Battling GHA? Turf? Green Cyano?

[mudbugmike]

I could really use a bit of help. I had thought I'd been doing everything right up until this point. Cycling properly, testing my nutrients judiciously, stocking the tank slowly, etc. I let the algae just kind of go because I thought this was part of the ugly phase, so I was just sitting back and letting it do its thing while I keep the glass clean, and do my weekly 10% water changes.

My tank is 2 months old and I test extremely often. I've been to all 3 reputable LFS in my city and have discussed this in length with my aquarium group. The most common suggestion I receive is to not let nitrate sit at 0. I have dosed up to 1-2ppm only to see it at 0 the next day, but with the accuracy of my checker, it could be 2, just reading 0 within the margin of error. I dosed up to 10ppm nitrate today with potassium nitrate.

I have a decent-sized cuc now, and a sea hare. My params are for the most part stable, and the screenshots will not show if this was something I dosed before, or after. After I noticed my alk start moving I started dosing baking soda daily to keep it around 8.5. I've not dosed anything else because I have not seen the calcium move very much.

My regiment -
-Feed fish 1x per day.
-30mL phyto every other day
-swap sock every other day
-dose 1tsp reef roids on saturdays
-test on Saturdays (more often with the new problem)
-10% water change on Sundays.

Today I did not notice the alk move so I did not dose any baking soda. It had been dropping .5 dkh/day last week. I dosed potassium nitrate up to 10ppm via the calc commonly shared here.

Up until this point, I thought I had GHA/Turf/something else? @sixty_reefer has pointed out that this instead looks like green cyano. I.. just don't know what to do at this point. I really don't want to have to pull my rockwork out that is cemented in place.

I am truly at a loss and do not think it's for lack of trying. I am not certain where I went wrong to end up here. I will greatly be indebted to whomever can point me in the right direction of correcting this. I'd love to hear thoughts/opinions on what to do. I love(d) my tank, I wish I could bring the enjoyment back.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I could really use a bit of help. I had thought I'd been doing everything right up until this point. Cycling properly, testing my nutrients judiciously, stocking the tank slowly, etc. I let the algae just kind of go because I thought this was part of the ugly phase, so I was just sitting back and letting it do its thing while I keep the glass clean, and do my weekly 10% water changes.

My tank is 2 months old and I test extremely often. I've been to all 3 reputable LFS in my city and have discussed this in length with my aquarium group. The most common suggestion I receive is to not let nitrate sit at 0. I have dosed up to 1-2ppm only to see it at 0 the next day, but with the accuracy of my checker, it could be 2, just reading 0 within the margin of error. I dosed up to 10ppm nitrate today with potassium nitrate.

I have a decent-sized cuc now, and a sea hare. My params are for the most part stable, and the screenshots will not show if this was something I dosed before, or after. After I noticed my alk start moving I started dosing baking soda daily to keep it around 8.5. I've not dosed anything else because I have not seen the calcium move very much.

My regiment -
-Feed fish 1x per day.
-30mL phyto every other day
-swap sock every other day
-dose 1tsp reef roids on saturdays
-test on Saturdays (more often with the new problem)
-10% water change on Sundays.

Today I did not notice the alk move so I did not dose any baking soda. It had been dropping .5 dkh/day last week. I dosed potassium nitrate up to 10ppm via the calc commonly shared here.

Up until this point, I thought I had GHA/Turf/something else? @sixty_reefer has pointed out that this instead looks like green cyano. I.. just don't know what to do at this point. I really don't want to have to pull my rockwork out that is cemented in place.

I am truly at a loss and do not think it's for lack of trying. I am not certain where I went wrong to end up here. I will greatly be indebted to whomever can point me in the right direction of correcting this. I'd love to hear thoughts/opinions on what to do. I love(d) my tank, I wish I could bring the enjoyment back.

Very accelarated case of Green hair algae becomming wire algae
Steps to take:
Pull as much off as you can by hand. Reduce white light intensity and numbers of hours whites are on for at least two weeks. Then add the following:

6 turbo grazer snails
6 astrea Snails
4 cerith snails
1-2 pencil urchins
12 carribean blue leg hermit crabs ( these are Tiny)
Chiton snails

Optional - dolabella sea hare

Is your tank at or near a window ?
Are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet ?
What is your phosphate level ?

Some causes:
Overfedding
Too Much light
excessive inorganics
Water source
Under-filtration

 

[sixty_reefer]

I could really use a bit of help. I had thought I'd been doing everything right up until this point. Cycling properly, testing my nutrients judiciously, stocking the tank slowly, etc. I let the algae just kind of go because I thought this was part of the ugly phase, so I was just sitting back and letting it do its thing while I keep the glass clean, and do my weekly 10% water changes.

My tank is 2 months old and I test extremely often. I've been to all 3 reputable LFS in my city and have discussed this in length with my aquarium group. The most common suggestion I receive is to not let nitrate sit at 0. I have dosed up to 1-2ppm only to see it at 0 the next day, but with the accuracy of my checker, it could be 2, just reading 0 within the margin of error. I dosed up to 10ppm nitrate today with potassium nitrate.

I have a decent-sized cuc now, and a sea hare. My params are for the most part stable, and the screenshots will not show if this was something I dosed before, or after. After I noticed my alk start moving I started dosing baking soda daily to keep it around 8.5. I've not dosed anything else because I have not seen the calcium move very much.

My regiment -
-Feed fish 1x per day.
-30mL phyto every other day
-swap sock every other day
-dose 1tsp reef roids on saturdays
-test on Saturdays (more often with the new problem)
-10% water change on Sundays.

Today I did not notice the alk move so I did not dose any baking soda. It had been dropping .5 dkh/day last week. I dosed potassium nitrate up to 10ppm via the calc commonly shared here.

Up until this point, I thought I had GHA/Turf/something else? @sixty_reefer has pointed out that this instead looks like green cyano. I.. just don't know what to do at this point. I really don't want to have to pull my rockwork out that is cemented in place.

I am truly at a loss and do not think it's for lack of trying. I am not certain where I went wrong to end up here. I will greatly be indebted to whomever can point me in the right direction of correcting this. I'd love to hear thoughts/opinions on what to do. I love(d) my tank, I wish I could bring the enjoyment back.

On the other picture it looked like green Cyanobacteria now I can see that it is not, apologies.

can I ask you about the phytoplankton you dose, is it cultured by you? And do you add amino acids to your tank?

 

[mudbugmike]

Very accelarated case of Green hair algae becomming wire algae
Steps to take:
Pull as much off as you can by hand. Reduce white light intensity and numbers of hours whites are on for at least two weeks. Then add the following:

6 turbo grazer snails
6 astrea Snails
4 cerith snails
1-2 pencil urchins
12 carribean blue leg hermit crabs ( these are Tiny)
Chiton snails

Optional - dolabella sea hare

Is your tank at or near a window ?
Are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet ?
What is your phosphate level ?

Some causes:
Overfedding
Too Much light
excessive inorganics
Water source
Under-filtration

I have 2x 90w red sea lights on a reefer 350 (4ft tank). I changed their 10w white lights down to 10% (from 100%) last Friday.

1.) I have 15 astrea and 15 blue leg hermits (yes they are tiny), and a sea hare.
2.) not near a window
3.) RODI, 0 tds
4.) phosphate as of 2 hours ago is .04 ppm

 

[mudbugmike]

On the other picture it looked like green Cyanobacteria now I can see that it is not, apologies.

can I ask you about the phytoplankton you dose, is it cultured by you? And do you add amino acids to your tank?

It is not cultured by me. It is Dinkins aquatics. I do not dose aminos. Tank is only 2 months old so that's about where my knowledge level sits as well. I wouldnt even know what to do with aminos.

 

[sixty_reefer]

It is not cultured by me. It is Dinkins aquatics. I do not dose aminos. Tank is only 2 months old so that's about where my knowledge level sits as well. I wouldnt even know what to do with aminos.

What are you feeding pellets or frozen?

 

[mudbugmike]

What are you feeding pellets or frozen?

reef frenzy frozen

 

[ZombieEngineer]

I would stop dosing phyto and reef frenzy until this algae is under control.

 

[sixty_reefer]

reef frenzy frozen

I think I may know why your algae looks so healthy

1. Phytoplankton
The phytoplankton you are using is live from a live culture, normally this comes with with all ingredients necessary to grow algaes from the culture water. (Left over fertiliser in the phytoplankton culture)

2. Reef roids

reef roids are known to be a good source of amino acids that will become nitrogen and utilised by the algae also

3. reef frenzy

from a quick google it appears that amino acids are also in the making of this particular food

Amino acids are something to avoid if you have algae problems

i would recommend that you stop adding this as they will be aiding the growth of the algaes in your tank at this early stage of the maturing process of your tank. I would also encourage you to clean the sand bed as best as you can during the next few water changes and run a good quality Granular activated carbon. Cleaning the sand bed will aid in exporting any trapped organics that could be releasing ammonia and gac will aid at removing organics from the water column that will be affecting the light spectrum normally making the light look more yellow that is also a favourite spectrum for many macro algaes. In addition carry on with bringing your nutrients up with a source of no3 like calcium nitrate, some of the shelf products contain nitrogen that can be easily assimilated by the algaes. You will want it in the last stage of the cycle in a no3 form that is harder for some macro algaes to utilise.

hope it helps

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have 2x 90w red sea lights on a reefer 350 (4ft tank). I changed their 10w white lights down to 10% (from 100%) last Friday.

1.) I have 15 astrea and 15 blue leg hermits (yes they are tiny), and a sea hare.
2.) not near a window
3.) RODI, 0 tds
4.) phosphate as of 2 hours ago is .04 ppm

That is strange. Consider the other cleaners mentioned.

 

[lazlodawg]

I think that the algae is uptaking your nutrients very rapidly and why your nitrates are constantly low. When you dose nitrates to rectify this issue, you are feeding the algae which grows and consumes more nutrients....
Best bet is to manually remove as much as you can over the course of days to weeks. This is not something you will want to do all at once unless you have Popeye arms. Have a plastic bowl of water near the tank (I balanced mine on the overflow cover, but some people just clamp it onto the side of the tank). Start pulling it out and dropping the algae into the bowl.
Eventually you will see your clean up crew working on the same areas you plucked from. Once the algae gets too large / mature then most hermits and snails won't eat it.
This is not something you will want to tackle in a single day!
Stop the Reef Roids and phyto for now.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

I have 2x 90w red sea lights on a reefer 350 (4ft tank). I changed their 10w white lights down to 10% (from 100%) last Friday.

1.) I have 15 astrea and 15 blue leg hermits (yes they are tiny), and a sea hare.
2.) not near a window
3.) RODI, 0 tds
4.) phosphate as of 2 hours ago is .04 ppm

I consider that pretty low even on a maintenance level. When actively fighting algae you need even more.

Maintenance level for a 100g tank, this is my go to.

- 20 blue leg
- optional 10 red leg or zebra hermits
- 10 trochus
- 30 cerith
- 4 mexican turbo
- 1 tuxedo urchin
- 15 nassarius

 

[sfin52]

Lots of critters won't eat the long strands. Elbow grease with cuc is how I would tackle this.
Phosphates and nitrates are low because of the gha.
Remove as much as possible. I would pull the rocks scrub them off dip in clean sw and place back in the tank. Please be very careful if you have zoas in the midst of the gha.

 

[mudbugmike]

I think I may know why your algae looks so healthy

1. Phytoplankton
The phytoplankton you are using is live from a live culture, normally this comes with with all ingredients necessary to grow algaes from the culture water. (Left over fertiliser in the phytoplankton culture)

2. Reef roids

reef roids are known to be a good source of amino acids that will become nitrogen and utilised by the algae also

3. reef frenzy

from a quick google it appears that amino acids are also in the making of this particular food

Amino acids are something to avoid if you have algae problems

i would recommend that you stop adding this as they will be aiding the growth of the algaes in your tank at this early stage of the maturing process of your tank. I would also encourage you to clean the sand bed as best as you can during the next few water changes and run a good quality Granular activated carbon. Cleaning the sand bed will aid in exporting any trapped organics that could be releasing ammonia and gac will aid at removing organics from the water column that will be affecting the light spectrum normally making the light look more yellow that is also a favourite spectrum for many macro algaes. In addition carry on with bringing your nutrients up with a source of no3 like calcium nitrate, some of the shelf products contain nitrogen that can be easily assimilated by the algaes. You will want it in the last stage of the cycle in a no3 form that is harder for some macro algaes to utilise.

hope it helps

Thank you. This makes the most sense to me as well. It's extremely difficult to remove from the rockwork. Like pulling from my own head.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Thank you. This makes the most sense to me as well. It's extremely difficult to remove from the rockwork. Like pulling from my own head.

From a macro algae perspective the colour tells me that it is very healthy at the moment that will make the pulling out aspect quite difficult although it will start to weakening if you do some small changes.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Thank you. This makes the most sense to me as well. It's extremely difficult to remove from the rockwork. Like pulling from my own head.

If it's really hard to remove like that, could very well be bryopsis. It's hard to see the fern pattern when it gets really long and out of control. I have successfully beat that strain with fluconazole when other methods like CUC and nutrient control failed miserably.

 

[mudbugmike]

If it's really hard to remove like that, could very well be bryopsis. It's hard to see the fern pattern when it gets really long and out of control. I have successfully beat that strain with fluconazole when other methods like CUC and nutrient control failed miserably.

i thought that too but also can’t quite make out the fern pattern in my algae. I do have flucanazole coming. Unsure if I will dose it or not. I don’t really like the idea of fixing issues with chemicals but this seems to be less impactful to my livestock than peroxide.

it creates “sod” like clumps in my sand. I pulled quite a bit off the sand and that has been looking a bit better. The sand behind the rock work is another story.

I’ll completely stop with the phyto, reef roids, and reef frenzy. I had been dosing to feed my feather duster/pods. The pod population has boomed. I also have mysis shrimp I can feed the fish instead.

 

[Lavey29]

Gee, where is that thread that everyone said it would be fine to load a new tank with corals and that leaving lights off the first 4 months was useless?

OP I'm sure you will get good advice here on how to help your situation and I truly hope you are successful. The hard ugly stages are yet to come though so be prepared for a lengthy battle and remember patience is key. If you start dumping all kinds of chemicals in your tank you will open the door wide for other problems.

 

[mudbugmike]

Gee, where is that thread that everyone said it would be fine to load a new tank with corals and that leaving lights off the first 4 months was useless?

OP I'm sure you will get good advice here on how to help your situation and I truly hope you are successful. The hard ugly stages are yet to come though so be prepared for a lengthy battle and remember patience is key. If you start dumping all kinds of chemicals in your tank you will open the door wide for other problems.

For what it’s worth, I was initially going to leave the lights off for 4 months but I feel like I would’ve just delayed this by 4 months. Still not sure what I should’ve been testing/doing to avoid it to begin with.

 

[lazlodawg]

You might consider keeping up the phyto dosing to maintain your pod population if you stop using reef roids and change foods (which should be enough of a nutrient reduction). An argument could be made that the live phyto will compete with the macro algae.