Red algae growing on rockwork and torch

[crazyleo]

Hi guys. This is a bit of a long one, so please bear with me. So, about 3 months ago, my nutrients crashed and stayed at 0 for a bit and I had a dino outbreak. I'm pretty sure it was LCA since there was no snotty brown stuff, just brown sand.

I started to dose phosphate and nitrate, lowered my lights and cleaned the sand bed every 2 days. After about 2 weeks it was all gone and I had nice white sand.

All was sunshine and rainbows for about 2 weeks. Over the 2 weeks I raised my lights back up slowly so my montys would stop being mad at me and then the dinos came back only this time its snotty.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago, the dinos are mostly under control with just a small patch or 2 that I suck out when I find them every couple of days, but I have red spots on my rockwork right next to one of my torches. Over the past week, it's stopped opening and doesn't look like it's doing too well and now the orange is growing on the torch. Any ideas what it might be? I sucked some of it off the rocks while cleaning my sand and it came off without even scrubbing, but it comes back within a day or 2.

Tank is 150g
Alk is stable between 8.7-8.9
Cal 440
Mag 1300
Ammonia 0
Nitrate is pretty stable between 9.8 and 11.6 over the last 2 weeks
Phos .03 but rises and drops alot.
Salinity 1.025

They really show under the blue lights.

Thanks,
 Leo

 

[Aaron75]

Kinda looks and sounds like cyano. All the instability sounds like the perfect storm for cyano as well.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Kinda looks and sounds like cyano. All the instability sounds like the perfect storm for cyano as well.

+1

 

[crazyleo]

Kinda looks and sounds like cyano. All the instability sounds like the perfect storm for cyano as well.

Awesome, thanks. The tank is pretty new(about 6 months) so I had a feeling it was cyano, but always better to check. Will brushing it off the rocks make it worse? And what should I do to get things more stable? There's no rhyme or reason to my phosphate levels... it will steadily climb from .01 to .06 then the next day I'm back at .01. Is this just because it's new and time and patience will sort it out?

 

[Aaron75]

Could be new tank stuff, could be because algae or even rocks are eating up your phosphates. A lot of variables like what you feed, nutrition export, etc.

 

[crazyleo]

Could be new tank stuff, could be because algae or even rocks are eating up your phosphates. A lot of variables like what you feed, nutrition export, etc.

Probably a stupid question, but would inconsistent feeding cause the swing?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Probably a stupid question, but would inconsistent feeding cause the swing?

What do you mean by inconsistent feeding? feeding every couple of days or feeding larger amounts some days vs others.

 

[crazyleo]

What do you mean by inconsistent feeding? feeding every couple of days or feeding larger amounts some days vs others.

Feeding more some days than others. Sometimes I'll feed twice a day, sometimes once, sometimes my tangs go through 1 1/2 sheets of nori, sometimes I forget to refill the clip and they only get 1/2 -1 sheet.