to find out what exactly is going on and what has been tried. They just get a snapshot of what you tell them, and once you start going over more and more of what you've done, that all adds into the overall picture.

For instance, I would have never told you to remove and replace all the sand. Unless the sand came from an existing tank and you didn't rinse it thoroughly enough.

You've changed core level filtration systems, tried multiple chemical treatments, etc...all of these things will "reset" something at some level and start everything over again, so if you go back to that article I linked to, you're looking at a 6-12 month "reef maturation cycle" and that keeps getting steered one direction or another, violently.

You will get algae on the rocks and sand, and there's nothing you can really do about it. I would recommend that try minimal intervention for a few months. The most I would do during this time would be to use a airline siphon to suck out any easy to remove algae. The airline siphon is what it sounds like - an 18-24" section of hard airline hose (like what is used in undergravel filter bubbler tubes) connected to a length of flex hose, then you use that to target siphon the slime type algae (or dinos, get ready for those too). You should be able to go over your entire tank and siphon out less than a gallon in under 30 minutes.

There is a philosophy that too many water changes can lead to promoting (fueling) certain types of algae growth. So consider backing off large PWCs and go more moderate.

Keep in mind that the majority of filtration systems are sized according to the volume of your system. But they really should be sized according to your nutrient level influx, which is most directly impacted by how much you feed. So while you might be running X quantity of biopellets and Y size skimmer, that sizing basis might be based on a moderately stocked and fed system with no other filtration in place. If you add in 2 other secondary filtration components, now you could actually be over-filtering, and one system might reduce a certain nutrient to near nothing, which causes another filtration system to stall out, and then you have an imbalance. Algae LOVES an imbalance.

I would start with a log of some kind. Go back to the beginning and try your best to recall exactly what you did and when. Show us the road traveled in as much detail as possible. There might be something in there that doesn't seem important, but could very well be so....

 

[Travis Stewart]

Sand starfish will do wonders to your sand too. I would suggest one.

 

[john472]

Dont buy starfish or any more clean up crew. The issue isn't the water. Its the sand bed. The companies that sell testers don't tell you, that the tests can't/don't read the nitrates locked in the sand bed! There is a large pile of crud in there that the algae is feeding off of. Either vacuum out-then- wash and reinstall the sand or it will just keep coming back. Ive dealt with this issue and thought clean up crews and water changes would work. The sand bed locks in the waste and hides it from detectors/tests. Target the sand bed and keep on the GFO.

There is no sign of algae on the rock work so that should be all the evidence that the water isn't the issue.

 

[Travis Stewart]

Dont buy starfish or any more clean up crew. The issue isn't the water. Its the sand bed. The companies that sell testers don't tell you, that the tests can't/don't read the nitrates locked in the sand bed! There is a large pile of crud in there that the algae is feeding off of. Either vacuum out-then- wash and reinstall the sand or it will just keep coming back. Ive dealt with this issue and thought clean up crews and water changes would work. The sand bed locks in the waste and hides it from detectors/tests. Target the sand bed and keep on the GFO.

A sand star would def target the sand.

 

[chinw76]

Thank you all for the replies. I did remove the top layer of sand and have chemi clean running in the system and things look good so far. The star fish will kill the sand bed. They eat all the micro fauna in the sand. The sand does hold nutrients. I will start replacing the sand tomorrow when I do a water change after chemi clean runs its course. There are 3 reasons for replacing the sand. 1 because of the star fish, 2 because nutrients locked into the sand, 3 because it's fine sand and want to put in a bigger grain of sand. Dave's nano reef on YouTube had the same issue after adding a star fish and had to reset his thank. His tank was fine before adding a star fish. The problem is with the sand and no issues with the rock. I thank you all for your advice. I will remove 1/4 section of sand and replace it every 3 days of so, that way I don't shock the system.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

Its the sand bed. The companies that sell testers don't tell you, that the tests can't/don't read the nitrates locked in the sand bed!

I would agree, if the sand came from an existing system and wasn't rinsed. But if it's new sand, the issue is not likely IMO that the sand is sinking nutrients but rather that the system itself is not mature enough to have a diverse ecosystem within the sand that is keeping things stable. That takes time, and you can't really test for that factor. This is where I stand by my advice to just leave it alone, stop dosing chemicals, and just keep your basic 3 measurable water parameters in check (Alk, Cal, and Mag) along with salinity for 3-6 months. Just keep those things in check and leave everything else alone, feed a good quality food, don't over-feed, and just coast for a while.

I will remove 1/4 section of sand and replace it every 3 days of so, that way I don't shock the system.

I will again disagree with this...I don't think it's necessary. Unless possibly you're using sugar sand, that's not my favorite - CaribSea Special Grade Reef Sand is my go-to, but even then I don't think the sand is "the" problem.

If you're going to replace the sand, I would suggest even slower - like 1/4 every week, at the most.

 

[chinw76]

I had the really fine caribsea pink fiji sand. Changing over to special grade. The other sand would blow around. I did change 1/4 or so of my sand today to the special grade. So far, the tank looks good after removing about an inch of sand that was full of algae on Monday and running chemi clean for 3 days. Will check all parameters tomorrow morning. I ran out of time today to test. Currently just running carbon, to help clean up the water from the sand change. The tank did clear up in a matter of hours, the skimmer went crazy pulling alot of the haze out.

 

[chinw76]

24 hours after changing out 1/4 of the sand. Everything is looking good so far. I just ran test on the tank. Parameters are in the pic.

 

[chinw76]

Just a quick update. I changed all the sand to special grade sand. Had a diatom bloom and that went away by itself. All my problems have been solved by replacing the sand.