Never ending algae, and zero nutrients

[mjw011689]

I’ve got a bit of a dilemma on one of my tanks, as I’ve been fighting this nasty algae for months and can’t seem to break it. I’m also not sure whether it’s like dinos or something else. Photo doesn’t really do it justice, but it’s a chunky brown algae that lifts up off the rock and sand in clumps. There are some spots of cyano we well, but that’s not my main concern at this point.

I’ve gone through and siphoned off nearly everything and it comes back within a week. I believe the issue may be bottomed out phosphate and nitrate, but I’m not sure. Nitrates are constantly barely detectable at about 2, and phosphate is always 0. Below are all of my readings as of last night, and I’ve been testing pretty much every week with the same numbers, no real change in anything. All tested using Salifert kits except phos and alk which are Hanna checkers.

nitrates - 2
Phos - 0
Cal - 420
Mag -1260
Alk - 9.9
Ph - 8.1

I’ve tried dosing neophos to bring up my phosphate, but it seems to not change it at all. I will admit, this tank is a family members’ and is about 40 miles away from me, so I have only been testing on the weekends, so I don’t know if phosphate is defectible the following day after dosing. I’m assuming it’s not. I dosed and tested about an hour after and got nothing to register.

What does all of this mean, and what’s my next step? What am I missing? Fish load is light, 1 small clown and one small foxface, so Feeding is not very large.

Edit: this photo is AFTER cleaning as much as I could siphon off

 

[o2manyfish]

Other than the rock in the tank, what other filtration is on the system?

Adding phos is not a typical plan to battle an algae issue.

Some modern thinking is that if you do have phos and have no nitrates then dosing nitrates could help with finicky 'harder' algae issues.

When I see soft algae issues it's usually a deficit in adequate filtration, which might not necessarily let phosphates accumulate but doesn't balance out the tank from a biological filtration standpoint.

Dave B

 

[mjw011689]

Currently nothing besides rock and sand as far as filtration. Had a refugium going for a while with chaeto, but nothing changed there. If anything, it seemed to make things worse since nitrate and phos bottomed out completely, so that has been removed for a couple months.

a lot of what I’ve been reading on here implies that if phosphates zero out, it will cause issues with algae/dinos. Out of curiosity, what other piece of filtration would help in this situation? I’ve considered getting a UV, but figured there wouldn’t be any point unless I can correct the nutrient situation first.

 

[mjw011689]

Any other ideas? I dosed neophos per bottle instructions and it didn’t even make a dent. Stayed right at zero. Why is my phosphate not rising despite dosing it? Do my nitrates need to rise in order for the phos to rise as well?

 

[gbroadbridge]

it sounds like insufficient flow.
What do you have moving water?

 

[mjw011689]

Definitely not insufficient flow. I’ve got 2 Nero 3’s in there. Along with the return pump there isn’t any dead flow spots. I’d say I’m probably running in the 25-40x turnover/hour range.

 

[bushdoc]

You are right that Dinos usually start when nutrients are close to zero, however once it happens, dosing phosphates or nitrates just fuels more their growth. Dinos are more common in immature systems especially those started with dry rock. Manual removal, siphoning is part of strategy to control dinos, other part is decreasing light intensity and photoperiod and cutting white and red spectrum. I would run activated carbon in case dinos release toxins. Hydrogen peroxide dosing is another strategy if you want to initiate it, follow some other threads here for dosing. Some dinos, but not all are migrating to water column at night and can be controlled by UV sterilizer. I would increase nutrients only after you control dinos.

 

[Rtaylor]

Sounds like possibly Dino’s. In that case you need to outcompete it. Increase nutrients so they are detectable. If you are running a skimmer or other reactors turn them off. Buy a bottle of phytoplankton and use it to culture more phyto. You just need a jar, air pump, airline, and a window that gets good sun or a grow light. Dose phytoplankton. Dose a lot of phytoplankton. If you have pods they’ll reproduce like crazy which will help. If you don’t, then add them after you start dosing phytoplankton. If you can add some real live rock it will help. Add a large cuc (snails/hermit crabs, mostly snails). Reefcleaners.org is great for cuc. Also a good reference to figure out how many of each type you need.
Add macro algae if you can (once you start adding phyto and increase feeding it should survive).

Reduce lighting (completely shut it off for a few days to reduce the algae population). Coral will be totally fine for a few days.

You need to build an ecosystem. Currently, there isn’t enough diversity and life for that to happen.

 

[mjw011689]

Thanks for the info, I’ll have to start trying a few of those. The lighting I was considering reducing anyways, but i was under the impression that correcting the phos and nitrate issue would start to correct the dinos as well.

I’m not familiar with the hydrogen peroxide dosing, I’ll need to check that out. Does this attack the dinos? What about using something like dino x? I’m always skeptical of stuff like that and it would be a last resort, but if it gets rid of it and I can get my parameters in check to prevent it in the future, I’m good with that too.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I’ve got a bit of a dilemma on one of my tanks, as I’ve been fighting this nasty algae for months and can’t seem to break it. I’m also not sure whether it’s like dinos or something else. Photo doesn’t really do it justice, but it’s a chunky brown algae that lifts up off the rock and sand in clumps. There are some spots of cyano we well, but that’s not my main concern at this point.

I’ve gone through and siphoned off nearly everything and it comes back within a week. I believe the issue may be bottomed out phosphate and nitrate, but I’m not sure. Nitrates are constantly barely detectable at about 2, and phosphate is always 0. Below are all of my readings as of last night, and I’ve been testing pretty much every week with the same numbers, no real change in anything. All tested using Salifert kits except phos and alk which are Hanna checkers.

nitrates - 2
Phos - 0
Cal - 420
Mag -1260
Alk - 9.9
Ph - 8.1

I’ve tried dosing neophos to bring up my phosphate, but it seems to not change it at all. I will admit, this tank is a family members’ and is about 40 miles away from me, so I have only been testing on the weekends, so I don’t know if phosphate is defectible the following day after dosing. I’m assuming it’s not. I dosed and tested about an hour after and got nothing to register.

What does all of this mean, and what’s my next step? What am I missing? Fish load is light, 1 small clown and one small foxface, so Feeding is not very large.

Edit: this photo is AFTER cleaning as much as I could siphon off

Please provide pic under white lighting to best verify what you have

 

[Smite]

It could be a mix of cyano and dinos. I see cyanobacteria for sure aka red slime on the sand bed. A cheap microscope will help you ID or rule out dinos. If dinos, different types require different plans of attack but it's best to ID which type and go from there. The microscope will pay itself off in frustration and possibly $ spent on useless treatments. If you see lots of bubbles, it gets stringy with bubbles in the tips and seems to be almost gone before the lights come back on its a good chance you're battle dinos.

I would avoid dino x. I'd try hydrogen peroxide before I did that. I was able to eradicate mine with UV, I'm blanking on the name of the strain right now but I ended up using 2 x Jebao UV sterilizers on my 210g system fed with a sicce pump (.5 I believe). took care of my problem in under 2 weeks. I was running a AquaUV 57w prior but it just wasn't enough watts. The 2 new jebao were 1/2 what I paid for the AquaUV used and worked twice as well.

 

[mjw011689]

Please provide pic under white lighting to best verify what you have

I’ll have to get another photo next time I’m over there. It’s my aunts tank and i typically go over on the weekends. This isn’t my photo, but this is a better example of what it looks like

 

[Smite]

That does look more like dinos. In that picture, dinos smothering some kind of hair algae. Cheap microscope can be found on amazon, personally I'd start there and try to get an ID. There are several threads and FB groups dedicated to it now, is the good news

 

[mjw011689]

Yeah I’m on the fence as to whether it’s Dino’s or chrysophytes, some photos of chryso look dead on, others show chryso clear/white with a brown tint to it. But the texture is odd. I’ll try to get a better photo.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I’ll have to get another photo next time I’m over there. It’s my aunts tank and i typically go over on the weekends. This isn’t my photo, but this is a better example of what it looks like

This is no doubt Dino. There is chrysophytes present but focus on dino.
No light is first key followed by the addition of bacteria to overcome the bad bacteria allowing them to thrive
Prepare by starting by blowing this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX
You can feed fish as normal and if doing blackout, ambient light in room will work for them

 

[gbroadbridge]

I’ll have to get another photo next time I’m over there. It’s my aunts tank and i typically go over on the weekends. This isn’t my photo, but this is a better example of what it looks like

It looks like some Dino's there, but there is a lot of hoo hah about them being horrible terrible things.

They're a natural part of a biome and relatively easy to treat.

Easy way is buy a bottle of Dino X which will resolve them in less than a week.

Of you can try to outcompete them which is where all the horror stories come from, as they can be tenacious.

 

[mjw011689]

This is no doubt Dino. There is chrysophytes present but focus on dino.
No light is first key followed by the addition of bacteria to overcome the bad bacteria allowing them to thrive
Prepare by starting by blowing this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX
You can feed fish as normal and if doing blackout, ambient light in room will work for them

Awesome info. This at least gives me some hope of clearing this up. Is it possible to overdo it on the peroxide? Like if I don’t know exactly how many gallons are displaced. I’m guessing in in the 35-40 gallon total system range.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Awesome info. This at least gives me some hope of clearing this up. Is it possible to overdo it on the peroxide? Like if I don’t know exactly how many gallons are displaced. I’m guessing in in the 35-40 gallon total system range.

No- Peroxide is mainly water and is acting as an oxidizer- not a treatment but dont go overboard with it either. Main item is " No Lights' which their needed tool for reproduction. Take away their light and you take away their food

 

[Crustaceon]

Looks like dinos and the good news is there are a few ways to beat it. Many have success with Dino X. I beat my last bout with silica dosing and a little over a month of sand vacuuming.