Reef Chemistry Problem - need help

[pgooden]

so I don't know what I have but I want to fix it right or know how to control it effectively... I have a rust brown covered substance that grows mainly on substrate and on the rocks some. It recedes significantly at night and is back in force during the day. It clumps on sand, not dusty

I don't have a scope to analyze it.

Setup for 16 months. Live sand and dry rock from Marco Rock
Tank 54 gal MD
Sump 11 gal
Reef Octopus Skimmer 110SSS (never have gotten dialed in right). Mostly wet skim
BRS reactor with 8 tbsp High capacity GFO for past week
Lights - 2 radion XR15 Pros on arms running from 11am to 8pm using echotech's LPS schedule. It was set to 65% intensity until a few days ago and I cut them back to 35% as LFS said it was probably why Zoas weren't growing and reproducing.

I was feeding cobalt flake 2-3 times per week and Frozen Mysis 3-4 per week
Cut back to Frozen Mysis, rinsed 2-3 times per week.

Temp 77 - 79 controlled by Apex
Salinity 1.26 using refractometer
Ph 8.2 - 8.4
cal 380
Alk 8
NO2 0 on Salifert test
Po4 0 on ULR Hanna checker- I know what ever it is is probably consuming it before it shows on test.

Livestock:
Christmas Wrasse
2 clowns
Antenna Goby and Pistol Shrimp (haven't seen either in a few weeks)
Cleaner shrimp
20 snails
15 hermits

Coral:
Elegance
2 plate corals
A few polyps of zoa

I can send pictures when I get home but I have tried lights out for 3 days, Helped but it came back within a few days. I have done 10 gal water changes the last 2 weeks. I use a 6 stage RODI that the filters were changed on 1 month Ago. I did one dose of chemi-clean, no effect.

I want to beat this and trust what I am doing so I can feel confident in investing in better, more beautiful corals and livestock.

Please help!

Shane

 

[taintstick]

I had the same exact issue, all my params were perfect. A few things I changed up that eliminated my problem. I don't know which one did the job or if it was a combo of things.
Started to make my own RODI water instead of trusting LFS.
Stopped feeding flake food as it dissolves quickly, now using pellets.
Feed corals once every other day with goniopower and rods.
Light intensity or too long. I shortened my whites time length a bit and raised my lights a couple inches. Didn't change the percentage output.
An option also is to go trade your hermits for other at LFS. Reason being new hermits will attack that algae as it is new to them.
Skimmer- you should get it dialed right. Just takes patience. That algae will feed on anything, hints why it won't kick rocks... maybe the poor skimming is leaving things behind for the algae to thrive.

 

[taintstick]

I also think you are feeding way too much for the small livestock that you have. Concentrate on just feeding your clowns and wrasse. Transition them into pellets.
I feed my fish once a day with pellets, transition them from flakes also.

 

[beaslbob]

Kill the lights and it will clear up. then resume with 1/2 durations lights and adjust.

my .02

 

[pgooden]

So Frozen Mysis every other day is too much? How many pellets?

Any way to tell what I have without a scope?

 

[pgooden]

I forgot to mention, besides return pump, I have a single MP10 on left side of tank, cranked up to 8. I have used MP40 that should be here today.

 

[GoVols]

so I don't know what I have but I want to fix it right or know how to control it effectively... I have a rust brown covered substance that grows mainly on substrate and on the rocks some. It recedes significantly at night and is back in force during the day. It clumps on sand, not dusty

I don't have a scope to analyze it.

Setup for 16 months. Live sand and dry rock from Marco Rock
Tank 54 gal MD
Sump 11 gal
Reef Octopus Skimmer 110SSS (never have gotten dialed in right). Mostly wet skim
BRS reactor with 8 tbsp High capacity GFO for past week
Lights - 2 radion XR15 Pros on arms running from 11am to 8pm using echotech's LPS schedule. It was set to 65% intensity until a few days ago and I cut them back to 35% as LFS said it was probably why Zoas weren't growing and reproducing.

I was feeding cobalt flake 2-3 times per week and Frozen Mysis 3-4 per week
Cut back to Frozen Mysis, rinsed 2-3 times per week.

Temp 77 - 79 controlled by Apex
Salinity 1.26 using refractometer
Ph 8.2 - 8.4
cal 380
Alk 8
NO2 0 on Salifert test
Po4 0 on ULR Hanna checker- I know what ever it is is probably consuming it before it shows on test.

Livestock:
Christmas Wrasse
2 clowns
Antenna Goby and Pistol Shrimp (haven't seen either in a few weeks)
Cleaner shrimp
20 snails
15 hermits

Coral:
Elegance
2 plate corals
A few polyps of zoa

I can send pictures when I get home but I have tried lights out for 3 days, Helped but it came back within a few days. I have done 10 gal water changes the last 2 weeks. I use a 6 stage RODI that the filters were changed on 1 month Ago. I did one dose of chemi-clean, no effect.

I want to beat this and trust what I am doing so I can feel confident in investing in better, more beautiful corals and livestock.

Please help!

Shane

Shane,
We gotta see the pictures.

 

[Pongo]

This sounds similar to something I had.
Some pictures would help.

I tried lights out - came back.
Reduces white channel on my radions a lot, killed the red and green channels - still grows.
Used a power head to blow it off the rocks, scraped the back glass, turkey basted off the sand - grows back.
I greatly increased flow in the tank.
It was clogging up my filter socks in less then 24 hours.

Finally tried Vibrant. I dosed at the "dirty tank" dose weekly for 3 weeks then it faded away.
Went 2 weeks without Vibrant and saw it coming back on the the back glass and some rocks so I resumed dosing Vibrant last night, but I'm going to follow the "clean tank" dosing schedule.

 

[taintstick]

Depends how much mysis and if your target feeding or just pouring into tank.
Pellets well, varies, once you get their attention. Just feed them a few pellets at a time until they lose interest or when enough is enough haha. I do that so the crabs start to sniff it out and they charge to the spot where I allow the pellets to fall if fish don't get them. It's weird how my crabs know exactly where to go but I guess they are trained too haha.
I could see how shutting off the lights will work like beaslbob said, but if it's a combo of things, it won't work. Like you tried, it just came back in a day or 2, I tried that too without totally working.
Also, how often to you change your filter media? Is it a sock and how often changed..

 

[GoVols]

If it was dusty then a diatom bloom comes to mind

 

[pgooden]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will get pics uploaded tonight. To clarify, I am now feeding rinsed Mysis 3 times a week with a syringe, pretty much everything gets eaten Filter socks 225 mesh changed 1 per week with water changed, not clogged at all.

 

[ahiggins]

it does sound like diatoms. In my nano I had it go away at night just to come back during the day.

 

[pgooden]

 

[pgooden]

 

[GoVols]

@ahiggins @Randy Holmes-Farley

Looks like diatoms to me

Shane,
If it's a diatom bloom your a lucky man

I always let them burn out on their own.

Tagging along for other opinions

 

[pgooden]

So if it is diatoms would I be registering 0 on both NO2 and PO4? Just trying to learn.

 

[ahiggins]

So if it is diatoms would I be registering 0 on both NO2 and PO4? Just trying to learn.

Not necessarily. You'll only read zero if they're consuming all of it which is unlikely most cases.
It does look like diatoms to me. More often, you have an excess of phosphates (if it's not a tank less than a few months old). If it's a new tank everyone gets them. It's the ugly algae phase. It will go.
I had them in my tank until about the year mark. That's when I learned how to feed properly and how to maintain stability.

 

[GoVols]

So if it is diatoms would I be registering 0 on both NO2 and PO4? Just trying to learn.

Shane, I'm pretty sure it's diatoms but let's some more qualified feedback

@Randy Holmes-Farley @twilliard

Do you guys think this is diatoms?

Thanks, GoVols

 

[pgooden]

Thanks GoVols I appreciate all the feedback! I will install this MP40 to get some more flow going while we wait for @twilliard and @Randy Holmes-Farley to weigh in.

Thanks again.

Shane

 

[GoVols]

Not necessarily. You'll only read zero if they're consuming all of it which is unlikely most cases.
It does look like diatoms to me. More often, you have an excess of phosphates (if it's not a tank less than a few months old). If it's a new tank everyone gets them. It's the ugly algae phase. It will go.
I had them in my tank until about the year mark. That's when I learned how to feed properly and how to maintain stability.

+1
I don't know about diatoms but I had hair algae once that was only on my "old" live rock.
The "old" live rock was leaching out phos. but my phos. kit was looking good.
The hair algae was consuming the phos from my live rock so there was no enough phos in my water column and was tricking my phos test kit.

Fired up a GFO reactor and my live rock hair algae has been long gone