brianbrennan
New Member
Hey guys,
I'm totally stumped on what I should do regarding my nuisance algae.
I have a 9 month old 20g tank that has come out with a recent outbreak of what appears to be Dinoflagellates, Diatoms, and possibly some Cyano as well. About two months ago I let my husbandry routine lapse a bit, in part because everything had been extremely stable up to this point. My tank got a bit dirty in terms of brown hair algae on my back tank wall, and my sand bet a bit dirty with detritus, but other than that no problems.
Flash forward to the past few weeks and it seems like I have a million problems that I'm trying to solve. My current water params that I checked today are:
Water Params
Temp - 79 (fluxes between 78 and 80 over the course of the day, working on getting a cooling fan to keep that more stable)
Salinity - 1.025
Nitrate - 10ppm
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Calcium - 380-400ppm
Silicate - 0
pH - 8.2 (this is a little on the low side of ideal I know, but I always was around this level even when my tank was perfectly clean)
The issues that I've seen balloon out of control the past two weeks are:
Issues to Fix
1) Dinoflagellates making a huge return in my tank. I had fought them off a few months back after my tank was cycled, what ended up killing them outright was UV sterilization, after I had tried a host of other things
2) Diatoms. Mainly on the display glass, I've noticed a huge uptick in brown dust in the past few days in particular
3) Possible cyano bacteria? I have some clumps of fluorescent orange film-like algae on my back wall that I've tried to clean out over the past few weeks, though there's some left over. I had red there was a possibility of it being coralline, but it feels much more slimy than I'd expect corraline to be.
4) Red Planaria flatworms. I'd seen a few here and there but recently their population has made an uptick. Largely I presume due to an extended period of higher phosphates and nitrates than I'd have liked
5) Pineapple sponges. Though not a problem on their own, their presence made me think I must have some sort of silicate source in my water or something, especially tied with the diatoms.
I'd like to add that I really don't think that this is normal "cycling". I went through an ugly phase with my tank and have dealt with some of these problems before, and had gotten to a point where
Some other things that I've tried to look into/do:
Prognosis So Far
1) TDS of my water - I'm running RODI filters, I have a TDS meter and live in a major city, my TDS in is 2 and 0 coming out. I thought very much that this was at list partially a silicate issue, but it appears to not be at all as that tested 0.
2) Manual removal, especially of dinoflagellates. Every day it feels like there's something new growing and by the afternoon it takes over and causes whatever coral its growing on to get unhappy, especially those with light or no sting
3) Upping flow - the only new thing I've added recently is a powerhead, which I had added in an attempt to try and help brush off any diatoms or detritus that might be in dead spots for the coral.
4) UV Sterilization - I've had UV sterilization running since my first DINO outbreak. I originally thought there might be an issue with the bulb, so I replaced that. The pump has been working consistently this whole time.
5) Eliminating Red Light - four about 10 days now I've made my light go only blue-light (plus UV)
I'm kind of at my wits end, as it feels like I have conflicting issues. I feel like my levels are all at great levels, and yet I'm having tons of algae growth. The dinos feel like the most pressing issue, in which case I feel like I should try to avoid water changes. But then other issues make me feel like I should be doing more water changes. Any ideas or advice would be great.
I'm totally stumped on what I should do regarding my nuisance algae.
I have a 9 month old 20g tank that has come out with a recent outbreak of what appears to be Dinoflagellates, Diatoms, and possibly some Cyano as well. About two months ago I let my husbandry routine lapse a bit, in part because everything had been extremely stable up to this point. My tank got a bit dirty in terms of brown hair algae on my back tank wall, and my sand bet a bit dirty with detritus, but other than that no problems.
Flash forward to the past few weeks and it seems like I have a million problems that I'm trying to solve. My current water params that I checked today are:
Water Params
Temp - 79 (fluxes between 78 and 80 over the course of the day, working on getting a cooling fan to keep that more stable)
Salinity - 1.025
Nitrate - 10ppm
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Calcium - 380-400ppm
Silicate - 0
pH - 8.2 (this is a little on the low side of ideal I know, but I always was around this level even when my tank was perfectly clean)
The issues that I've seen balloon out of control the past two weeks are:
Issues to Fix
1) Dinoflagellates making a huge return in my tank. I had fought them off a few months back after my tank was cycled, what ended up killing them outright was UV sterilization, after I had tried a host of other things
2) Diatoms. Mainly on the display glass, I've noticed a huge uptick in brown dust in the past few days in particular
3) Possible cyano bacteria? I have some clumps of fluorescent orange film-like algae on my back wall that I've tried to clean out over the past few weeks, though there's some left over. I had red there was a possibility of it being coralline, but it feels much more slimy than I'd expect corraline to be.
4) Red Planaria flatworms. I'd seen a few here and there but recently their population has made an uptick. Largely I presume due to an extended period of higher phosphates and nitrates than I'd have liked
5) Pineapple sponges. Though not a problem on their own, their presence made me think I must have some sort of silicate source in my water or something, especially tied with the diatoms.
I'd like to add that I really don't think that this is normal "cycling". I went through an ugly phase with my tank and have dealt with some of these problems before, and had gotten to a point where
Some other things that I've tried to look into/do:
Prognosis So Far
1) TDS of my water - I'm running RODI filters, I have a TDS meter and live in a major city, my TDS in is 2 and 0 coming out. I thought very much that this was at list partially a silicate issue, but it appears to not be at all as that tested 0.
2) Manual removal, especially of dinoflagellates. Every day it feels like there's something new growing and by the afternoon it takes over and causes whatever coral its growing on to get unhappy, especially those with light or no sting
3) Upping flow - the only new thing I've added recently is a powerhead, which I had added in an attempt to try and help brush off any diatoms or detritus that might be in dead spots for the coral.
4) UV Sterilization - I've had UV sterilization running since my first DINO outbreak. I originally thought there might be an issue with the bulb, so I replaced that. The pump has been working consistently this whole time.
5) Eliminating Red Light - four about 10 days now I've made my light go only blue-light (plus UV)
I'm kind of at my wits end, as it feels like I have conflicting issues. I feel like my levels are all at great levels, and yet I'm having tons of algae growth. The dinos feel like the most pressing issue, in which case I feel like I should try to avoid water changes. But then other issues make me feel like I should be doing more water changes. Any ideas or advice would be great.
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