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Cultivated Reef

I need help


thomas8man

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I have had a algae that keeps carpeting my tank and been hurting it and have no clue what it can be normal water changes (DI) with Aquavitro salinity salt. I have no idea it literately grows like a weed will put a picture up today showing it

Phosphate: 0ppm

Calcium: 400ppm

Alkaline: 9

Ammonia: 0ppm

Nitrate: 0ppm

pH: 8.2

Temp: 78F

 

Algae taking over my tank

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- Put a siphon tube to it, does it get sucked up easily, almost like a sheet?

- Does it seem to dissolve into the water when you mix up a small section?

- When you try to suck it up does it take a bunch of sand with it?

- Is it only on the sand, or is it on the rocks too?

- Is it only in a few localized areas, and does it keep reappearing in just those areas?

 

How is your flow in the tank? Could these be areas with very little flow?

What is your maintenance routine, how often do you do water changes and how much?

Have you tested phosphate?

Do you have a lot of livestock?

How long is your lighting on?

What is your feeding regimen like?

 

Think about these things for a bit...

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^ this

 

You can treat the problem but the solution will be finding the root cause. Generally Cyano grows when there is too much free carbon or nutrient in the water you use, if you're not dosing carbon then I'd assume your nutrient levels are too high. I'm having a similar problem and it takes perseverance

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^ this

 

You can treat the problem but the solution will be finding the root cause. Generally Cyano grows when there is too much free carbon or nutrient in the water you use, if you're not dosing carbon then I'd assume your nutrient levels are too high. I'm having a similar problem and it takes perseverance

 

 

- Put a siphon tube to it, does it get sucked up easily, almost like a sheet?

- Does it seem to dissolve into the water when you mix up a small section?

- When you try to suck it up does it take a bunch of sand with it?

- Is it only on the sand, or is it on the rocks too?

- Is it only in a few localized areas, and does it keep reappearing in just those areas?

 

How is your flow in the tank? Could these be areas with very little flow?

What is your maintenance routine, how often do you do water changes and how much?

Have you tested phosphate?

Do you have a lot of livestock?

How long is your lighting on?

What is your feeding regimen like?

 

Think about these things for a bit...

The flow is high and this picture is in front of the power head. I also added phosphoguard 2 days ago and the algae went from a thick brown colour to a light brown colour (it is also almost gone now). I only feed once a day sprinkle of pellets (hate flakes). Changing the water with DI every 2 weeks(but once a week till the problem is better. Don't have a huge live stock in the tank

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If phosphoguard has made a difference something is introducing phosphate into the system as that is likely what its feeding on. Your tests are reading 0 or unreadable as they're either not high accuracy tests or the cyano is consuming the phosphate making it unreadable and now the phosphoguard is out competing it, it's starving.

Phosphate could be leaking from your rocks if you used reef bones to build your scape and they weren't fully cured, your top up water or water change water/salt choice has phosphate in it, or your food has a high phosphate content.


As already stated to permanently resolve the problem you need to figure out the cause and fix it. Or just continue to out compete the bloom with phosphate absorbing media (could well get expensive in the long run).

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I have the same exact problem. It comes off like a carpet. Goes away at night and is right back after the lights have been on for a hour or so. I've been taking a back scrather and taking the layer off the sand daily. Tank is rather new only being up for around 3 months. I know the area has flow because I have a hammer coral right next to where it is growing and you and see it move. I am running GFO and test for phosphates and it always shows 0. My top off water is RO/DI and is tested with a tds meter and is at 002ppm. Really only see it on the sand. Someone said it could be from my dry rock and with time whatever the rock is leaking the nutrients will stop and it will go away. I have taken my rock out and scrubbed it with a tooth brush while I was in the water during a water change. Seemed to help a little. I do weekly water changes of 10-20%. I'm not running a protein skimmer, but now planning on sumping my 10gallon tank with another 10 gallon tank and run a skimmer. If anyone has any other idea/ tips of how to get rid of it faster the help would be much appriated.

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I think that typically 3 months would be sufficient curing time for dry rock, though that completely depends on the type of rock, the size, and a few other factors. It's pretty amazing how deep some of the organic material can accumulate within the rock though...

 

I just took a chisel to some dry rock I got and while breaking off chunks I would find pockets of organic material that I couldn't completely tell how it even got there... Probably a burrowing worm or something else made a very small tunnel within the rock... But I could see stuff like that taking a long time to decay where there's little air or water movement. I can't imagine that contributing so significantly to the overall level of "phosphates" in the tank, but again there's the characteristics of the individual rock as well as the conditions of the tank to consider before coming to any conclusions...

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