Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Clogging with bacteria slime? I lose flow rate to it overtime in a reactor.

I think it was particulate detritus.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hair Algae

I may need to rethink my husbandry if these new snails do not make some headway on the GHA. It’s getting worse, not better. I may consider vinegar dosing the way I did on my last tank. I never had such issues with it.

I also never dosed trace elements that way I do now with the AFR. I might be just driving it too much. Last tank I mostly just dosed kalk and fish food and vinegar, and while it was by no means perfect, neither cyano nor gha was ever this bad.

 

[jonelder68]

Are your foxface and YT picking at it? Mine would for sure gobble that up. Looks like it might have cyano on areas? Maybe that’s why if not.

Kalk does miracles in many ways my tank sure turned around once I turned on the Kalk dosing for what it’s worth.

Any tuxedo urchins? They are good and fast workers. Love my pair.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

No cyano is visible since the Chemi clean.

Those fish may eat some. They are not getting any algae from me at the moment to encourage it, but they also eat the flakes and pellets the other fish get.

 

[bureau13]

I don't know if they're all like this, but I had a pretty bad hair algae thing developing on my overflow, back glass, some of the rocks, etc. My rabbitfish and Mimic Tang didn't do much with it, the snails munched on it but weren't really making that big of an impact. I added a bristletooth tang and I swear that stuff was gone in a week. I am not sure if you have room or desire for one, but it did the trick for me. I added him to a tank where the Mimic was the undisputed king, and was worried about that, but they squared off for about an hour and have been thick as thieves since then.

Hair Algae

I may need to rethink my husbandry if these new snails do not make some headway on the GHA. It’s getting worse, not better. I may consider vinegar dosing the way I did on my last tank. I never had such issues with it.

I also never dosed trace elements that way I do now with the AFR. I might be just driving it too much. Last tank I mostly just dosed kalk and fish food and vinegar, and while it was by no means perfect, neither cyano nor gha was ever this bad.

 

[Lasse]

I added a bristletooth tang and I swear that stuff was gone in a week.

That´s my experiences with bristletooth tang´s too. IME - they are also outstanding diatom-eaters too. It´s help i they are a little bit hungry IMO.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[jonelder68]

My white tail bristletooth destroys all and any algae so I agree. He even is constantly grazing the sand bed. I’d be afraid of adding one now with Randy already having an established YT. My YT tried for two weeks to murder my newly added WT. Even after days in acclimation box then even had to split the tank in half with a divider for a week. Eventually they just had to fight it out. Mirrors covering all sides helped slow it down from constant fighting. Eventually after weeks of fighting they decided to play nice. I wouldn’t try again without removing the established tang and then reintroducing both at the same time outside of the DT in a QT/observation tank set up.

 

[rishma]

Hair Algae

I may need to rethink my husbandry if these new snails do not make some headway on the GHA. It’s getting worse, not better. I may consider vinegar dosing the way I did on my last tank. I never had such issues with it.

I also never dosed trace elements that way I do now with the AFR. I might be just driving it too much. Last tank I mostly just dosed kalk and fish food and vinegar, and while it was by no means perfect, neither cyano nor gha was ever this bad.

Curious to see you consider vinegar in response to hair algae. Care to elaborate?

I understand the trace element comment

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Curious to see you consider vinegar in response to hair algae. Care to elaborate?

I understand the trace element comment

Hey, not seen you posting in a while. Welcome back.

I’m just brainstorming with these thoughts, but one hypothesis is that bacteria driven by vinegar outcompete the algae for a trace element, while potentially providing food for corals that contain C, N, P and trace elements. In fact, the phyto I dose may be doing that already.

 

[jonelder68]

Hey, not seen you posting in a while. Welcome back.

I’m just brainstorming with these thoughts, but one hypothesis is that bacteria driven by vinegar outcompete the algae for a trace element, while potentially providing food for corals that contain C, N, P and trace elements. In fact, the phyto I dose may be doing that already.

I’m probably responsible for @rishma return been having him help me with designing a CO2 reactor for my tank. Which reminds me I might have some questions for you soon also pertaining it and Kalkwasser.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’m probably responsible for @rishma return been having him help me with designing a CO2 reactor for my tank. Which reminds me I might have some questions for you soon also pertaining it and Kalkwasser.

Well, that’s good whatever caused him to post again. :)

 

[rishma]

Hey, not seen you posting in a while. Welcome back.

I’m just brainstorming with these thoughts, but one hypothesis is that bacteria driven by vinegar outcompete the algae for a trace element, while potentially providing food for corals that contain C, N, P and trace elements. In fact, the phyto I dose may be doing that already.

Thanks! I’ve gone quiet but still check in sometimes.

I wonder if an ICP would show something informative about trace element levels. Maybe high because of your AFR dose.

Would the same logic hold for trace, N, and P? In order to affect the algae would you have to pull trace so low that it negatively impacts the coral?

Alternatively, I’ve wondered if the presence of higher bacterial populations from carbon dosing helps suppress hair algae even if nutrients and trace levels are similar are the same.

My tank had minor hair algae issues until the 3rd year. I cannot put my finger on what turned the tide. Everything was stable for a long time as far as I could measure but slowly hair algae seemed to retreat. It never disappeared entirely but was clearly struggling and taking up an ever shrinking amount of realestate. N, P, trace etc were pretty consistent. Carbon dosing and nutrient dosing concurrently. It was definitely not grazers for me. I had very few.

 

[jonelder68]

Has the GHA started or increased since the chemi clean treatment? You removed cyano with the chemi clean so now GHA is the dominant plague?

I know from my disaster of a tank start I had Dino’s which was replaced with mat of cyano and then GHA. Then would repeat over and over. Then it just became cyano for a while luckily just on the sand bed. 3-4 months after starting to finally stock corals/acros it all started to go away. The only thing I was doing different was started dosing Kalkwasser to maintain alkalinity and was dosing twice a week TM nitribiotic. So either those two helped or the tank just finally found its balance.

Wondering if the chemi clean just unbalanced the tank biome and now it needs to reestablish? Which unfortunately won’t be quick. I am a huge fan of Kalkwasser though and believe it benefits our tanks more than simply just adding alk/cal.

Through all this I did do ICP test and nothing had changed. So I don’t believe it would be element issue.

Your carbon dosing sounds interesting. If the biome did take a hit from the chemi clean I’d think it be worth trying to boost bacteria levels.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks! I’ve gone quiet but still check in sometimes.

I wonder if an ICP would show something informative about trace element levels. Maybe high because of your AFR dose.

Would the same logic hold for trace, N, and P? In order to affect the algae would you have to pull trace so low that it negatively impacts the coral?

Alternatively, I’ve wondered if the presence of higher bacterial populations from carbon dosing helps suppress hair algae even if nutrients and trace levels are similar are the same.

My tank had minor hair algae issues until the 3rd year. I cannot put my finger on what turned the tide. Everything was stable for a long time as far as I could measure but slowly hair algae seemed to retreat. It never disappeared entirely but was clearly struggling and taking up an ever shrinking amount of realestate. N, P, trace etc were pretty consistent. Carbon dosing and nutrient dosing concurrently. It was definitely not grazers for me. I had very few.

Lots of things are possible, including things unrelated to chemistry, but below is some data supporting the trace element idea. I do have an Oceamo kit I can send out, though I think interpretation is tricky since I have no idea what levels are actually needed for the things I want to keep vs those I do not (say,, hair algae).

Folks who us algal turf scrubbers often claim that it can reduce algae in the display tank. When questioned, these claimants often also sometimes say that the effect does not require N or P to be especially low.

I have no strong reason to believe they are correct, but if they are, I cannot think of any explanation except a trace element limitation.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Has the GHA started or increased since the chemi clean treatment? You removed cyano with the chemi clean so now GHA is the dominant plague?

I know from my disaster of a tank start I had Dino’s which was replaced with mat of cyano and then GHA. Then would repeat over and over. Then it just became cyano for a while luckily just on the sand bed. 3-4 months after starting to finally stock corals/acros it all started to go away. The only thing I was doing different was started dosing Kalkwasser to maintain alkalinity and was dosing twice a week TM nitribiotic. So either those two helped or the tank just finally found its balance.

Wondering if the chemi clean just unbalanced the tank biome and now it needs to reestablish? Which unfortunately won’t be quick. I am a huge fan of Kalkwasser though and believe it benefits our tanks more than simply just adding alk/cal.

Through all this I did do ICP test and nothing had changed. So I don’t believe it would be element issue.

Your carbon dosing sounds interesting. If the biome did take a hit from the chemi clean I’d think it be worth trying to boost bacteria levels.

Started to become substantial after chemo clean and continues to get worse. The killing of the cyano and some other bacteria freed up both space for it to grow and loaded the water with plenty of stuff it wants.

I do agree the Chemi clean may have messed with more than cyano, though the first time I used it I did not see this problem.

 

[jonelder68]

The GHA seems pretty long? How mine was also. Snails never ate it probably because it was too long. Herbivore fish and from my experience tuxedo urchins only ones who eat it when longer. I would scrub mine with a tooth brush zip tied to a stick. Marineland magnum filter running to suck it all up. Took a lot of effort on my part to keep it from taking over the tank completely. Never would go away for months so I just was fighting to keep it from taking over.

Manual cleaning, add a tuxedo urchin, and start boosting or dosing bacteria would be where I started. It’s only fitting you dose kalk also. Your articles are what got me into Kalk years ago . Kalk only does great things!

 

[jonelder68]

Another thing? How are your fuges and pod populations doing? Does chemi clean wipe out pods as well? Wouldn’t be surprised if they take a loss from it.

I’ve started dosing a coral feed slurry twice a week of bacteria, reef roids, and aminos. Weird side effect is my fuges have exploded in growth and the macros colors have never been so bright and bold! At the same time the pod population has exploded. I use to deal with GHA in the fuges and it’s now stopped. Unsure what exactly in the slurry is benefitting the macros and pods but both seem to be getting a huge benefit from it.