algae ID

[Serk408]

hello,
i had my tank running for a year now and all of a sudden i started to get this stringy slimy dark brown algae how should i treat it?

 

[Zwogle]

Might be Cyano, does it have a reddish color?

 

[Serk408]

a little but i, used the red slime product and did not work at all.

 

[Bama-Reefer]

Try a 2-3 day blackout. Does this area have decent flow?

 

[Serk408]

yes,i have a Jebao PP8 Series Wavemaker with Controller os is the whole tank.my next step is 3 day black out some.

 

[Serk408]

mag- 1050ppm
ph-8.0
kh- api test kit 12 drops - 214.8
nitrate- 0
phosphate-0
amonia-0

looks like dyno to me was looking at some other pics of dyno and is stringy dark brown.also my mag is low. i will try the 3 day black out and hope it goes away. let me know if you have any other suggestion. thanks

 

[michaelrp]

Did you recently move rocks around or place new rock into the tank?

 

[Serk408]

yes, i did move the aquascape around.

 

[michaelrp]

yes, i did move the aquascape around.

That's the reason. When you move your rock around it's like shaking out a dirty filter into your tank. And as in "like" i mean "exactly". Your rocks are your bio filter and can hold onto and absorb nutrients and waste that your good bacteria consume turning ammonia into nitrites than a separate species of bacteria eat the nitrites and turn them into nitrates. This stringy brown substance you are seeing needs to be sucked out via a siphon tube and than do a 25%!water change. Be sure to rinse out any mechanical filter pads you may use since they may be cycling toxins back into the tank. Do this every three to four days. If you are using products such as chemipure and purigen than I suggest buying a spare and replacing it after the 2nd or 3rd water change. You will notice that after only a day after the water change it seems like it did nothing and it's back in full swing. This is normal. Get a turkey baster and just suck up this string and repeat this process everyday. Increasing flow helps with the material building up on coral and rock and forces it into the filtration. Took me about 2 weeks or so doing this until it was gone. It's almost like a horrible mini cycle. Buying chemicals is fine and dandy but not needed for cases like this.

 

[mcarroll]

nitrate- 0
phosphate-0

Mag is very low and nutrients are too low.

Cyano bacteria are exempt from nitrogen starvation, can be hyper competitive for PO4 and are using up other available nutrients while there are no other algae around to compete with them thanks to the ZERO NITRATE situation.

Some nitrates are good....some phostphates are good. Just keep control of your feeding and always make changes to your feeding routing SMALL and spaced out so you can see the full effect of those changes. Sometimes changes take a few weeks to fully play out.

Do you know why Mg is so low?

 

[Serk408]

tank update,
its been a month. i did a 3 day black out and purchased an ro/di and started mixing my own saltwater insteads of buying at lfs. tank was almost algae free after black out,scrubbed left over algae did a 25% water change fixed low mag issue and used a finer filter pad and it has been crystal clear ever since.no corals fish or inverts where harmed they actually are wayyy better than before. thanks everyone for the advise..