Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[Euphylliaphyle]

How is the demented Anthias doing?

 

[dwest]

Beautiful tank Randy.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How is the demented Anthias doing?

It disappeared entirely one night about 10 days ago. :(

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Beautiful tank Randy.

Thanks! :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Curiously, I have noticed that the color of the growth on the inside of my glass depends on position. Green in some places, golden brown in others.

The pictures below show places I did not scrape yesterday since there were snails there. I’m not sure if the effects are water motion driven, or light, or both.

If I had to guess, I’d say there is more light and more flow on the golden brown areas.

Both pictures below are from the side panel
looking down the length at the inside of the glass. Two big patches (bottom picture) nearer to the side panel have brown on top. The further, smaller patches (top picture) have green up top, nearer the water line.

Have others noticed this dichotomy?

 

[Euphylliaphyle]

Curiously, I have noticed that the color of the growth on the inside of my glass depends on position. Green in some places, golden brown in others.

The pictures below show places I did not scrape yesterday since there were snails there. I’m not sure if the effects are water motion driven, or light, or both.

If I had to guess, I’d say there is more light and more flow on the golden brown areas.

Both pictures below are from the side panel
looking down the length at the inside of the glass. Two big patches (bottom picture) nearer to the side panel have brown on top. The further, smaller patches (top picture) have green up top, nearer the water line.

Have others noticed this dichotomy?

I have some that is slightly shaded and is kind of a lemon-lime color (think: Mountain Dew, but drawing fewer amps ) and the majority in higher light is a more typical, darker algae-green.
Pico-biomes.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I rarely scrape, maybe once every few months at best. The growth patterns are different depending on the location. I also have to assume both light and flow contribute to the differences.

I will make it a point today to scrape the glass.

Well that is a lie, I likely won't feel like it when I get there, but I will see if I can correlate the different growth to either.

 

[Waldek M.]

Curiously, I have noticed that the color of the growth on the inside of my glass depends on position. Green in some places, golden brown in others.

The pictures below show places I did not scrape yesterday since there were snails there. I’m not sure if the effects are water motion driven, or light, or both.

If I had to guess, I’d say there is more light and more flow on the golden brown areas.

Both pictures below are from the side panel
looking down the length at the inside of the glass. Two big patches (bottom picture) nearer to the side panel have brown on top. The further, smaller patches (top picture) have green up top, nearer the water line.

Have others noticed this dichotomy?

They tend to show up in the same spots for me too, though I have no idea why specifically there. One thing I am sure of is that when they appear too frequently, I need to reduce the iron dosage.

 

[vlangel]

My tank seems to have the same phenomenon with the green and brownish film algae.

 

[jonelder68]

Not sure if you’re still having cyano issues or not? But to follow up on my recommendation of TM nitribiotic here’s my results. Nothing changed in tank otherwise.

July 5th. Constant dirty glass and cyano all over the sand bed. 1-2 doses of TM nitribiotic performed so far. It was way worse than this photo prior. I dose it in front of left front powerhead

Just got back from vacation 9-10 days away. Glass was spotless minus a ton of coralline so razor scraped clean the glass.

First morning light.

Daytime spectrum

That was last weekend and it’s even better now. I’m sold! 100% believer in it. Curious if you or anyone else with cyano, Dino’s, dirty glass, etc would see the same results? I hadn’t seen the sand bed in over a year/ever really until now

 

[EnterName]

Curiously, I have noticed that the color of the growth on the inside of my glass depends on position. Green in some places, golden brown in others.

The pictures below show places I did not scrape yesterday since there were snails there. I’m not sure if the effects are water motion driven, or light, or both.

If I had to guess, I’d say there is more light and more flow on the golden brown areas.

Both pictures below are from the side panel
looking down the length at the inside of the glass. Two big patches (bottom picture) nearer to the side panel have brown on top. The further, smaller patches (top picture) have green up top, nearer the water line.

Have others noticed this dichotomy?

I came across this while trying to find out why Ostreopsis sp. dinoflagellates looked green in a tank to the naked eye, but still had their typical brown color under the microscope, as you would expect. I found two possible explanations (obviously there may be more and I might be wrong):

1. Something known as the "pigment package effect," similar to the Beer-Lambert law, where the concentration of the absorbing species and the path length change the absorbance of specific light frequencies. It's a well documented phenomenon, but it's hard to tell how well it applies to thin layers on glass.

2. Similar to your theory about light and flow intensity: as you may know, diatoms and dinoflagellates contain chlorophyll and carotenoids. If the light intensity or some other parameter changes, the ratio between chlorophyll and carotenoids may change as well. Sometimes this effect is so pronounced that you can even see it when observing a single cell under a microscope:

​

I don't have better images of this right now, so you'll have to take my word for it that these two cells are the same kind of diatom and just look different because the left image is a poorly focused stack image, while the right one is a single frame from a video.
In this case, the yellow/golden diatom was found in the well lit display tank, while the greener one was found in a filter sock down in the sump, where there is no light.

 

[Waldek M.]

Not sure if you’re still having cyano issues or not? But to follow up on my recommendation of TM nitribiotic here’s my results. Nothing changed in tank otherwise.

July 5th. Constant dirty glass and cyano all over the sand bed. 1-2 doses of TM nitribiotic performed so far. It was way worse than this photo prior. I dose it in front of left front powerhead

Just got back from vacation 9-10 days away. Glass was spotless minus a ton of coralline so razor scraped clean the glass.

First morning light.

Daytime spectrum

That was last weekend and it’s even better now. I’m sold! 100% believer in it. Curious if you or anyone else with cyano, Dino’s, dirty glass, etc would see the same results? I hadn’t seen the sand bed in over a year/ever really until now

Have you tried Tropic Marin Cyo-Control?

 

[jonelder68]

Have you tried Tropic Marin Cyo-Control?

No I have not. Actually never knew it was a thing? I’ll have to look it up.

 

[Euphylliaphyle]

I had cyano bad, as you can see in my tank thread:
https://www.reef2reef.com/posts/14286581/
I tried this, and it worked great for me:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/extreme-water-clarity-and-cyano-eradication-made-easy.916381/
Cyano was gone after 2 treatments.

 

[jonelder68]

I had cyano bad, as you can see in my tank thread:
https://www.reef2reef.com/posts/14286581/
I tried this, and it worked great for me:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/extreme-water-clarity-and-cyano-eradication-made-easy.916381/
Cyano was gone after 2 treatments.

Yes I dose TM nitribiotic through DIY coral snow. I hadn’t had any success using MB7 or special blend. Almost instant results with nitribiotic.

 

[vlangel]

Yes I dose TM nitribiotic through DIY coral snow. I hadn’t had any success using MB7 or special blend. Almost instant results with nitribiotic.

Where do you get TM nitrobiotic?

 

[jonelder68]

Where do you get TM nitrobiotic?

A lot of places carry it. Including petco. That’s where I grabbed a small bottle.

 

[vlangel]

A lot of places carry it. Including petco. That’s where I grabbed a small bottle.

Thanks!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Not reef related, but I’m proud of my latest project so here it is. I cut down the bank of my pond, added 3 stone steps, created a landing at the bottom to allow better access to the water, and most interestingly, I made a solar powered water feature of some logs cut from a downed tree. The pond is hundreds of feet from the nearest power.

This is my first direct post of a video since the upgrade allowing it. Let me know if it has issues.

 

[Euphylliaphyle]

Not reef related, but I’m proud of my latest project so here it is. I cut down the bank of my pond, added 3 stone steps, created a landing at the bottom to allow better access to the water, and most interestingly, I made a solar powered water feature of some logs cut from a downed tree. The pond is hundreds of feet from the nearest power.

This is my first direct post of a video since the upgrade allowing it. Let me know if it has issues.

That sounds like a lot of work. Looks good!