Chrysophytes - and now brown algae - JUST PLAIN FUGLY

[Tamberav]

22 minutes ago, SeaFurn said:

Never thought about it that way but I suppose your right considering how ULN my tank always tests. In general, how often should I be feeding the corals? Broadcast feed or target. Such a newb question but I guess I need to rethink everything I’m doing. 

I just feed mine with fish poop 🙂 Being as you only have 1 tiny fish, I would probably just broadcast feed something like reef roids. Maybe start twice a week and see how it goes. 

[jservedio]

27 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

I just feed mine with fish poop 🙂 Being as you only have 1 tiny fish, I would probably just broadcast feed something like reef roids. Maybe start twice a week and see how it goes. 

I dealt with this for over a year and the only thing that was able to out compete it was bryopsis and cyano once while dosing obscene amounts of potassium nitrate (my phos wasn't an issue). The biggest issue with food being broadcast is that it gets trapped and broken down in the chrysophytes and doesn't make it to the water column.

 

Basically just scrubbed it off of my corals every day or two, stopped broadcast feeding and target fed everything, and dosed tons of nutrients.

 

Black outs won't help at all. Took some of my rock out, scrubbed and peroxided the surface, and put it in a dark bucket for a month. Within a week of getting light, it was right back. Just like dinos, you can't brute force them and you have to treat the underlying problem. OPs tank looks dead sterile without a patch of algae anywhere - that needs to be fixed.

 

Potassium nitrate and mono potassium phosphate will do it. Turn off all export. Flow won't hurt.

[SeaFurn]

31 minutes ago, jservedio said:

I dealt with this for over a year and the only thing that was able to out compete it was bryopsis and cyano once while dosing obscene amounts of potassium nitrate (my phos wasn't an issue). The biggest issue with food being broadcast is that it gets trapped and broken down in the chrysophytes and doesn't make it to the water column.

 

Basically just scrubbed it off of my corals every day or two, stopped broadcast feeding and target fed everything, and dosed tons of nutrients.

 

Black outs won't help at all. Took some of my rock out, scrubbed and peroxided the surface, and put it in a dark bucket for a month. Within a week of getting light, it was right back. Just like dinos, you can't brute force them and you have to treat the underlying problem. OPs tank looks dead sterile without a patch of algae anywhere - that needs to be fixed.

 

Potassium nitrate and mono potassium phosphate will do it. Turn off all export. Flow won't hurt.

The most recent picture I posted is dead sterile - it’s a brand new bigger tank that moved the corals into this past weekend. I needed it to be bigger to make getting into the tank easier since I was going to have to scrub these rocks continuously. The 2.5 gallon tank I was using did have some kind of algae in it that the CUC was managing and I’d have to frequently scrape the glass. But it sounds like it was still too clean. Not quite sure how I ended up with chrysophytes (assuming that’s what it is) and not dinos. 

 

My plan is start adding nutrients and scrubbing. Don’t think I have the stamina to deal with this for a year tho. 

[jservedio]

41 minutes ago, SeaFurn said:

My plan is start adding nutrients and scrubbing. Don’t think I have the stamina to deal with this for a year tho. 

Well, you don't have to do water changes so that helps! I stopped scrubbing the rock after a month or so and just used a toothbrush to keep it off the corals to keep them alive and hitting it with the turkey baster. Maybe 2-3 minutes a day - no water changes, no scrubbing the glass, just feeding fish and dumping in nitrates.

 

It got slowly better after a few months and other algae started popping up. So that at least gives you some encouragement that it's working. Corals start growing better since you aren't scrubbing them daily. Well over a year before it would stop popping up.

 

Once everything was back in balance and the tank got healthy again, I stopped having to dose nutrients. Heavy bioload helps though.

 

I never found anything that ate it, but hermits would pick out crap trapped in it. My entire CUC except one big turbo and my hermits starved.

[Tamberav]

1 hour ago, jservedio said:

I dealt with this for over a year and the only thing that was able to out compete it was bryopsis and cyano once while dosing obscene amounts of potassium nitrate (my phos wasn't an issue). The biggest issue with food being broadcast is that it gets trapped and broken down in the chrysophytes and doesn't make it to the water column.

 

Basically just scrubbed it off of my corals every day or two, stopped broadcast feeding and target fed everything, and dosed tons of nutrients.

 

Black outs won't help at all. Took some of my rock out, scrubbed and peroxided the surface, and put it in a dark bucket for a month. Within a week of getting light, it was right back. Just like dinos, you can't brute force them and you have to treat the underlying problem. OPs tank looks dead sterile without a patch of algae anywhere - that needs to be fixed.

 

Potassium nitrate and mono potassium phosphate will do it. Turn off all export. Flow won't hurt.

I am not saying not to dose po4/no3, I do that myself, but he has one fish he feeds one piece of mysis 😮 that seems crazy to me hah!! 

 

Food getting caught in that algae is a good point though. 

 

I didn't realize this tank is an upgrade, I am assuming that means he will add more fish at some point. It would be helpful for his SPS imo. 

[jservedio]

10 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

I am not saying not to dose po4/no3, I do that myself, but he has one fish he feeds one piece of mysis 😮 that seems crazy to me hah!! 

 

Food getting caught in that algae is a good point though. 

 

I didn't realize this tank is an upgrade, I am assuming that means he will add more fish at some point. It would be helpful for his SPS imo. 

I shouldn't haven been lazy and done a multi quote - only thing I was actually responding to you for was about broadcast feeding being an issue.

 

I didn't realize it was an upgrade either. More fish will definitely help the SPS and will help deal with the underlying nutrient issues. Definitely need to be prepared for the long haul with this stuff - I had far more difficulty with this than any dinos!

[Tamberav]

I have never used vibrant as I try to avoid extra crap like that but I clicked on a BRS video about it for curiosity... like literally just now...

 

They did an experiment with it and it killed their golden algae on dry rock anywho......at least what they claim is golden algae. 🤔

 

Ofc they had no coral in the tank sooo... 

 

 

[SeaFurn]

7 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I didn't realize this tank is an upgrade, I am assuming that means he will add more fish at some point. It would be helpful for his SPS imo. 

I had wanted to keep everything in the pico but it’s too small to get into as frequently as I was anticipating. (Remember I have that big ass filter - haha!) 

But now I’m thinking I may just keep everything in this 6 gal tank permanently. It does allow me to get more fish! 

Yes, crazy that one mysis shrimp fills up the goby. It’s so small. And you’re right, it really doesn’t contribute much in the way of beneficial waste for the tank. 

What are your thoughts on trying that vibrant in my case - in conjunction with the plan to dose nitrate and phosphate? 

I think I’ve got a bacterial bloom going on now. The water is still cloudy and whitish. Will that just go away on its own? 

[mcarroll]

8 hours ago, Tamberav said:

extra crap like that

Precisely.

[jservedio]

1 hour ago, SeaFurn said:

I had wanted to keep everything in the pico but it’s too small to get into as frequently as I was anticipating. (Remember I have that big ass filter - haha!) 

But now I’m thinking I may just keep everything in this 6 gal tank permanently. It does allow me to get more fish! 

Yes, crazy that one mysis shrimp fills up the goby. It’s so small. And you’re right, it really doesn’t contribute much in the way of beneficial waste for the tank. 

What are your thoughts on trying that vibrant in my case - in conjunction with the plan to dose nitrate and phosphate? 

I think I’ve got a bacterial bloom going on now. The water is still cloudy and whitish. Will that just go away on its own? 

Vibrant is just bacteria, aminos, vinegar (as a carbon source), and RODI. I would steer clear of it since the exact ratios are unknown and you don't know exactly WTF you are putting in your tank or how much of it.

 

You are very much experiencing the side effects of having a nutrient issue and you need to dose Nitrate and Phosphate to bring your levels back up (or do something to bring those levels back up). You may need to dose a carbon source if you are lacking in C as well to get a handle on your problem. However, since you can't test for that, you have to bring your N and P up to stable levels before you start adding C into the mix as well. Once your N and P are good and stable for a few weeks, if other algae doesn't start popping up you will probably have to dose Vinegar. There are tons of guides on how to get started doing this. Definitely don't start until N and P are elevated and stable for weeks.

 

Edit: Just looked over some pictures from my tank, looks like I got Chrysophytes in late 2015 and I didn't see the very last of them up until mid-2018. It was really, really bad for at least 6 or 7 months since I had a lot of trouble IDing them back then and most people assumed a matting type of bacteria. Once I positively ID'd them as Chysophytes, it still took many months to get them totally under control. Good luck!

[mcarroll]

15 minutes ago, jservedio said:

Vibrant is just bacteria, aminos, vinegar (as a carbon source), and RODI.

Speculation or did they let out the formula?  I know there has been a lot of speculation, but I haven't heard that anyone got confirmation.

[jservedio]

1 minute ago, mcarroll said:

Speculation or did they let out the formula?  I know there has been a lot of speculation, but I haven't heard that anyone got confirmation.

They list the ingredients on BRS, but not how much nor what types of bacteria.

[mcarroll]

1 minute ago, jservedio said:

They list the ingredients on BRS, but not how much.

...or which bacteria...or which amino acids.

[Tamberav]

Can't say I have ever used vibrant. I actually have a bottle of it that came with a used tank I bought. I would try other methods first that we know won't be harmful.

 

 

 

[A.m.P]

I wouldn't be overly quick to dismiss vibrant, there are some pretty impressive setups out there, including the entirety of the tidal-gardens farm, which drip-dose the stuff constantly in their systems. Granted that's not really a fair-comparison since they're working with thousand-gallon systems, but it seems worth mentioning. 

I suppose the best analogy would be a self-catalyzing and very-aggressive carbon dosing which also actively turns algae in the tank into a carbon-source itself, in massive systems with absurd amounts of coral bio-mass it's fairly-straightforward to see how that could actually be quite-beneficial - especially if said systems are already fed-heavily and undergo frequent, and massive, waterchanges.

[mcarroll]

33 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

it seems worth mentioning. 

It seems like cheating on a really easy test.  LOL  🙄

[A.m.P]

23 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

It seems like cheating on a really easy test.  LOL  🙄

Hey, nutrients are nutrients, if you can turn all the algae in a thousand gallon system into a coral-food slurry, why not eh? I think the key difference here is that the systems doing this are all already high-nutrient systems.

[mcarroll]

Just now, Amphrites said:

if you can turn all the algae into a coral-food slurry, why not eh?

I get what you mean, but...

 

First that's not what's happening in their system...not even close*.  If anything, it's more like uncontrolled dosing of a trace element solution.  I hope that's something that instantly looks like a bad idea.  😉

 

Last that's precisely what snails are for.  They turn algae into solid and liquid coral food, but they do it better!

 

Doing it their way (no snails?) is like using a calculator to add 2+2.  Unwise.

 

I'm sure some folks do that kind of thing all the time.  But is it wise or good?  Or recommended?  Does that mean you (or me or everyone) should do it too?  Of course not. 

 

Doesn't mean we have to be anti-calculator though.  It just means that we know when to use a calculator and when one is not needed.  Wise.

 

There really isn't much similarity between a retail system and a home reef anyway...there's no reason for most folks to do many of the things a retail outfit might do.  No good reason, anyway.  This is just happens to be one of those things.

 

 

*This one I saved in 2018 is talking about a different kind of algae, but gives a great idea as to what happens when algae break down:

Release and bioavailabilityof C, N, P, Se, and Fe following viral lysis of a marine chrysophyte

 

*Another one from 2017 that sorta speaks to the side effects of algae breakdown:

Response of heterotrophic bacteria, autotrophic picoplankton and heterotrophic nanoflagellates to re-oligotrophication

 

Check out the associated PDF's....my comments in the post may only relate to one aspect of the article.

[SeaFurn]

Just got home from work and here’s what it looks like now - coral snot everywhere. Any advice? 

 

[A.m.P]

That almost looks like a bacterial bloom, you could manually-remove it, if it is actually from the coral themselves then something is obviously really irritating them.

[SeaFurn]

7 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

That almost looks like a bacterial bloom, you could manually-remove it, if it is actually from the coral themselves then something is obviously really irritating them.

The water has been whitish/cloudy (the pic doesn’t make that apparent) 

I’ve thought that it might be bacterial. I removed the new carbon I put in the other day in case that was irritating the coral. 

[SeaFurn]

This may be part of the current problem - I busted out my refractometer and calibrated it and checked the salanity. 1.029.  Seems that my Hanna checker has gotten out of calibration even though the indicator still shows it’s calibrated. Should have probably done this / checked this prior to filling the new tank over the weekend.  Carless mistakes. Ugh. 

[jservedio]

1 hour ago, SeaFurn said:

This may be part of the current problem - I busted out my refractometer and calibrated it and checked the salanity. 1.029.  Seems that my Hanna checker has gotten out of calibration even though the indicator still shows it’s calibrated. Should have probably done this / checked this prior to filling the new tank over the weekend.  Carless mistakes. Ugh. 

Don't worry about it at all - it isn't going to hurt anything, just don't make a habit of it. Slowly lower it over a few weeks. It isn't that high at all. Totally unrelated to your problem unfortunately.

 

My tank is sitting somewhere around 1.023 right now because I forgot to turn off the ATO during a water change last week. I just put the rest of the saltwater into into my ATO and it'll sort itself out over the next week.

 

Stupid crap happens all the time, not over reacting or changing things quickly is the key.

[mcarroll]

Is there no flow in the tank?  Maybe it's just an artifact of the photo, but it looks like that mucus is just "hanging around" while the remaining water looks perfectly clear.  (Seems like there should be some mixing?)

[SeaFurn]

11 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Is there no flow in the tank?  Maybe it's just an artifact of the photo, but it looks like that mucus is just "hanging around" while the remaining water looks perfectly clear.  (Seems like there should be some mixing?)

No, there’s flow. The long stringy “snot” is attached to the rocks and coral and swaying in the current. It’s fairly strong and doesn’t break up and mix like typical coral slime. I could literally suck up long strands with a pipette. 

I’m traveling today or I’d take a video and post it. I left before lights were one but it didn’t seem as bad when I shined a light in the tank.