Nuisance ID - Including Photos, Parameters and Description

[zachxlutz]

I've got an annoying nuisance in my reef and I want to sort it out. I'm hoping you kind folks can help point me in the right direction to ID this.

Description:

• Blows off coral/rock/sand easily but returns quickly
• Stringy brownish color
• Doesn't appear to create it's own bubbles within but will catch them occasionally
• Appears to diminish with lights out and increase within the photoperiod
• Covers some coral, lots of the rock and lots of the sand bed

Tank:
120 Gallon Display
55 Gallon Sump
Total water volume 140 gallons
ATI Sunpower 8x54 watt T5 lights

Parameters:
Temp: 78* F
Salinity: 35 ppt
Ph: 7.82-8.14 (daily swing)
Alk: 8.5
Ca: 435-440
NO3: 3-5 ppm
PO4: .01-.03actually reading 0-0.003 via Hanna ULR Phosphorus. notes in post below.
Mg: 1380
(all parameters are very stable, I test very often)

Dosing (through dosing pumps):
BRS Alk/Cal: 20 ml daily each (.2 dkh Alk/1.39 ppm Cal daily consumption rate)
Red Sea Coral Colors ABCD: .3ml daily each

Dosing (manual):
Nitrate: KNO3 - as needed, usually 10-20ml (28g/150ml solution) weekly
Vibrant: Weekly
Water Changes: 20% Monthly

Feeding:
Dry: Hikari Marine S Pellets, 4x daily through auto feeder
Frozen: Mysis, daily or every other day

If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask. If you want to see some more photos of the tank, please click the link in my signature.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Vibrant: Weekly

There is no reason to dose this if you no longer have problem green algae. I nfact most who have used it experience long term cyano afterwards.
You will also not have to dose the No3 after stopping the vibrant.

 

[dave57]

I'm having the same issue, following, I did notice it when I began redsea trace elements so I stopped it.

 

[zachxlutz]

There is no reason to dose this if you no longer have problem green algae. I nfact most who have used it experience long term cyano afterwards.
You will also not have to dose the No3 after stopping the vibrant.

Stopping Vibrant dosing seems to be the consensus. I'd been having great experience with the Vibrant until just recently when this popped up. It's appearing to get worse. I can't seem to positively ID it though. I'm unsure of whether it's cyano, diatoms, or dinoflagellates. I will be stopping the Vibrant dosing as of last dose. If GHA pops up again I'll look at adding some more clean up crew. I only added a sparse clean-up crew at the initial set-up of the tank 9 months ago. I'm sure it could use some more as I'm sure there was some die-off due to lack of algae for grazing. The tank has never really had a lot of algae. I certainly don't see too many snails out and about anymore... I'll pick up some next time I'm at the LFS.

The symptoms appear to be worsening. I'm seeing more and more of the stringy brown slimy substance on every surface of the aquarium, corals included.

This picture pretty well illustrates the growth patterns. It's matting a bit where flow is low, but definitely stringy in high flow. It attaches to everything. Tips of hard coral included. IT SHOWS NO MERCY. It does trap some bubbles, but, I don't see the bubbles at the tips of the strings that I see mentioned when discussing dinoflagellates.

The color is best described as rust. It's not red or purple like most of the cyanobacteria I see discussed. I've dealt with cyano once before in an old tank and had good luck with Chemi-Clean. I've got some Chemi-Clean on hand and I'm going to consider dosing it if I don't see a decrease in this nastiness after I try manual removal, blowing it off the rocks and discontinuing the use of Vibrant.

Hmmmmm...

 

[zachxlutz]

I'm having the same issue, following, I did notice it when I began redsea trace elements so I stopped it.

Hmmm. Seems we have that in common, although I'd been dosing Coral Colors consistently since February and this only recently popped up.

 

[Liquid360]

I was having this same problem and was desperate to stop it. Even a few days in the dark wasn't enough to kill it off. Last month I added a GEOSREEF fluidized reactor for GSO. This seems to have solved the phosphate problem that was likely the cause. It could be coincidence that the algae vanished at the same time I hooked up the reactor, or not. Either way, since hooking up the reactor my tank has never looked better. No algae troubles.

 

[zachxlutz]

I was having this same problem and was desperate to stop it. Even a few days in the dark wasn't enough to kill it off. Last month I added a GEOSREEF fluidized reactor for GSO. This seems to have solved the phosphate problem that was likely the cause. It could be coincidence that the algae vanished at the same time I hooked up the reactor, or not. Either way, since hooking up the reactor my tank has never looked better. No algae troubles.

I'm not sure dropping my phosphates any lower is something I should consider, at the risk of starving the coral.

What have your phosphate and nitrate levels been before and after the GFO? Did you see any negative effects with the GFO removing too much phosphate and starving the tank for nutrients?

I've got GFO and a reactor I could easily use, I'm just not sure I should take that approach quite yet.

 

[dave57]

A friend of mine suggest I do a black out for 3 days and dose chemi clean.. it seems to be working, sandbed is clearing up 85% gone, hasn't even been a complete 24 hours yet. Just do it before it gets worse and smothers your corals.. my zoas were already getting irritated and weren't opening.

 

[zachxlutz]

A friend of mine suggest I do a black out for 3 days and dose chemi clean.. it seems to be working, sandbed is clearing up 85% gone, hasn't even been a complete 24 hours yet. Just do it before it gets worse and smothers your corals.. my zoas were already getting irritated and weren't opening.

Did you ever get a clear idea of what the culprit was? Are you sure it was cyano?

 

[dave57]

Did you ever get a clear idea of what the culprit was? Are you sure it was cyano?

Never found out what is was or what caused it, possibly the weather change outside it's been in the 90's, could be husbandry too I haven't cleaned my skimmer for 7 months. However my params. have been stable. Po4 0.02, nitrates 5, dkh 7.8 mg 1500. Who knows really..

 

[Liquid360]

I'm not sure dropping my phosphates any lower is something I should consider, at the risk of starving the coral.

What have your phosphate and nitrate levels been before and after the GFO? Did you see any negative effects with the GFO removing too much phosphate and starving the tank for nutrients?

I've got GFO and a reactor I could easily use, I'm just not sure I should take that approach quite yet.

I feed my reef a very large amount of live nannochloropsis which I culture myself. Having a low nutrient environment just makes feeding more important. I target feed multiple times daily. My phosphate levels went from .07 to .02. I can't remember what my nitrate levels were, but now they test at around .01. All testing done with RedSea.
I might do things differently, but I'm on disability and have FAR too much time for such tinkering. I would've done anything to stop the algae growth. I've seen no negative effects at all. The only thing that changed was the algae growth. The reactor has only been running a bit over a month and I've changed the media out once. Shockingly, to me anyways, was the huge pod population I found living inside the reactor. That's another thing. I spent a tremendous amount of money on copepods and amphipods. I have a subscription now which sends me a few thousand pods/monthly. This and my home grown live algae seem to keep the tank well fed.

 

[zachxlutz]

Ok Thats weird. If I may recommend, lets go back to your other thread and we'll call the # reef squad to take a look. That is very unusual.
Its normal for any problem to take some time to heal up, but that is not normal.

I wont rule out another course of vibrant to kill it, but there is something else going on we should look at.

@Brew12 , have you seen anything like this? I have not.

Ok @saltyfilmfolks , back over here now. The problem is seemingly getting worse.

New updates:

Phosphates are between 0 and 0.003 checking with the Hanna ULR phosphorus checker and have been reading 0-ish since 5/7/17. I took the first test on the 7th as a error and did a check with the Red Sea kit and it always comes up barely noticeable in the color range. I usually call it 0.03 or so... I made a note of this in my tracking log and just used the value from the Red Sea titration kit. I'm thinking my phosphates have bottomed out leading to a dinoflagellate bloom. Looking at the trend, the phosphates dropping and the rise in dinos seems to correlate.

I'm thinking about dosing up the phosphorus in the tank. I've perused through the Dino threads and a common theme is low phosphates causing dino outbreaks and increasing phosphate levels seems to be the cure. It's natural, like dosing KNO3 has been and I think i'm going to give it a shot. I'll be picking up some SeaChem Flourish Phosphorus and bringing the levels up to around .03 ppm.

Thoughts?

 

[zachxlutz]

Furthermore, I've noticed a drop in calcium and alkalinity uptake since the phosphate levels have been dropping. Further reviewing my logs, I see that the phosphates began to drop around the middle of march, which is when I noticed the alkalinity rising and subsequent 5% drops week after week in my dosing schedule. I think this might have something to do with this bloom. I have been unhappy with the growth and coloration in the last few months and I really think I'm just seeing systemic effects of having an ULNS. The Vibrant dosing was masking some problems, I think. The tank looked clean and clear but it's really been struggling.

Plan of action:

• Vibrant is off the menu.
• Trimmed back the mass of chaeto in the refugium.
• Feeding the fish a little heavier handed.
• Acropower. I've been wanting to try this and I've seen @Randy Holmes-Farley mention in some threads that aminos do help ULNS. I've already got this on hand and will start tonight.
• Tuning the skimmer to produce less skimmate.
• Possibly dosing some phosphorous product to jumpstart the process.

 

[Brew12]

Ok @saltyfilmfolks , back over here now. The problem is seemingly getting worse.

New updates:

Phosphates are between 0 and 0.003 checking with the Hanna ULR phosphorus checker and have been reading 0-ish since 5/7/17. I took the first test on the 7th as a error and did a check with the Red Sea kit and it always comes up barely noticeable in the color range. I usually call it 0.03 or so... I made a note of this in my tracking log and just used the value from the Red Sea titration kit. I'm thinking my phosphates have bottomed out leading to a dinoflagellate bloom. Looking at the trend, the phosphates dropping and the rise in dinos seems to correlate.

I'm thinking about dosing up the phosphorus in the tank. I've perused through the Dino threads and a common theme is low phosphates causing dino outbreaks and increasing phosphate levels seems to be the cure. It's natural, like dosing KNO3 has been and I think i'm going to give it a shot. I'll be picking up some SeaChem Flourish Phosphorus and bringing the levels up to around .03 ppm.

Thoughts?

I've never seen anything quite like that. Do you have a pH monitor or do you test it regularly? If so, how much of a spread are you seeing between the peak and the low?

For the record, I'm a big fan of Vibrant. However, I would never dose it more than once a month unless I was combating algae. I've looked into a bunch of cases involving Vibrant induced bacteria outbreaks. They all have a two things in common. The tanks are cleared of the hair and film algae and either NO3 or PO4 have bottomed out. This opens the door. If people are dosing any carbon sources it is like throwing fuel on the fire.

I am absolutely convinced that thriving micro fauna are critical to prevent bacteria blooms in a reef tank. Used too often and Vibrant will strip it all from the tank and this kills off the base of the food chain. Ideally, the algae consumes the nitrates, phosphates and ammonia. The algae is eaten by copepods, amphipods, and your CuC. Some is removed by your skimmer. If you can't grow the algae to consume the nutrients it opens the door for bacteria. Different strains of bacteria can thrive with very unbalanced nutrients. If you have starved off the smallest members of your CuC it can't help with the bacteria, not to mention that some bacteria is toxic.

The way I see it you can run your system in one of two ways. Either strip all the NO3 and PO4 out of it and rely on target feeding for your coral or you need to restore a balance of NO3 and PO4 to start growing algae. The reef is a dirty, nasty place. If you find a reef that has been overharvested of its algae eating fish you will see that it doesn't take long for algae to overgrow and kill the corals.

Doesn't make me sound like a Vibrant fan, huh? Well, some species of algae can be very destructive with no practical CuC members available and need to be eradicated. At this point, Vibrant becomes a very potent tool. If you are a heavy feeder and have micro fauna to spare, you can use Vibrant to help clear your water and reduce nutrients.
If your system is mostly clean, Vibrant is very difficult to use successfully.



Hope I didn't wander too much through here...

 

[zachxlutz]

I've never seen anything quite like that. Do you have a pH monitor or do you test it regularly? If so, how much of a spread are you seeing between the peak and the low?

For the record, I'm a big fan of Vibrant. However, I would never dose it more than once a month unless I was combating algae. I've looked into a bunch of cases involving Vibrant induced bacteria outbreaks. They all have a two things in common. The tanks are cleared of the hair and film algae and either NO3 or PO4 have bottomed out. This opens the door. If people are dosing any carbon sources it is like throwing fuel on the fire.

I am absolutely convinced that thriving micro fauna are critical to prevent bacteria blooms in a reef tank. Used too often and Vibrant will strip it all from the tank and this kills off the base of the food chain. Ideally, the algae consumes the nitrates, phosphates and ammonia. The algae is eaten by copepods, amphipods, and your CuC. Some is removed by your skimmer. If you can't grow the algae to consume the nutrients it opens the door for bacteria. Different strains of bacteria can thrive with very unbalanced nutrients. If you have starved off the smallest members of your CuC it can't help with the bacteria, not to mention that some bacteria is toxic.

The way I see it you can run your system in one of two ways. Either strip all the NO3 and PO4 out of it and rely on target feeding for your coral or you need to restore a balance of NO3 and PO4 to start growing algae. The reef is a dirty, nasty place. If you find a reef that has been overharvested of its algae eating fish you will see that it doesn't take long for algae to overgrow and kill the corals.

Doesn't make me sound like a Vibrant fan, huh? Well, some species of algae can be very destructive with no practical CuC members available and need to be eradicated. At this point, Vibrant becomes a very potent tool. If you are a heavy feeder and have micro fauna to spare, you can use Vibrant to help clear your water and reduce nutrients.
If your system is mostly clean, Vibrant is very difficult to use successfully.



Hope I didn't wander too much through here...

pH/ORP swings:

I wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying. I think I've just eliminated any and every algae source the vibrant can take on and now this nasty strain of whatever it is has popped up. I don't think Vibrant is a tool I'm going to throw out of the shed... It's something that will only be used in certain situations and for somewhat short periods. I think the best thing to do is let the tank mellow out from the Vibrant dosing and get things back up to healthy levels in the tank and combat any new algae pop ups with clean-up crew.

Ultimately, do you think this is a bacterial bloom?

 

[Brew12]

Ultimately, do you think this is a bacterial bloom?

Without looking at it under a microscope I cant say for sure but I think it is very likely. I think it is a form of cyano and not dino's but again, that is speculation.

I had a massive cyano outbreak when I got addicted to Vibrant. I cleared it up with what is called Micro-nano bubbling. I don't buy into it working the way some people claim dealing with ions and charges in the water. I do swear by it though. I can tell when something isn't working right by looking at my tank. Around 2 weeks ago I noticed my tank was growing more algae than normal and starting to smell. I dug into it and found my wooden air stone was clogging. I did nothing other than change out the airstone and my skimmer went crazy for 5 days pulling all sorts of nasty out of my tank. The algae is dying off and my nitrates are dropping. No chemicals. No dosing. Just running the air pump for 4 to 5 hours every night after I go to bed.

 

[zachxlutz]

Without looking at it under a microscope I cant say for sure but I think it is very likely. I think it is a form of cyano and not dino's but again, that is speculation.

I had a massive cyano outbreak when I got addicted to Vibrant. I cleared it up with what is called Micro-nano bubbling. I don't buy into it working the way some people claim dealing with ions and charges in the water. I do swear by it though. I can tell when something isn't working right by looking at my tank. Around 2 weeks ago I noticed my tank was growing more algae than normal and starting to smell. I dug into it and found my wooden air stone was clogging. I did nothing other than change out the airstone and my skimmer went crazy for 5 days pulling all sorts of nasty out of my tank. The algae is dying off and my nitrates are dropping. No chemicals. No dosing. Just running the air pump for 4 to 5 hours every night after I go to bed.

Thanks for stopping by and offering your advice! I've read a bit about nano-bubbling and have considered it at times but I've never pulled the trigger on it. I wonder if doing a round of chemiclean would be a good idea right now to decrease the stress on the corals while I try and get the nutrient levels back in line. Just as a band-aid for now.

 

[Brew12]

Thanks for stopping by and offering your advice! I've read a bit about nano-bubbling and have considered it at times but I've never pulled the trigger on it. I wonder if doing a round of chemiclean would be a good idea right now to decrease the stress on the corals while I try and get the nutrient levels back in line. Just as a band-aid for now.

I would go for it. I'm not a big fan of dosing antibiotics into a reef tank but lets face it, your micro fauna is in rough shape and needs to be rebuilt anyway. If you are going to do it, now is the time.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Ok @saltyfilmfolks , back over here now. The problem is seemingly getting worse.

New updates:

Phosphates are between 0 and 0.003 checking with the Hanna ULR phosphorus checker and have been reading 0-ish since 5/7/17. I took the first test on the 7th as a error and did a check with the Red Sea kit and it always comes up barely noticeable in the color range. I usually call it 0.03 or so... I made a note of this in my tracking log and just used the value from the Red Sea titration kit. I'm thinking my phosphates have bottomed out leading to a dinoflagellate bloom. Looking at the trend, the phosphates dropping and the rise in dinos seems to correlate.

I'm thinking about dosing up the phosphorus in the tank. I've perused through the Dino threads and a common theme is low phosphates causing dino outbreaks and increasing phosphate levels seems to be the cure. It's natural, like dosing KNO3 has been and I think i'm going to give it a shot. I'll be picking up some SeaChem Flourish Phosphorus and bringing the levels up to around .03 ppm.

Thoughts?

Well, id read Randys article on Problem dinos.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php
Neither of my tanks PH swing that hard or drop that low.
One theory on cyano too is, it really likes c02. So nano bubbling is IMO, still debatable. Probably works but its the why, It both adds oxygen and possibly lowers co2.

Ive not seen other extensive research on feeding to cure dinos, as honestly I haven't seen anything that would prove a ratio change would in fact effect anything. Many say it has no effect. Its possible its actually feeding something else that becomes more dominant.

on chemiclean, Im not sure id keep mixing remedies and "cures"

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I would go for it. I'm not a big fan of dosing antibiotics into a reef tank but lets face it, your micro fauna is in rough shape and needs to be rebuilt anyway. If you are going to do it, now is the time.

lol. New school. The only debatable is once using vibrant to kill micro fauna and then chemi clean to kill unknown bacterial strains and other possible microfauna is, you then become susceptible to a bloom of the next dominant strain of whatever comes next. I've never quite gotten how one gets past that save to keep using a bottle of something .