New brown stringy algae in sand

rsumner

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Over the past few weeks, I've had a new development of algae in my sand. Today, it got much worse with strings of it flowing through the water now. Here are a few pics. Sorry I don't have an orange filter, so I hope you can see through the purple. Coloration on the sand is red in some areas and the stringy stuff is brown. Click on the images to get to the full sizes of them .





The tank has been running for about 6 or 7 months, but I did make the mistake around the time all of this started of dumping a bag of 20lbs of Agro Special Grade Caribsea sand on top of the existing bed of sand. I don't want to pursuade you guys that this is the problem, but it is something that I realized I shouldn't have done a few days after I had done it.

I've been syphoning the sand once a week to get it cleaned up, but it doesn't seem to be helping.

I've also been struggling to get my Chaeto to stay healthy, so I dumped some Brightwell ChaetoGro in the sump last night which is probably why I had a huge bloom of whatever is in the display today.

Uggg, I wish I would just leave things alone :-(
 
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rsumner

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Yowza! I just measured my Phosphate and its it went from 2ppb (0.006ppm) to 44ppb (0.135 ppm) overnight. As I mentioned in the last post, I dosed Chaeto Gro last night at 33mL for my 135 gallon of total system volume. I also dosed about 13mL of Brightwell Reef BioFuel thinking that I was having an issue in not being able to **raise** my Nitrate and Phosphate levels. I'll do a 20% water change tomorrow morning and get my sand beds cleaned again. I have the skimmer on high, have a fresh pair of socks in the sump and have the fuge light turned off tonight.
 

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New sand has silica, which can feed diatoms. Its hard to tell from the pics, but diatoms are common on newly set up tanks as they usually have fresh sand. Once silica gets depleted, they go away. Your tank passed the time diatoms are common, but since you added the bags, it is a possibility

It could also be dinos...but I doubt it.
If I were you, would not dose anything, do a water change and keep things stable. It seems recently you had some levels go whack and that could lead to coral loss.

Keep us posted
 
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rsumner

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Syphoned the nasty stuff off the surface of the sand. When I moved some of the sand around lots of white slime floated around in the water. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it. I did a 20 gallon water change, gave the rocks a scrub with the tooth brush, cleaned the skimmer in and out (to make sure it was working at its best), cleaned the sump of detritus, turned the return and skimmer up to 100% to get things cleaned up. I also turned the power heads up to keep things moving around a little more. About an hour later, the water is back to crystal clear and sand is back to pearl white (with the exception of a little surface algae that I wasn't able to snag).

Water parameters now:

Temp: 77.9
Salinity: 33.8
pH: 8.09
Alkalinity: 8.7
Calcium: 430
Phosphate: 4 ppb (0.012 ppm)

Mag and Nitrate are a pain to test, so I'll do those later and give the socks another change.
 
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rsumner

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Well, the algae in the sand continues to return and is covering my corals causing some tissue loss on my birds nests. After doing some extensive review of other posts on R2R, I'm convinced it's Dinoflagellates. I added about a cup of PhosGuard and two cups of Carbon to a reactor and started running it last night. I see that "DINO X" at BRS has fairly good reviews. Anyone here have any opinions?
 
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rsumner

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I tried using a smaller Python gravel cleaner to syphon the sand today thinking that it would give me more suction, but I was wrong -- it was less. I even tried using a dosing line to syphon, but it kept getting clogged with gravel. The result was going back to my larger Python and doing a 15 gallon water change in the process. I always turn my return pump and power heads off during water changes, so the positive side of having to use the larger Python is that much of the lose Dino floated to the top of the water and I could scoop it out with a fine-mesh fish net. I gave the rocks and coral a gentle brush with a soft tooth brush to knock everything lose that was hanging on.

I was reading a success story online of someone using Seachem PhosGuard, which is Aluminum Oxide, to rid themselves of Dinoflagellates. Since I'm also using this and Seachem Matrix Carbon in my reactor, I read through the entire article. The author explained that running PhosGuard by itself doesn't help with Silica and that you have to filter the exhaust since it basically clumps it. I added a fine-mesh filter pad that I intend on changing once every 12 hours.



Lastly, I read Randy's article on Dino's and decided to start dosing Kalkwasser flurry to keep my pH between 8.3 and 8.4. I'm too scared to go much higher than that. I'm doing this about every 12 hours. It is a bit of a pain in the butt, because I dump it in my fuge section of my sump that has my chaeto, so I have to remove it, pull my probes (which are also in the same section), turn off the skimmer and reactor and then dose.

At this point, I'll do anything to prevent further coral tissue loss and to not have to syphon my sand every other day :-(
 

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I've been syphoning the sand once a week to get it cleaned up, but it doesn't seem to be helping.
Stop doing this. Let the sandbed build it's bacterial defenses. You can disturb the top layer where the cyano grows but let everything underneath settle and build it's bacteria. It will eventually go away. You can also try and increase nitrates by adding more fish or just dosing nitrates. Doing that will help reduce locked phosphates and increase bacteria that will help consume dissolved organics.
 
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Oh, I almost forgot a few additional things I did ;).

I changed the lights on my 3 AI Hydra 26's from the published ReefSpec spectrum numbers by Red Sea that I found buried in a MaxS manual too the following that I found as recommendations on BRS:

UV: 60%
Violet: 59%
Royal: 40%
Blue: 40%
Green: 2%
Deep Red: 2%
Cool White: 9%

In addition, I raise my Salinity from 34 ppt to 34.5 ppt, which at my temps of 78.1 degrees, is a specific gravity of 1.0260. I'm sure there are a ton of calculators out there, but I found this one at ReefApp.net that was pretty snazzy.
 
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rsumner

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Stop doing this. Let the sandbed build it's bacterial defenses. You can disturb the top layer where the cyano grows but let everything underneath settle and build it's bacteria. It will eventually go away. You can also try and increase nitrates by adding more fish or just dosing nitrates. Doing that will help reduce locked phosphates and increase bacteria that will help consume dissolved organics.

Thanks for the response, @reeferfoxx. When I syphoned today, I was careful to only try to stay on the surface to get the Dino strands rather than disturbing the whole bed.

Can you share some reliable reading material on the Nitrate dosing approach to "unlock phosphates"? I do have some Brightwell NeoNitro that I could dose, but I would imagine if I'm trying to "unlock" nutrients for bacteria growth, I would want to use a carbon source like Brightwell Reef BioFule. But, since dosing Carbon, Nitrate, and Phosphate was so close to the time this outbreak began (along with the addition of the new sand) I'm skittish.
 

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Thanks for the response, @reeferfoxx. When I syphoned today, I was careful to only try to stay on the surface to get the Dino strands rather than disturbing the whole bed.

Can you share some reliable reading material on the Nitrate dosing approach to "unlock phosphates"? I do have some Brightwell NeoNitro that I could dose, but I would imagine if I'm trying to "unlock" nutrients for bacteria growth, I would want to use a carbon source like Brightwell Reef BioFule. But, since dosing Carbon, Nitrate, and Phosphate was so close to the time this outbreak began (along with the addition of the new sand) I'm skittish.
First off nothing here screams dinos. This is a cyano issue. Dinos thrive in phosphate limited environments. Cyano thrives on phosphates and dissolved organics. Phosphorus binds to many elements creating phsophates in the organic and inorganic forms. The inorganic form is what we mainly test for. Much like other nutrients phosphates bind to calcium carbonate like sand and rocks in the form of calcium phosphate precipitation. Bacteria is the main consumer of phosphates but there is no perfect ratio of consumption. Cyano on the other hand produces it's on nitrogen to help consume phosphates and organics. If you dose nitrates you essentially help all bacteria aside from cyano to help out compete. This in turn increases nitrates and reduces phosphates. But don't worry the anerobic bacteria we are trying to build in the sandbed will eventually help reduce nitrates in the form of nitrogen gas that expels to the water surface with adequate flow.

In a nutshell, leave the sandbed alone and increase nitrates via brightwells neonitro or some type of potassium nitrates.
 
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First off nothing here screams dinos. This is a cyano issue. Dinos thrive in phosphate limited environments. Cyano thrives on phosphates and dissolved organics....

Awesome technical explanation, @reeferfoxx! To help with the assessment of Dino vs Cyano, I turned my lights to all white and took another pic. You can click on it to zoom in.



I'll do a quick Nitrate test with my Nyos test kit and start a dosing cycle. Should I turn off the reactor running carbon and Aluminum Oxide (PhosGuard)?
 

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Awesome technical explanation, @reeferfoxx! To help with the assessment of Dino vs Cyano, I turned my lights to all white and took another pic. You can click on it to zoom in.



I'll do a quick Nitrate test with my Nyos test kit and start a dosing cycle. Should I turn off the reactor running carbon and Aluminum Oxide (PhosGuard)?
Ok. This does look very similar to dinos. You'll have to understand my scepticism due to the nature and how they impact reefs. If you are nitrate limited and your phosphate test is correct, the only dino I've seen consume nutrients in this fashion is Coolia Spp. This is a dino I fought and won against. If you are diligent in adding nutrients and I also recommend a UV sterilizer, I give it a month and they will be gone. Maybe less depending on you. Start here. Read the first post carefully
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

You can also search that thread for my posts and see my struggles.
 
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Ok. This does look very similar to dinos. You'll have to understand my scepticism due to the nature and how they impact reefs. If you are nitrate limited and your phosphate test is correct, the only dino I've seen consume nutrients in this fashion is Coolia Spp. This is a dino I fought and won against. If you are diligent in adding nutrients and I also recommend a UV sterilizer, I give it a month and they will be gone. Maybe less depending on you.

I did some water tests just now. Phosphate is 0.028 ppm using my Hanna ULR tester. Nitrate is reading zero using my Nyos test kit. I think I'm going to go ahead and change the PhosGuard to see if I can get those Phosphate levels down further.

I do have a 36W UV sterilizer sitting around that I'm not using, so I could hook up to a pump and run it too. I guess that would be a bad idea if we were trying to promote bacteria vs kill it :)

In recent bad news, after only a few hours after my cleaning this afternoon, the mystery algae is already back on the sand :-(

I'll definitely have a look at the post you referenced.
 
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Well, before I continue to try and drive the Phosphate down, I'm going to read the article because there are some contradictions to this theory.
 
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I turned off my reactor for now since my phosphate levels seem to be in a good place at 0.028 ppm. I also went ahead and dosed 81mL of NeoNitro with an attempt to get values up to 3ppm. I did this with the understanding that these are the values that I should be running regardless of the algae issues. For good measure, I went ahead and dosed about 6.75mL of BioFuel for carbon.

I also did the Peroxide test and found that the samplesI took did produce bubbles in nearly every case, so there's a high chance that your original assessment of this being Cyano could be accurate, @reeferfoxx. Or, I have both.

I'm going to work on getting the UV setup once I get done with running my kids around for their sports activities.
 

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I turned off my reactor for now since my phosphate levels seem to be in a good place at 0.028 ppm. I also went ahead and dosed 81mL of NeoNitro with an attempt to get values up to 3ppm. I did this with the understanding that these are the values that I should be running regardless of the algae issues. For good measure, I went ahead and dosed about 6.75mL of BioFuel for carbon.

I also did the Peroxide test and found that the samplesI took did produce bubbles in nearly every case, so there's a high chance that your original assessment of this being Cyano could be accurate, @reeferfoxx. Or, I have both.

I'm going to work on getting the UV setup once I get done with running my kids around for their sports activities.
There is a possibility of both. Sometimes red cyano can be brown before it's red/purple. It sounds weird but I usually let it grow out to show it's face.
 
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I've been running my UV overnight, but no real change. Prior to dosing this evening, my parameters are:

Phosphate: 0.040 ppm
Nitrate: 2 ppm (was between the 1 and 3 on my Nyos test kit)
Alkalinity: 7.9 dkh
Calcium: 417 ppm
Temp: 78.3
Salinity: 34.4
pH: 8.13

I'll dose NeoNitro (probably half of what I dosed last night) to get Nitrate back up to 3ppm, Soda Ash to get my Alk up to at least 8.5, and Seachem Complete to get my calcium up to around 430. I'm going to change out the PhosGuard and Activated carbon in my reactor and crank it back up to so I can get those Phosphates back down to 0.01-0.02.
 

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I've been running my UV overnight, but no real change. Prior to dosing this evening, my parameters are:

Phosphate: 0.040 ppm
Nitrate: 2 ppm (was between the 1 and 3 on my Nyos test kit)
Alkalinity: 7.9 dkh
Calcium: 417 ppm
Temp: 78.3
Salinity: 34.4
pH: 8.13

I'll dose NeoNitro (probably half of what I dosed last night) to get Nitrate back up to 3ppm, Soda Ash to get my Alk up to at least 8.5, and Seachem Complete to get my calcium up to around 430. I'm going to change out the PhosGuard and Activated carbon in my reactor and crank it back up to so I can get those Phosphates back down to 0.01-0.02.
Actually, there is nothing wrong with your phosphate levels. It's when you peak 0.10 or higher that you want to incorporate some phosphate removal but only when nitrates are high. When adding nitrates your phosphate levels will naturally fall.
 
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rsumner

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Actually, there is nothing wrong with your phosphate levels. It's when you peak 0.10 or higher that you want to incorporate some phosphate removal but only when nitrates are high. When adding nitrates your phosphate levels will naturally fall.

Gotcha. I figured since they were 0.02 higher than they were yesterday, I should be concerned. In addition, most of what I read says to keep Phosphates around 0.02ppm. On the contrary, if you look at other "mixed reef" recommendations, they suggest 1-2ppm nitrate and 0.08-0.12 phosphate. This recipe certainly more closely aligns with the Redfield ratio of 106:16:1.

I'll hold off on the reactor for now. Thanks for keeping an eye on me, @reeferfoxx. In any case, I finished dosing for this evening and giving the BioFuel a little time to "marinate" before I crank the skimmer and UV back up.

In other news related to my OCD, I also decided I'm sick of Chaeto. I can't begin to explain how much money and time I've invested in buying Chaeto balls of various sizes from AlgaeBarn, converting my ATO to a fuge, purchasing specialized lighting, etc. In the end, it always dies and all I have to show for it is clogged skimmer and return pumps. The latest 1/4 pound I purchased is now down to a mass a little smaller than a golf ball, so I'm just going to trash it. Once I'm stable again, I'm going to go back to Activated Carbon, GFO (or Aluminum Oxide because I hate GFO dust), and Biopellets.

I'll be back tomorrow with yet another exciting update. :)
 

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Some Dino specues go goto the sand during the night making uv uselss. Keeping nitrate and phosphates at proper levels helps keep dino in check. If you believe dino i I suggest running activated carbon to combat any dino toxins .
 
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