Should I restart?

[reefwhippet25]

This is my first saltwater aquarium (set up last April) and its looked like this for the last 6 months. I kept hoping if I did nothing the “ugly stage” would go away, but it hasn’t and I’m getting tired of it. Also, my tank is COVERED in algae with what I think are dinoflagellates growing on top as well as cyano on the sand. If I try to remove it, it comes back within a few hours or the next day.

A week ago I started following Miami Reef’s advice for dealing with dinoflagellates. My nitrate and phosphate have been 0 or near 0 for months so I started dosing NeoPhos (to 0.2 ppm) and NeoNitro (to 5 ppm). However, I dose and the next day they are pretty much back at 0 again.

I also dosed silicate to 1 ppm last week and plan to keep dosing weekly per Miami Reefs instructions. I did see a diatom bloom on the glass and I have quite a few pods as well.

I started with dry marco rock and Fiji pink sand. I seeded once with a jar of Tampa bay live sand but it didn’t seem to do anything.

I’m wondering if the dinos and algae are just too overpopulated, and I need to just take out all the rock and restart with live rock. But then I’m worried I’ll spend $200 on live rock just to have dinos and algae takeover again and be in the same situation.

Anyway, please let me know what other details to provide and what you would do in my scenario.

 

[JumboShrimp]

We had an awful looking tank at the office. I dropped in one large Mexican Turbo Snail, one Tuxedo Urchin, and one Sea Hare-- all three at once. By the end of week two, not only way the tank wiped clean of all forms of algae, but we had to start feeding sheets of Nori and algae pellets! (Eventually the Sea Hare had to be brought back to the LFS, he became huge.)

 

[BeanAnimal]

I can't tell you if starting over is a better idea or not. If you did, I would suggest a full migration to TBS live rock.

If you decide to stay the course, I think that getting out of the woods will not be that hard.

Let's start here:
How many fish?
How often and what do you feed?
Filtration?
Have you tried a UV? (buy or borrow).
Have you gone the route of mechanical removal? Take one rock at a time out and scrub it in a bucket?

Don't go crazy with dosing yet. Let's get some answers and a plan.

 

[Kooma]

If I were in your shoes here’s what I would do.

Measure your nutrients.

Manually remove anything in the sand or loose on the rock.

Check your math on dosing the neonitro. If you don’t have much for coral I would increase your dosing of neonitro. The nitrates will allow the Dino’s to go away slowly.

You are seeing low phosphate readings because the algae is eating it. A tang can really help maintain it. A pin cushion urchin will clean up long hair algae.

I would also start a reactor with some GFO on a slow flow. Again if not much coral I would probably fill the reactor 1/3 of the way and run about 50gph through it. Leave it on the system full time and change the media every month.

Then, wait.

The urchin will clean up the long stuff, the nitrates will kill off the Dino outbreak and a small gang can help maintain it. The gfo will remove what the rock is leaching into the water, and trust me, it’s leaching.

Good luck! I has a tank that looked the same and it is recovered. Restarting will just make maturing your tank that much longer. Most tanks aren’t considered mature until at least 1 year.

 

[BubbleAlgaeFarmer]

So many comments, but as Bean said, some more info would go a ways. Looks like this is all mostly dinos. It would be huge if we could also get a microscope image of the dinos. What we see would dictate the approach to eliminating them. From the photos, it looks like there are no inhabitants?

 

[reefwhippet25]

How many fish?

Currently two clownfish and a yelllow watchman goby. I had a banggai before that died. I would like to get another.

How often and what do you feed?

I have an auto doser feeding pellets 3x per day. I think it’s a lot but since the nutrients are low I haven’t been worried. I add frozen brine shrimp or mysis every once in a while.

Filtration?

Just a HOB filter with foam, carbon, and some chemipure blue packets

Have you tried a UV? (buy or borrow).

Yes I have the hang on UV from Aqua Ultraviolet and I kind of hate it. I used it for a couple weeks and it kinda helped but it leaked once and I came home to water all over the floor. Also it’s hard to find a hose that fits it and my pump it his makes a mess with the sand since water flows out of it straight down and looks ugly hanging on the side. All that being said, I can certainly try putting it up again and I’ve been thinking about it. It can’t stay permanently though.

Have you gone the route of mechanical removal? Take one rock at a time out and scrub it in a bucket?

I have not removed the rock from the tank and scrubbed it. I could do that.

 

[reefwhippet25]

A tang would be great but it’s a 20 gallon tank unfortunately

 

[Quietman]

I fought dinos for months. Tank was much more established than yours. Bought the products, the UV and finally beat them back after losing almost all my corals and fish. Part of that was the treatment I'm sure. I then got a bad outbreak of GHA due to nutrients being available after dinos were managed. This was years ago now and I just had my UV bulb go out (a couple months past my replacement date) and the dinos showed back up. They never really go away, just get managed.

I say all this for two reasons. One, you can manage dinos but you have to assume they're always there. And it can be a long, costly fight.

And the second is that if I had to do it over again, I would start over. Nuke the tank from space - it's the only way to be sure. Get new sand, quarantine the fish for a bit and start over.

Agree with getting TB Liverock - at least get a seeding (a pico pack maybe) so you can cure your rock with it in the dark for a few weeks. I've also heard copepods help, added them to mine this last go around and it did get better but also replaced light so who knows. Can't hurt.

Good Luck!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

A 20 gallon would be very easy to pull out all the rocks for scrubbing, do a 100% water change, and clean all mechanical equipment. Vacuum the sand thoroughly. Put the fish in a bucket with a rock and airstone for a few hours while you work.

Stop feeding pellets 3x daily, the nutrients show zero because the algae is soaking it all up, you are feeding it. By dosing phosphate and nitrate you are feeding the algae even more

Feed frozen and 2x daily and rinse the food before feeding.

Once the tank is clean, upgrade the filtration or increase the water change schedule. Thats what I would I do. good luck