Algae, Red/Brown strands, fighting a losing battle ~30+ days

[djmatteo]

My tank:
125 gallon, 55 gallon sump in basement.
SWR Skimmer (rated 180 gallons)
Flow:Mp40, x2 Korallia 1400s, x2 Tunze 6045 ~9000 GPH
Lighting x3 LED fixtures 120W a piece
12 hour total light cycle
Over flow algae scrubber in progress, cant quite get it working right. Been playing with it since summer.
RODI New carts ~2 mo ago. 0 TDS on meter.
Tank age 1 year
Sandbed 1.5" on outside edges, less in center where the flow made a valley. Rocks are on egg crate and pretty open for flow/swimming area.

Livestock:~15 fish, 2 tangs, 6 chromis, 1 clown, 1 firefish, 1 jawfish, 1 assessor basslet, 1 female anthias, 1 blenny, 1 purple head fairy wrasse
CUC:Assorted nerites, nassarius, astrea, chitons, sally lightfoots, peppermint camel and cleaner shrimp, several hermits.

Feeding 2-3 pinches per day, or a chunk of frozen homemade food or a cube. Havent been rinsing since day 1.

Last test:
Salinity 1.025
PH 8.0 (API)
Nitrate 2.5 (Salifert)
Alk 7 (API)
Calcium 440 (API)
Mag ~1360 (Salifert)
Phos 0.04 (Hanna)


Scenario
About a month ago I started to get this red slimy stuff primarily on the upper parts of my rock scape, but in general all over my rocks. A tiny pinch of cyano also appearing on one end of my tank (with the mp40 and 1 tunze). I baste it off daily but it literally reappears within hours. If I turn my lights off for a day it doesnt grow, but if I turn them on it appears almost instantly. The other day in an effort to raise my alk I did spike my alkalinity up to 14 for a few hours (timer malfunction). I have maintained higher alk since then (~10) and have seen no improvement. My feeding has been reduced, and I have rinsed any frozen foods I feed. Also, many people say increase flow, but I put a powerhead on the front of my glass and pointed it point blank at an area that gets heavily infested and it still grows.

I put a GFO reactor online 3-4 days ago and put a filter sock on the overflow that doesnt goto the scrubber. The scrubber isnt working as effective as it should, and at this point its going to come offline until I can redesign the box. Its working, just not good enough. I also did a nice sump cleaning and siphoned out a ton of detris and removed some live rock from the fuge chamber and put a powerhead in that chamber to prevent detris from settling.

It just seems no matter what I do this slime keeps growing back and all the stuff I dust off just gets stuck elsewhere. I could baste my tank 3 times an hour and never seem to gain any headway on it.

For the past year I have never had any note worthy nitrate issues or problems in general with my tank.

I would be so appreciative of any feedback or tips or suggested courses of action.

 

[robert]

Hi DJ.

Is this a fish only tank? - I didn't see any mention of corals.

This is really a common complaint and isn't particularly anything to get too worried about, but if your like me, you probably think it it looks bad and ruins your enjoyment of your tank.
Your numbers look good - and if you didn't have a visible cyano problem, I wouldn't suspect a problem. But the cyano is a strong hint that at least your phosphate is higher than your reading. If the cyano only appears in high flow areas, then I would suspect its elevated, but no too much and the GFO may eventually bring it down to the point where the cyano goes away on its own. The very fact that your growing cyano means you have excess phosphate - even if your test reads low.

Your nItrate is probably low relative to your phosphate, meaning organisms which can use dissolved N2 gas dissolved in the water have a competitive advantage. Cyano is one of these. Once cyano dominates, the algaes and bacteria (which can't use N2 gas directly) are at a disadvantage for nutrients.

I think you have a couple of options. First you can stick with the GFO and beat the cyano by reducing your phosphate by establishing a good nitrate/phosphate balance. Or - you can bring up your nitrate - re-establish the nitrate/phosphate balance that way.

An easy way to accomplish the second step, and the one which will clear the cyano the fastest is to use an oxidizer to break down some of the organics in the tank. Chemi-clean is an oxidizer which kills the cyano directly and in doing so liberates the nitrogen and phosphate in the cyano, This liberated nitrate can be used by other algaes and bacteria - So...if you have enough cyano - chemi-clean may be all it takes to get the N ration up over the 6:1 ratio needed to break cyano's dominance. If there isn't enough waste or cyano present - chemi-clean will kill the cyano but it will simply come back because the ration of N remains below 6:1.

If you don't like the idea of chemi-clean, and find the GFO is taking too long, you add additional nitrate directly to correct the N ratio. I have used calcium nitrate/ magnesium nitrate, and sodium nitrate. I like the sodium nitrate.

If it were me, I'd keep the GFO and treat with chemi-clean. A lot of people will tell you that chemi-clean is a band-aide and doesn't fix the underlying nutrient problem - but in actuality it does correct the imbalance sufficiently to offset cyano's advantage when nitrate is low.
Others don't like chemi-clean because they don't know whats in it. I don't either - exactly- but I suspect its an compond which liberates H2O2 - a peroxide - oxidizer - which kills cyano and in doing so liberates 16N for every 1P.

So in short - your tank has too much P (phosphate) for the amount of N (nitrate) in the water. Reduce the P (GFO), increase the N (chemi-clean or nitrate) or both to get the ratio on N back above 6:1 and the cyano will lose its advantage.
GFO won't kill the cyano you have - you'll have to remove it manually. Chemi-clean will.

Hope this helps some. -

 

[robert]

Oh - one last suggestion - your clean up crew is good, but I'm a huge fan of trochus snails. Way better than anything else I've tried on film algaes. They are a warm water snail, are fast, and can right themselves if turned over. They're more expensive than astreas but 1 trochus is worth five astreas as far algae clean up is concerned,

 

[djmatteo]

Thanks for your very detailed and informative post.

This is indeed a reef tank, sporting a variety of corals but I would say LPS dominant with my SPS being birds nests, montis and generally more easy to care for SPS corals. This algae has already claimed one of my birds nest, and others are sure to follow with the continued irritation from the stringy irritating algae.

I am actually dumbfounded that my lack of nitrate is actually my problem, I fight so hard to keep them at bay then have them be a problem which produces algae anyway!! Like I said my tank was pristine up until now, and perhaps with my algae scrubber finally starting to work properly it just didnt have anything to feed on which perhaps also fueled this outbreak.

I also am finding some members within the reef club I am in are experiencing algae blooms in this nice cool wisconsin fall, which has tendancies to cause our ph/alk to drop. I was sort of assuming our issue was related to that, but in all likely hood this seems more logical.

While I look for treatment would you suggest I take my algae scrubber offline and just skim and run the GFO?

Again, thanks so much for your informative post. I regret not posting 4 weeks ago!

 

[djmatteo]

Oh, is Chemi-Clean the same thing as "Red slime remover" I have some of that on hand. Oddly enough last year around this time when my 55 gallon just hit the 6 month old mark I had a very similar outbreak and treated with the red slime remover, I still have some left. Not sure if I have enough to treat my 125, but if its in theory the same product I can just try that instead of buying a new product.

 

[robert]

Yep - its the same stuff. Just be sure to follow the directions.

I would keep the turf scrubber on-line. The red-slime remover (chemi-clean) will liberate nutrients (both N and P) which the turf scrubber will help remove.

Water changes are the usual cause of N imbalance. Water changes take out more Nitrate than phosphate, because nitrate floats around free in the water while phosphate tends to cling to surfaces, especially substrate and rock-work. Drops in pH tend to liberate phosphate from the substrate and rock-work causing a increase in the water column. If you keep your pH high, a lot of your phosphate binds up to the substrate and you can't measure it, but its there, and with a pH drop it floods back into the water column and causes a bloom.

I guess with the cooler weather ppl close their windows and the CO2 in the house goes up -> causing a pH drop in their tank -> releasing more phosphate in their water -> cyano.

 

[mcarroll]

djmatteo:

Listen to Robert for sure! If I may say so, he's very well read on nutrient-overload related matters.

A few things to add...

Lighting
A 12 hour photoperiod is too much - likely to cause algae or slime issues. 8-10 hours is more than enough for your stony corals - as little as 4-5 hours would likely be sufficient - more than that is really more for you (viewing) than for the corals. To wit, even with this suggested reduction, it's likely that from hours 5-10 your corals will already be photosaturated and not actually using much of the light. Algae (and slime) to not have such limits, so you're favoring them with the longer period.

Also, three 120w LED fixtures is possibly too much light for an 18" tank. Are the LED's lensed at all? And how high off the water are they?

Regardless if they are running at 100% output, I'd guess that's too much - if possible dim them to at least 80%, maybe a little lower than that, and see how things progress.

Alkalinity
Alkalinity of 7 dKH is not a good level and may be contributing significantly to your issue. This is especially so since you have some fast growing stony corals. For several reasons low pH is the friend of your problem algae, and 7 dKH (2.5 meq/L) is low enough that I'm a little surprised that your stony corals aren't exhibiting some issues.

I would get this addressed immediately - before doing any other treatments in fact. If you aren't already on a daily dosing schedule or running a doser of some sort, then this is what you have to start with. (Weekly or monthly won't cut it.) Daily testing will also be required for a little while so you can be sure of you chemical additions in terms of quantity as well as the effect they are having once added.

Also, you post your alk number as 7, but say you have been running at 10.....I'm reading that as 7 is your real "average" number. 10 is okay (still a little low if that's your highest reading after a water change or after dosing), but consistency is key so try not to let the alkalinity get so low.

Once alkalinity has been brought into line (>9 dKH; >3.0 meq/L would be my preferred minimum....and for adjustments I would bring it up to 11 or 12 dKH, or 4.0 meq/L.) Calcium is likely to drop somewhat. While that's not likely to cause any problems, it's something you'll also want to keep an eye on while you make alk adjustments. 420 ppm is my preferred target for adjustments to Ca. (BTW, even if you are using a doser, adjustments are best done manually....don't mess with your doser once it's "tuned in".)

Sandbed
Also, though the tank isn't all that old at 1 year, considering your symptoms you may have already fouled your sandbed. With the way you describe the center being been "blown out" I'd say there's a high likelihood of some serious dead zones (aka detritus traps) where the sand is piled up. This is extremely common. To check, swirl the sand around and/or scoop some out all the way down to the glass and see what you see. If anything comes out of the sand with any color, there's a good chance this is your root cause and there's only one sensible treatment - remove and/or replace the sandbed. Ideally suck out the whole sandbed over the course of a week or few weeks. If you end up in this boat, sucking out the sand is a bother, but also one of the most inexpensive treatments (and the only actual solution) available.

If you check in several spots (especially where sand has piled up, but also around the base of rocks, etc) and the sandbed seems to still be clean, then I would proceed with the other advice given such as red slime treatment (an oxidizer).

Also, while the eggcrate seems like a good idea, it really just interferes with your sandbed CUC and makes detritus harder to deal with. Because of this, you may have to test the gravel with a gravel vacuum (Marina by Hagan is my favorite...example...the only one that's not designed as a water changer...has features such as a screen and lower flow rate that make it superior for cleaning gravel. Sugar-fine sand may still be a problem for it.) to see if it's already fouled.

Slime Treatment
And just to drive the point home, Robert was especially not kidding on one point of the slime treatment: READ THE DIRECTIONS FROM TOP TO BOTTOM BEFORE STARTING AND FOLLOW THEM TO A TEE

-Matt

P.S. A stable, correct alkalinity level coupled with correct stocking as well as correct and consistent feeding levels will generally prevent the out of balance N problems that Robert describes. The swings in pH are in essence what causes the deposition/dissolution cycle of PO4 on Agaronite. Still good to be aware of so that you can understand what's happening when you see conditions like this in your tank!

 

[djmatteo]

I just re-tested my PH with my digital checker, its at 8.15, I dont think I should dose to raise that any higher? Its higher than my API kit reads, but still seems to be in an acceptable level?

I will reduce my light cycle substantially.

Regarding my alk I dosed for months and months and months sustaining 9-10 alkalinity, dosing became problematic and I didnt see a reason to continue.. I went back to a more simple approach, I was making my tank more complicated than it had to be just purely based on the "because I can, and because I want to" line of reasons. Spending all sorts of time and money to do something that I thought was needed because it was trendy. (Just wanted to clarify that) Until recently I havent dosed alkalinity but since I started scrubbing and having good results my alkalinity was dropping lower than the 8 I had seen most often without dosing. However I decided to stop turning the doser on/off manually and put it back on the timer when the bloom appeared, the timer stuck and jacked me up to 14-15 alkalinity. I have let it settle down and am sustaining a solid 10 manually monitoring and dosing daily needed.

And I in all honestly am not trying to argue things, just clarify things about points that were made...

regarding the sandbed.. the egg crate I use in my tank does run most of the length of the tank, but is only 6-8" wide. While I understand your point about being difficult for the CUC its advantages to having my rock elevated almost entirely out of the sand and secure and stable in my opinion outweigh the negative effects.. at least at this point. The blow out spot I mention is dead center of my tank on the back side, it does expose the egg crate. Unless its blowing in/under the egg crate I think if anything this is just a strong flow spot and detris doesnt settle on the back side of the tank, the only reason I say this with confidence is because the back part of my tank is still mostly white on the sand! The exterior edges of the sand bed dont look foul, they look like they should with the aerobic/anaerobic bacteria developed as they should be. I wont lie though, changing the sandbed is not something I want to do, but if all else fails I will!! That would be my last thing to try.

I really think I am missing a key element here to really pin down the source of the problem.

At this point I am just continuing to run GFO and my filtration systems, I will reduce the light cycle and continue to feed lightly. I have taken to feeding about 1 cube of well rinsed frozen food per day.

I did order some sodium nitrate and have red slime on standbye... But at this point I am still just riding a smidge longer giving the GFO a chance to do its thing before I start messing with things.

 

[mcarroll]

I wouldn't worry about what you can catch on a pH meter...while that info is interesting and useful, the alkalinity kit doesn't lie. :angel: LOL.

If you're shooting for at least 10 dKH on your as-needed/daily doses (dosing up to 11* will give you a greater time before "too low" is reached again) and not finding alkalinity much lower than 3.0 when you test to dose, you should be fine, IMO. If you don't want your maintenance routine to be more that that (which I can fully understand and support!) then the simpest thing to do would be to reduce your population of fast-growing stony corals - either by fragging colonies to a more manageable size on a regular basis, or possibly even removing some. The load those fast growing corals can put on any dosing system is no joke! (Read my thread history...I'm testifying...and trying to follow my own advice!)

I think if you at least have your alk nailed as described - stability is really the most important aspect - your plan is A-OK!

Let us know how things progress, and good luck!

-Matt

P.S. If dosing manually, I definitely prefer the reliable simplicity of a gravity dripper...whether Kent's commonly seen models which are nice or the many home-brew I've made. A search on R2Rs DIY forum should be fruitful on this.

* Not a Spinal Tap joke....really recommending to dose up to 11. :xd: