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Red algae only on red Zoa's


RaymondNoodles

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Did you recently buy that frag? It's possible there was a little bit of cyano on the frag when you got it and it's happy in your tank's conditions. If it isn't anywhere else, just pull the plug, clean off the cyano with a toothbrush, scoop out the couple teaspoons of sand with cyano on them and pop it back in. Make sure your nutrients are at reasonable levels and hopefully it'll be nothing. No reason to do anything else at this point.

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RaymondNoodles

Sadly enough I've had that frag for 2 or 3 months. It's not happy. I got the green zoas at the same time and they have done much better. I haven't added any corals or livestock to the tank for a month and a half.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I will do that this afternoon.

 

I have never checked phosphate, calcium or magnesium and don't have a test kit for such, just your basic Red Sea and API test kits. I am pretty new to the hobby. Do you recommend I buy a test kit for those nutrients? I use the Imaginarium pre-mixed water which supposedly has the necessary nutrients. It'd probably be a good idea to make sure though...Which testers/test kits do you use or recommend?

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1 hour ago, RaymondNoodles said:

Sadly enough I've had that frag for 2 or 3 months. It's not happy. I got the green zoas at the same time and they have done much better. I haven't added any corals or livestock to the tank for a month and a half.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I will do that this afternoon.

 

I have never checked phosphate, calcium or magnesium and don't have a test kit for such, just your basic Red Sea and API test kits. I am pretty new to the hobby. Do you recommend I buy a test kit for those nutrients? I use the Imaginarium pre-mixed water which supposedly has the necessary nutrients. It'd probably be a good idea to make sure though...Which testers/test kits do you use or recommend?

Different zoas and palys grow at wildly different speeds, so don't assume just because one is growing slower than another that it is unhappy. Both frags look perfectly happy to me (even with the cyano). Radioactive Dragon Eyes (the green zoas) are notorious for how absurdly fast they can grow.

 

Nitrate and Phosphate are the two main nutrients that you need to keep track of and test regularly for, so you definitely need a quality test kit for both. I personally use Hanna checkers for both (Ultra Low Range Phosphorus and High Range Nitrate), but Salifert and Red Sea make great inexpensive test kits for both. It's critically important to make sure that your nutrients are within range since a lot of excess nutrients will lead to nuisance algae and too little nutrients will starve your corals and lead to dinoflagellate or chysophyte outbreaks which are an absolute nightmare. I personally shoot for between 5-10ppm of nitrate and 0.05-0.08ppm of Phosphate, but everyone has an opinion of where they should be. So long as you aren't swimming in nuisance algae and not close to bottoming out, your tank will be good. I prefer to err on too many nutrients because the consequences of too few nutrients is extreme.

 

Unless you are planning on growing a bunch of SPS or are trying to diagnose an alkalinity or calcium problem, you don't need to be checking magnesium regularly. I've got the Salifert kit for it, but I only test it a couple of times a year to make  sure it's reasonably close to where it should be.

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RaymondNoodles
8 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Looks like your tank is just entering The Uglies phase.  How old is the tank?

The tank itself is 4 months old but the wet live rock is much older, probably a few years old.

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Looks like The Uglies are right on time then!

 

Consider doing nothing at all, except making sure you're solid on the basics, and just see how it develops.  

 

What is your CUC like right now?  You do want to prevent a major outbreak where one kind of algae takes over the tank, but that's not the situation you're in.  

 

👍

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Your tank will be stronger out of the back of spells of algae and bacteria growth. It will take a few months before it begins to stabilise. I'm at the 9 month mark with my current tank and I'm seeing a little cyano again but nothing like at the 4 month mark. Previous tanks I've had have taken a year or longer to become fully stable 

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RaymondNoodles
15 hours ago, jservedio said:

Different zoas and palys grow at wildly different speeds, so don't assume just because one is growing slower than another that it is unhappy. Both frags look perfectly happy to me (even with the cyano). Radioactive Dragon Eyes (the green zoas) are notorious for how absurdly fast they can grow.

 

Nitrate and Phosphate are the two main nutrients that you need to keep track of and test regularly for, so you definitely need a quality test kit for both. I personally use Hanna checkers for both (Ultra Low Range Phosphorus and High Range Nitrate), but Salifert and Red Sea make great inexpensive test kits for both. It's critically important to make sure that your nutrients are within range since a lot of excess nutrients will lead to nuisance algae and too little nutrients will starve your corals and lead to dinoflagellate or chysophyte outbreaks which are an absolute nightmare. I personally shoot for between 5-10ppm of nitrate and 0.05-0.08ppm of Phosphate, but everyone has an opinion of where they should be. So long as you aren't swimming in nuisance algae and not close to bottoming out, your tank will be good. I prefer to err on too many nutrients because the consequences of too few nutrients is extreme.

 

Unless you are planning on growing a bunch of SPS or are trying to diagnose an alkalinity or calcium problem, you don't need to be checking magnesium regularly. I've got the Salifert kit for it, but I only test it a couple of times a year to make  sure it's reasonably close to where it should be.

I have regularly tested nitrates with the API test kit in the past. Tough to decipher those colors, but it’s always been around 0 to maybe 5ppm, not sure. I just got the Red Sea test kit which seems more accurate and easy to read, and it’s been at 2ppm nitrates all 3 times I’ve tested over the last week. From what I’m reading 2ppm is on the low end. What should I be shooting for? Thanks!

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RaymondNoodles
4 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Looks like The Uglies are right on time then!

 

Consider doing nothing at all, except making sure you're solid on the basics, and just see how it develops.  

 

What is your CUC like right now?  You do want to prevent a major outbreak where one kind of algae takes over the tank, but that's not the situation you're in.  

 

👍

CUC consists of 5 snails - 2 nassarius, 1 banded trochus, 1 turbo and what I believe is a cerith snail. The cerith was recommended by Petco employee but he told me it was a nassarius. After getting 2 nassarius I now know that it’s not a nassarius. Just 2 days ago I noticed a baby snail but didn’t get a picture of it before it disappeared. I’ve been looking for that little bugger ever since! I also have 4 blue legged hermit crabs and an emerald crab (also recommended by Petco employee). 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 peppermint shrimp. Also recently started noticing lots of copepods and maybe amphipods (some around 1cm long) swimming around. The live rock I bought from a fellow aquarist came with a bunch of micro bristle starfish along with some bristle worms. Not sure if you would consider all that part of the CUC but I figured more info might be better. 

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11 hours ago, RaymondNoodles said:

What should I be shooting for?

It would be nice to be a little above zero or more....which sounds like what you've been seeing.  👍  I don't know if you need to target anything higher per se but just don't do anything to lower nutrient inputs and don't do anything that negatively impacts levels while they are so low, such as water changes.

 

11 hours ago, RaymondNoodles said:

CUC consists of 5 snails - 2 nassarius, 1 banded trochus, 1 turbo and what I believe is a cerith snail. [...]. I also have 4 blue legged hermit crabs and an emerald crab

The Trochus and Turbo are your main algae eaters.  The rest can be considered scavengers.  The emerald crab is kinda in between.  The tank is probably heavy on scavengers.

 

 

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RaymondNoodles

Update: the red (cyano bacteria I believe) has started to spread on one of the rocks. What I believe is hair algae has been growing faster than normal in the sand and the walls are quickly covered in greenish/brown dusty algae that comes off quite easily. I am going to have my LFS test all my water parameters just to see where I am at (have never tested phosphates). I am considering trying Vibrant Reef to treat the algae issue before it gets out of control.

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1 hour ago, RaymondNoodles said:

Update: the red (cyano bacteria I believe) has started to spread on one of the rocks. What I believe is hair algae has been growing faster than normal in the sand and the walls are quickly covered in greenish/brown dusty algae that comes off quite easily. I am going to have my LFS test all my water parameters just to see where I am at (have never tested phosphates). I am considering trying Vibrant Reef to treat the algae issue before it gets out of control.

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i don't see anything that would warrant even considering vibrant right now - upping your CUC, adjust your maintenance/feeding, change your media(?), increase water change, etc

 

like someone else mentioned, you're just hitting the ugly stage.  it will pass - this is when you learn how to keep the reef alive and happy long term.  if you lean into chemical treatment right the way, you will never get out of the cycle of bloom-treatment-repeat.  you need to understand what makes for a balance input-output of your reef.  

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RaymondNoodles
2 hours ago, mitten_reef said:

i don't see anything that would warrant even considering vibrant right now - upping your CUC, adjust your maintenance/feeding, change your media(?), increase water change, etc

 

like someone else mentioned, you're just hitting the ugly stage.  it will pass - this is when you learn how to keep the reef alive and happy long term.  if you lean into chemical treatment right the way, you will never get out of the cycle of bloom-treatment-repeat.  you need to understand what makes for a balance input-output of your reef.  

I have been doing 20% water changes religiously every week. I clean the glass and and sand every 2-4 days. I clean/replace the filter floss every couple days (it gets stinky after a day or 2).

 

At this point it seems obvious I need to increase my CUC.

Considering adding the following to my CUC, but not sure how many to add at once, or which ones to add first. Thoughts?

1 trochus (for a total of 2)
1 or 2 cerith snails (for a total of 2 or 3)
1 or 2 astrea snails
I have also been doing some reading about sea hares. Guy at the LFS suggested considering one.

 

Your point about the vibrant treatment makes sense. It will behoove me to figure it out the tanks natural tendencies and get things in check the right way. Time to ride out this wave of uglies.

 

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Definitely don't use Vibrant. It's a last-ditch effort against extremely persistent algae strains, that will more than likely damage your tank's biodiversity. 

 

Sea hares are best for a very large tank with a lot of algae. 

 

Make sure to keep the cyano off your corals. Just blow it off with a turkey baster or the like. 

 

Check your water parameters again, preferably with something more accurate than API, at least for the phosphate. API is probably okay for nitrate.  You generally want to have at least 0.03ppm phosophate and 5ppm nitrate, otherwise beneficial algae (which will eventually outcompete pest algae in good conditions) can't grow and corals will suffer. 

 

And yeah, don't measure your other corals against the Radioactive Dragon Eyes. Those grow super fast. Put 'em on a rock or larger frag disc and watch how quickly they'll spread. Using them as a comparison for other zoas is a bit like saying that a wolf runs slowly because a cheetah can outrun it. 

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3 hours ago, RaymondNoodles said:

I have been doing 20% water changes religiously every week. I clean the glass and and sand every 2-4 days. I clean/replace the filter floss every couple days (it gets stinky after a day or 2).

 

At this point it seems obvious I need to increase my CUC.

Considering adding the following to my CUC, but not sure how many to add at once, or which ones to add first. Thoughts?

1 trochus (for a total of 2)
1 or 2 cerith snails (for a total of 2 or 3)
1 or 2 astrea snails
I have also been doing some reading about sea hares. Guy at the LFS suggested considering one.

 

Your point about the vibrant treatment makes sense. It will behoove me to figure it out the tanks natural tendencies and get things in check the right way. Time to ride out this wave of uglies.

 

i beat cyano fairly quickly but GHA took a while longer. don't worry about that. as for CUC maybe add a torches or astraea or 2. your CUC seems pretty big to me already; remember, CUC don't actually remove anything from the tank. They recycle nutrients back into the system. 

 

if the floss smells bad could be you're overfeeding. Here's all i did to beat cyano pretty quick: blow it loose and then suck it up with a turkey baster every day, each time sucking some up i squirted it onto the floss. change floss daily (after doing that). a couple extra water changes - i usually did 15% change a week and started doing changes every 3 or 4 days. That's it. took very little effort. At the time i had not yet added any corals, so that might complicate things.

 

Keep in mind things like vibrant don't actually remove anything either. they recycle the nutrients that fed the problem, so those nutrients can be available to fuel the problem once again.

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I can tell you from personal experience using vibrant, @Tired is correct in calling it a last-ditch effort. I used it to get rid of a massive bubble algae infestation that was taking over my tank. I was fighting it for several months and everything I did only made it worse. I will say that vibrant worked great to get rid of the bubble algae. However, all those nutrients from the bubble algae breaking down actually fed other types of algae and basically replaced my bubble algae infestation with a new infestation that was just as bad. The only advantage was I knew how to fight off the new algae a lot better from past experience. I did not use vibrant to get rid of the new infestation (I'm not sure if it would have or not) but it went away in a decent amount of time with some help from me manually removing the bigger chunks. I also learned from researching it afterwards that vibrant will actually prevent all the good bacteria and other lifeforms you want in your tank from growing because they all consume the same nutrients as the algae you're trying to get rid of. Vibrant works by eliminating these nutrients to eliminate the algae which will also eliminate everything else that consumes these nutrients as well. I personally would not recommend it unless your problem is bad enough to threaten the lives of your coral.

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RaymondNoodles

Update: Made a trip to the LFS yesterday and measured phosphates at .04 with Hanna low range checker. From what I am reading that sounds like a good level to be at for a mixed reef. I picked up 5 astrea snails, 2 cerith snails and 1 small-ish (for now) turbo snail. This is what the owner recommended after listening to my whole situation. I think part of the issue with my previous CUC was that only 2 out of my 5 snails were algae eaters. The other 3 were scavengers. The tank was heavy on scavengers but not so much algae eaters. With the new CUC, I will continue to feed the same amount of Rod's frozen reef food - about the size of a pencil eraser, maybe a little bigger, once/day and see how the algae situation progresses. I may decrease feeding a little if the algae persists.

 

I also picked up a pink zoa frag with about 8 polyps and a rock formed from a brain coral, that will make a perfect ZOA island. I glued all 3 zoa frags to it.

 

Thank you all for the suggestions and support.

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Make sure to feed your fish enough for them to be nice and full. If the amount of feeding required for that drives your nutrients too high, then you need to do more water changes, not reduce feeding. After all, nobody feeds their dog less in order to clean up less poo. 

 

Has that brain coral rock been in water constantly, or has it been dry at some point? If it's been consistently wet, there's a very small chance of some cells being left that could grow into a new coral. LPS do that now and then. 

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RaymondNoodles
10 minutes ago, Tired said:

Make sure to feed your fish enough for them to be nice and full. If the amount of feeding required for that drives your nutrients too high, then you need to do more water changes, not reduce feeding. After all, nobody feeds their dog less in order to clean up less poo. 

 

Has that brain coral rock been in water constantly, or has it been dry at some point? If it's been consistently wet, there's a very small chance of some cells being left that could grow into a new coral. LPS do that now and then. 

Makes sense. I don't have any fish currently, just the inverts. I feed the shrimp until they stop eating. With the frozen food, it goes everywhere and there are usually some smaller bits floating around after they've stopped aggressively chasing down the food, but I make sure they eat most of the big chunks and I also try my best to keep the food from getting into the filter.

 

The brain coral rock was dry. LFS owner had 2 55 gallon garbage cans full of dry rock and I searched to find the perfect piece 🙂 

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You may want to feed by turning off the pumps and directly giving food to your animals. It prevents food waste. That said, your many scavengers probably need the extra food, and you don't want nutrients much lower than you have, so I wouldn't start doing that now. Wait until you have fish. Once you have fish, try to give food only directly to them, and to all the crustaceans in your tank. A couple bits of food on your brittle star rock would probably be good, too, those guys are fun.

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RaymondNoodles
16 hours ago, Tired said:

You may want to feed by turning off the pumps and directly giving food to your animals. It prevents food waste. That said, your many scavengers probably need the extra food, and you don't want nutrients much lower than you have, so I wouldn't start doing that now. Wait until you have fish. Once you have fish, try to give food only directly to them, and to all the crustaceans in your tank. A couple bits of food on your brittle star rock would probably be good, too, those guys are fun.

Makes sense, thanks. I do turn off the pump while feeding. "Alexa, pump off" #lazy 🙂

 

All the new CUC members seem to be doing well, and helping the algae issue. The astrea snails are awesome. The hair algae hasn't been building up as quickly and the glass looks better already. The red cyanobacteria has not returned to the areas it was removed it and I don't see any new cyano popping up. YAY!

 

Nitrates are holding steady around 2.

 

Here's my new brain coral zoa island which I absolutely love! Of course Larry David (cleaner shrimp) has to be in the picture whenever possible.

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That could be a really nice island, but I'll warn you, the radioactive dragon eyes are going to take up all the space and quite possibly crowd the others entirely out. Keep a close eye on all the zoas, and if you see the number of another type going down, cut off a chunk of those to put somewhere else. 

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