This aggression will not stand man..

[LeftFootedJedi]

Looking for some feedback on my 20G AIO that has been wet a little over 5 months. About 5-6 wks ago I noticed a brown algae starting to form on my scape/substrate & looking at various pics, at the time, it resembled diatoms so I left it alone. Fast forward to last week and my CUC has taken care of the scape, but the algae looked pretty gnarly covering about 90% of my substrate. Doing my research it appeared to be cyano or spirulina (I don’t have access to microscope, will come back to that). So I vacuumed out about 2 lbs of sand that was covered in algae (replaced with 4-5 lbs of live sand that I probably needed regardless), ordered Dr. Tim’s Waste Away to provide competing bacteria (dosed that on Tues) & bought ChemiClean to take out what was left & dosed that on Fri. After 48 hrs, I did a 20% water change & today, I’m seeing the slow emergence of brown in my substrate again.

I’ve been pretty consistent w/my feedings, but wonder now if that is the source? I feed my livestock (2 domino clowns, RG, YWG, CUC (2 trochus/1 nas, 4 hermits) ¼ a cube of brine or mysis shrimp every other day. My parameters are ok.. PH 8, ammonia 0-.25, nitrites 0, nitrates 15-20ppm. What am I missing? Did I mis-diagnose? My thought was maybe it wasn’t cyano or spirulina.. go buy a cheap microscope at Wal-Mart & see??

Other options, let it ride & continue vacuuming routinely?

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

PS.. I have a cleaner shrimp too.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

PS.. I have a cleaner shrimp too.

and I turned my whites down from 22% to 12% (blues are at 100%)

 

[vetteguy53081]

Using a turkey baster, diatoms will blow away, whereas dino will be stringy with bubbles and brown.
Cyano will be a red film of sort
Chemi clean for cyano,
More clean up crew and reduction of white light intensity for diatoms. CUC would be:
Turbo snails, astrea snails, nassarius snails and a few blue leg hermit crabs
Dino- peroxide treatment
PICS OF TANK WOULD HELP GREATLY

 

[Kryptonian]

I had diatom issues for the first 2-3 months with a 75g under Current USA IC Pro Dual LEDs. They pump out a bunch of white light (edit - dropping them, as I see you just mentioned, will hopefully help). All of a sudden, the switch flipped on, the brown turned to green, and then the green calmed down and is slowly being replaced by coralline. I checked your build thread and see that you're pretty much on the same timeline as my 75g. Pics will be very helpful but very possible it's just diatoms and you're about to break through the ugly phase. On my tank, they were definitely concentrated more on the sand bed than the rockwork. Also had a cleaner shrimp and he didn't care much about cleaning sand. He rarely ever drops down on the sand anyway.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

Agreed on the shrimp mine is the same. Here are a few pics. 1st was right at the start of it a month ago & then today.

I must have deleted the in between pics but imagine e the brown all over.

As for the the algae how about all the above? It’s more reddish brown, filmy & covered my sand like a rug, but there was also some strings w/bubbles. Maybe I had both?

I did the test (putting some algae in small cup with 3% hydrogen peroxide) & it stayed clear all day which meant no cyano?

 

[Kryptonian]

Pic on the right looks like diatoms to me.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

It blows off but in clumps.

 

[brandon429]

if you want to save all the headache, get a turbo twist uv sterilizer. we only put those on in the clean, uninvaded condition which is rare, getting clean reefs from online posters is like pulling teeth. yours is the rare scape. it is not accumulated, not plugged up with black spots in the sand or algae blanketing the rocks, thats still a breathing exchanging reef with typical new tank hassles

I see that growth potential; its also proof your corals wont bleach anytime soon lets just cheat suppress it and be done. eighty bucks new reg size turbo twist, or eighty bucks used off ebay for a double size is fixed like gold. I dont think it looks bad at all right now.

but I know the standards you seek and that's the light saber to attain them.

plus, it w help in nearly all major types of future challenge. can be plumbed in, but not on, as well after the job. nice marmot.

 

[jesspal]

Rug pissers, man! Are these algae even housebroken?

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

No, and clearly aren’t golfers either.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

if you want to save all the headache, get a turbo twist uv sterilizer. we only put those on in the clean, uninvaded condition which is rare, getting clean reefs from online posters is like pulling teeth. yours is the rare scape. it is not accumulated, not plugged up with black spots in the sand or algae blanketing the rocks, thats still a breathing exchanging reef with typical new tank hassles

I see that growth potential; its also proof your corals wont bleach anytime soon lets just cheat suppress it and be done. eighty bucks new reg size turbo twist, or eighty bucks used off ebay for a double size is fixed like gold. I dont think it looks bad at all right now.

but I know the standards you seek and that's the light saber to attain them.

plus, it w help in nearly all major types of future challenge. can be plumbed in, but not on, as well after the job. nice marmot.

I’m all for less hassle but is that sustainable? I’ve read I need to attack it at the source otherwise it will always been lurking. Also,
I see IM has one that looks like it fits in a chamber, would you put it in the 1st chamber (losing my filter basket & media)? I have a protein skimmer in the 2nd chamber.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

Bought a $20 microscope & took some pics. Can’t say it resembles anything I’ve seen, but here goes nothing. Can anyone ID? Dinos??

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

Anyone?

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

I’m at a loss.. 4 months later & still no viable solutions. I’ve cut back feeding, increase feeding, scrubbed, manually removed about 5 lbs of sound (twice), dosed Vibrant for weekly for a month.. alternated weekly dosings with Dr Tim’s waste away & no change. It’s not much worse than it was a few months ago but definitely not better. The only thing I have not tried is a blackout & that’ll probably happen soon as i get closer to my 90g WB arrival date (TBD). I have a 5g QT I can use for my coral frags, but honestly running out of options.

I don’t plan on using any substrate or rocks for new tank but now I worry if something is on my coral frags will it eventually creep in.

Beyond frustrated..

 

[schuby]

If it is diatoms, then they require silicate to thrive. Get a Silicate test kit. It may be coming from your top-off water (usually RO/DI).

Do you have your water parameters, such as phosphate, nitrate, and salinity?

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

I went through a batch of bad RO from LFS but parameters have been stable since. No phosphates, nominal ammonia/nitrates.. salinity was 1.025 last I checked this last weekend.

Before I had corals I blacked out an early algae infestation and was good for a month or two. Then I bought some frags & it’s been ugly red/brown substrate since. Go away at night & comes right back. My whites are at 5%. I never bought a UV, but since it doesn’t blow off the sand I question if that’s a viable solution.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

I’m still interested what I have/had under the microscope.

 

[schuby]

Sorry I don't know what's under your microscope. I do know that zero phosphate or zero nitrate leads to bad things. Young tanks must go through the standard ugly phases.

I'd suggest you feed your fish more.

Bump.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

I do have 10-15ppm nitrates, but never had phosphates. Would dosing phosphates do anything?