Ongoing Algae Problem

[madducks42]

We’ve been dealing with an obnoxious algae problem for over 2 months now. Quick overview of our tank:

- 90 gallon tank setup in March
- Running a skimmer, GFO, and carbon
- Weekly 10-15% water changes
- RODI water using Red Sea Coral Pro Salt
- Dosing system setup for alkalinity and calcium
- Also use Red Sea trace elements
- 2 Hydra 52 lights, come on at 8am, 4 hour ramp up/down, high point of 60% blue/violet 30% white, by 7pm they’re on 5% blue, completely off at 11pm
- 2 Neptune WAV powerheads
- Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates less than 5, Phosphates .02
- ALK 9.3 CA 420 MAG 1400

Livestock:
- Purple Tang
- Flame Angel
- Potters Angel
- Royal Gramma
- 2 Clownfish
- Sleeper Goby
- Watchman Goby
- 2 cleaner shrimp
- Roughly 20 blue legged hermit crabs (they keep reproducing)
- Roughly 20 snails, mix of turbo, nassarius, cerith, trochus (they also keep reproducing and getting eaten by the hermit crabs)
- Urchin
- Brittle Sea Star
- Condy Anemone
- BTA
- 10 smallish coral frags, mostly LPS

The problem started late September. We had removed all the fish from the tank because 2 of them died due to what we think was chemical warfare in the tank. We weren’t running carbon at the time and an acan frag fell into a torch coral which seemed to start off a chain reaction of some very annoyed corals. We added a carbon reactor to our tank and did some extra water changes for 3 weeks. The corals started to look better and we added the fish back in. It was during this time that the brown algae sprung up. Because there weren’t any fish in the tank I wasn’t feeding the tank other than occasionally spot feeding the coral Coral Chili. The tank never had an ammonia spike and nitrates never went over 5.

So here we are over 2 months later and we just can’t get rid of this stuff. At first I thought it was diatoms but now I’m leaning more towards dinos because it will develop long strings with bubbles at the end. I clean the sand about once a week and try to suck it out but it will be back within hours. Would a blackout help?

 

[Big G]

Here's some info from Reef Cleaners that may help. I've found that most of their advice is spot on:
Dinoflagellates

This light brownish menace feels like snot growing up from the rock or sand, with trapped air bubbles in it. Not to be confused with algae that has an air bubble that has landed on it, dinos make them. Not all species of dinos are bad the one pictured is though, and has caused many aquarists to tear down their tanks. Also, it is questionable as to whether "dinos" arent really just a cyanobacteria species, but that is how the hobby goes and this isnt a scientific resource.

Manual Removal - Remove the rock and place it in a large saucepan. Add water enough to cover the rock. Boil the tar out of it. Rinse and repeat with scrubbing in between. Let dry for 3 days in sun.

Okay maybe not that far, but.... it is hard to remove. Scrub it as best you can.
Clean Up Crew -Don't bother.


Starving it out - Increase skimming, use a phosban reactor, or a macro like chaeto to take down nutrients. Some people have had success treating "dinos" by raising their ph and alk, but if you do so, do it with caution.

 

[madducks42]

That resource, along with a few others, is what led me to think the problem was dino not diatoms. Although I'm not really sure how you tell "algae that has an air bubble that landed on it" apart from the stringy dino pieces. But I'm still leaning towards dino over diatoms. That said, it's not really on the live rock. Not sure if it's because the cleanup crew we have prefers the live rock over sand or if the type we have just doesn't grow on live rock. In any case, our live rock is the cleanest thing in the tank.

We are planning on adding some chaeto to our sump this week so maybe that will help...

 

[Big G]

That resource, along with a few others, is what led me to think the problem was dino not diatoms. Although I'm not really sure how you tell "algae that has an air bubble that landed on it" apart from the stringy dino pieces. But I'm still leaning towards dino over diatoms. That said, it's not really on the live rock. Not sure if it's because the cleanup crew we have prefers the live rock over sand or if the type we have just doesn't grow on live rock. In any case, our live rock is the cleanest thing in the tank.

We are planning on adding some chaeto to our sump this week so maybe that will help...

Highly recommend the chaeto/copepod/phytoplankton package from Algae Barn. Did wonders in my 90.

 

[madducks42]

We're trying to establish a copepod population in the tank so we did start dosing phytoplankton last week. We ordered from Algae Barn : )

They were out of chaeto when I did the order so I did another order this week and got some more copepods and more of their Ocean Magick stuff. It'll be interesting to see if this has any impact on the algae growth.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Here's some info from Reef Cleaners that may help. I've found that most of their advice is spot on:
Dinoflagellates

This light brownish menace feels like snot growing up from the rock or sand, with trapped air bubbles in it. Not to be confused with algae that has an air bubble that has landed on it, dinos make them. Not all species of dinos are bad the one pictured is though, and has caused many aquarists to tear down their tanks. Also, it is questionable as to whether "dinos" arent really just a cyanobacteria species, but that is how the hobby goes and this isnt a scientific resource.

Manual Removal - Remove the rock and place it in a large saucepan. Add water enough to cover the rock. Boil the tar out of it. Rinse and repeat with scrubbing in between. Let dry for 3 days in sun.

Okay maybe not that far, but.... it is hard to remove. Scrub it as best you can.
Clean Up Crew -Don't bother.


Starving it out - Increase skimming, use a phosban reactor, or a macro like chaeto to take down nutrients. Some people have had success treating "dinos" by raising their ph and alk, but if you do so, do it with caution.

Unfortunately starving dinos only makes them mad. A lot of other methods are anecdotal without real results. Black outs are only a temporary fix.

I am however surprised the test kits are showing nutrients in the system. With as many species we've identified most if not all share a similar result showing undetectable nutrients.

I suggest you read through thus thread to further assist in getting rid of the dinos.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

 

[madducks42]

I am however surprised the test kits are showing nutrients in the system. With as many species we've identified most if not all share a similar result showing undetectable nutrients.

We were running the GFO pretty aggressively and were also using a chemical to reduce nutrients in the water, I don't remember what it was off the top of my head I'd have to ask the SO what it was. At any rate we stopped using that chemical a few days ago and turned the GFO down a bit. I feel like some of our corals haven't been looking too good because of nitrates and phosphates being so low. At one point nitrates were well below 5, hard to tell on the test kit we have but it looked like it was at 2 or lower. And phosphates were almost at zero. From my understanding keeping phosphates around .02 seems to be ideal and nitrates below 10. Aggressively running the GFO and using that chemical never really impacted the algae, I'd say it was slightly better but it definitely didn't make the issue go away and after 2 weeks it seemed like some of our corals were getting annoyed. The zoas in particular weren't happy. They were closed up frequently and weren't growing nearly as fast. I did order some Phosban this week because we were out of salt but at the time I ordered it I thought what we had were diatoms and maybe we had a silicate problem. Not sure how useful that stuff would be if this is in fact dino.

 

[madducks42]

Also thanks for that link! I've seriously spent hours scouring the internet and reading forum posts about this but somehow never came across that article. Definitely provides more stuff to think about.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Also thanks for that link! I've seriously spent hours scouring the internet and reading forum posts about this but somehow never came across that article. Definitely provides more stuff to think about.

To get a head start, remove all gfo and all nutrient export methods like bio-media or dosing. Also, trace elements were found to help with dino growth. From this point I would also stop water changes and let the system build up nutrients. Bio-diversity and micro organisms will help defeat the dinos but they need nutrients to grow. When we strip our water we strip the biodiversity.

 

[Brew12]

To get a head start, remove all gfo and all nutrient export methods like bio-media or dosing. Also, trace elements were found to help with dino growth. From this point I would also stop water changes and let the system build up nutrients. Bio-diversity and micro organisms will help defeat the dinos but they need nutrients to grow. When we strip our water we strip the biodiversity.

Agree with this!

Dino's love phosphate deficient systems.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Agree with this!

Dino's love phosphate deficient systems.

Yep! And another little fact is most our reefs have dinos. If you've ever bought a frag from LFS you most likely have dinos but the micro organisms and the bio diversity consume them before they become problematic. So, the next time someone says my tank is dino free, you can smile and let them know otherwise.

 

[Brew12]

Yep! And another little fact is most our reefs have dinos. If you've ever bought a frag from LFS you most likely have dinos but the micro organisms and the bio diversity consume them before they become problematic. So, the next time someone says my tank is dino free, you can smile and let them know otherwise.

Every reef tank will have dino's and cyano. It would be impossible to keep them out since they can be air transmitted.

Fortunately for us, most algaes will find better growing conditions in an aquarium than either of them. As long as we aren't limiting algae growth by restricting the nutrients or trace elements it needs, it will outcompete the dino's and cyano. Unless, of course, you restrict all of the nutrients that all 3 require. For instance, if you run large amounts of GFO you can completely strip all the phosphate out of a tank and kill everything in it, including coral.

 

[madducks42]

Fascinating! And it sorts of makes sense for why this has been going on for so long since everything we've been trying has been about reducing nitrates/phosphates. Which clearly hasn't resolved the issue. We might have actually completely turned the GFO off over the weekend but I'll double check when I get home and shut if off if it's still on. We'll also stop dosing the trace elements and maybe skip the water change this weekend.

 

[nero0762]

To get a head start, remove all gfo and all nutrient export methods like bio-media or dosing. Also, trace elements were found to help with dino growth. From this point I would also stop water changes and let the system build up nutrients. Bio-diversity and micro organisms will help defeat the dinos but they need nutrients to grow. When we strip our water we strip the biodiversity.

When you say "trace elements were found to help with dino growth" do you mean trace elements help dino grow, or they help treat/limit dino growth?

 

[reeferfoxx]

When you say "trace elements were found to help with dino growth" do you mean trace elements help dino grow, or they help treat/limit dino growth?

Reproduction of dinos can often times be dependent on other elements other than N and P. They can uptake iron, boron, strontium etc. Keeping these elements at a mininum can help with deficiencies to limit reproduction rate. So, what I'm saying is trace elements can be beneficial to dinos.

 

[madducks42]

It’s been almost a week and the tank is looking pretty bad, lol. Which to be fair I expected it to get worse before it got better. GFO is completely off and we stopped dosing the trace elements, also skipped the water change this past weekend. I tested for nitrates and phosphates last night and both were at 0 which I found odd. Going to test again tonight.

 

[Zack K]

10 day blackout and 100 crabs and 25 snails did it for me. Took care of the problem. l also got a diamond goby shortly after to keep the sand moving almost constantly. Has been 7 months now and not a single Dino out break yet *Knock on wood*

 

[reeferfoxx]

It’s been almost a week and the tank is looking pretty bad, lol. Which to be fair I expected it to get worse before it got better. GFO is completely off and we stopped dosing the trace elements, also skipped the water change this past weekend. I tested for nitrates and phosphates last night and both were at 0 which I found odd. Going to test again tonight.

If you're going the natural route, it could take months. If you want to help speed up the process, start dosing phosphates and nitrates. But it will require morning and night dosing and testing to keep a stable po4 - 0.10ppm and No3 - 10ppm.

If you have coral in the tank, I don't recommend a 10 day black out unless you don't mind if your coral die. Any blackout <10 days is a temporary fix.

 

[Brew12]

And get that Cheato added with a strong light source if you haven't already!

 

[madducks42]

We have some chaeto but haven't added it yet because it's going in the sump and we need to tweak a few things so it doesn't get caught in the pump. We got a light for it too. Should be able to get that in the next few days. Will cleaning the sand every day hinder the process? Even if I clean it it's covered the next day again, not sure if cleaning it every day for two weeks would help or not. I haven't been cleaning the back wall of the tank at all.