Chrysophytes battle

[mcarroll]

I was always under the impression they prefer cold water as they are native to the Sea of Cortez and it is not considered tropical and they end up dying of heat.

I'd be willing to bet almost all mystery snail deaths are from starvation – especially big snails like turbos and trochus that can really really eat. (Didn't even know the both get about as big as one another til I saw a tennisball-sized trochus once. !!!!)

The only other things in an aquarium that kill them besides starvation are hermit crabs and old age. Oh, and toxic algae....

 

[mcarroll]

Hm...thinking back, @reeferfoxx.

• Cyano is what seemed to "replace" my chrysophytes. (Thankfully!)
• I suspected that my salinity spike (1.030) might've initially wiped out some/all of my tank's microbes, allowing the chrys. bloom to have an open niche.....1.030 is apparently right on the edge of tolerance for denitrfying bacteria!!

Were either of those what you were thinking of?

Dino's and other microbes have their own special relations with bacteria I've brought up here and there too, but I assume that's a different discussion from this one.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Were either of those what you were thinking of?

Not sure. Just curious why chrysos would pause or stunt the cycling process. (ie cyano followed by gha etc.)

 

[pboutin]

My refugium as it is now. [emoji16]

What the heck is that white membrane holding the Cyano/GHA together?

 

[reeferfoxx]

What the heck is that white membrane holding the Cyano/GHA together?

No idea! lol! Wow!;Jawdrop

 

[mcarroll]

Cyano turns white as it dies back, at least in my experience....sometimes I've had it grow very thick (but oddly not spread) and the undersides are usually white-ish.

 

[mcarroll]

Would be interesting to take a sample to see what's in there besides cyano anyway.

The color is beautiful!

 

[mcarroll]

If fluconazole kills protists it should have positive effects on dinos? Unless it's been recorded I can't say it would be effective. Chrysos aren't plant based like bryopsis or hair algae.

There's no reason I know to expect that to work, but who knows.

Fluconazole is an ergosterol blocker....bryopsis make their cell walls using that sterol (like us and cholesterol), so when they can't, they basically get eaten alive by the environment.

Huh:
Comprehensive transcriptome analysis provides new insights into nutritional strategies and phylogenetic relationships of chrysophytes

So maybe...though I don't know if I can take seeing even more folks nuking their tanks...

 

[mcarroll]

Not sure. Just curious why chrysos would pause or stunt the cycling process. (ie cyano followed by gha etc.)

Ok I've read back a few pages and I'm missing something.....why do we think the cycling is paused or stunted?

As long as cyano is growing, I'd call it progress. I'd also expect a recovery to take months vs weeks.

 

[pboutin]

Floating Islands of Pandora lol The white part was covered again this morning with new Cyano

 

[mcarroll]

That's pretty impressive!

 

[mcarroll]

what are current No3/Po4 numbers again? Ever had a Triton test?

 

[pboutin]

what are current No3/Po4 numbers again? Ever had a Triton test?

Measured 6/5 along with a dose
NO3: 1 ppm - dosed to bring up to 5 ppm
PO4: 0 ppm - dosed to bring up to 0.04 ppm
Seems there was a small window with 0 Phosphates

Also my old Magnesium test kit was bad showing the ultra low numbers as low as 800 ppm. After replacing the kit it's not testable and off the chart at over 1600 ppm. A water change has not been able to bring that down. I stopped dosing completely. Also the High Mg levels allowed my Calcium to jump up to 520 ppm. I'm not sure where the level of Mg effects how much Calcium can be dissolved in seawater but there must be a point where it was able to jump up like that. I've cut the dosing drastically back on that as well. I plan on doing more water changes (weekly 20%) to get this back inline.

I'll be getting a triton test done soon just waiting on getting the kit.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

My refugium as it is now. [emoji16]

What the heck is that white membrane holding the Cyano/GHA together?

I think its just responding to the direct feeding right now. Once the target organism is gone and you resume normal husbandry itll fade.

 

[MasonReef]

Just wanted to do a quick update on my battle against chrysophytes in my 240.

A couple weeks ago I did a 3 day blackout on the tank, with cardboard covering the tank and everything. Once the lights went back on all the chrysophytes had died off, so I did an 80gallon water change and ran GFO for 24 hours. Throughout the whole process, with dosing, my nitrates have been 3 to 5 ppm and phosphates .02 to .05 ppm.

As of today there is still no signs of the chryso coming back! I do have a little cyano and other normal algaes growing, but snails are taking care of it for the most part. My coral growth has also exploded, a few acros that I had for a year that hadn't ever grown, are now growing. And the ones that were already growing are growing even faster.

Thanks to everyone who helped me out with this!

 

[reeferfoxx]

Just wanted to do a quick update on my battle against chrysophytes in my 240.

A couple weeks ago I did a 3 day blackout on the tank, with cardboard covering the tank and everything. Once the lights went back on all the chrysophytes had died off, so I did an 80gallon water change and ran GFO for 24 hours. Throughout the whole process, with dosing, my nitrates have been 3 to 5 ppm and phosphates .02 to .05 ppm.

As of today there is still no signs of the chryso coming back! I do have a little cyano and other normal algaes growing, but snails are taking care of it for the most part. My coral growth has also exploded, a few acros that I had for a year that hadn't ever grown, are now growing. And the ones that were already growing are growing even faster.

Thanks to everyone who helped me out with this!

Awesome! Congrats!!

 

[MasonReef]

Well I definitely jinxed myself in the last post. :mad: Some Chryso is starting to come back. Its not terrible yet, but its definitely taking a foothold at a few different places. I was not able to dose phosphates into my system this weekend, so phosphates were likely zero for a day or two. It is discouraging to see how fast it comes back.

I wonder if I should do another lights out period for 3 days? I did just get in about 10 new acro frags, so I will probably need to wait a week or so for them to recover from shipping before I can do a light out period.

On a side note, I have noticed I'm having a very hard time maintaining any phosphates in the tank. My only filtration I'm running is my skimmer (ATI powercone 250is), and I have about 175lbs of live rock, and 4 large blocks of marine pure. I'm dosing 20 ml of SeaChem phosphorus a day, along with feeding 3-5 cubes of frozen food and 1 full sheet of nori.

Using Seachem's Phosphorus dosing calculator I should be raising my phosphate level by 0.10 ppm each day just by dosing alone. However, my phosphates will drop to zero if I do not dose each day. Any idea's on where all this phosphate would be going? I do have a moderate cyano outbreak (sand is mostly lightly covered in cyano and rocks are maybe 15% covered), could that be up taking all the phosphates? I feel like I'm adding a very large amount of phosphates to my tank and I don't know where they are going, which could be a ticking time bomb.

 

[pboutin]

My system is the same... My corals are getting ticked because my levels drop and then i do a big dose and they shoot back up. My PO4 and NO3 both drop to 0.00 if I don't dose. I over feed like crazy both fish and coral. I only run the skimmer and filter floss. Good news is that as long as I keep the PO4 up my Chryso hasn't come back and is now completely gone on its own since my last manual removal and GFO treatment. I'm thinking I need to get on the daily plan to keep the levels up vs spiking the system every 3 or 4 days.

 

[zachxlutz]

Well I definitely jinxed myself in the last post. :mad: Some Chryso is starting to come back. Its not terrible yet, but its definitely taking a foothold at a few different places. I was not able to dose phosphates into my system this weekend, so phosphates were likely zero for a day or two. It is discouraging to see how fast it comes back.

I wonder if I should do another lights out period for 3 days? I did just get in about 10 new acro frags, so I will probably need to wait a week or so for them to recover from shipping before I can do a light out period.

On a side note, I have noticed I'm having a very hard time maintaining any phosphates in the tank. My only filtration I'm running is my skimmer (ATI powercone 250is), and I have about 175lbs of live rock, and 4 large blocks of marine pure. I'm dosing 20 ml of SeaChem phosphorus a day, along with feeding 3-5 cubes of frozen food and 1 full sheet of nori.

Using Seachem's Phosphorus dosing calculator I should be raising my phosphate level by 0.10 ppm each day just by dosing alone. However, my phosphates will drop to zero if I do not dose each day. Any idea's on where all this phosphate would be going? I do have a moderate cyano outbreak (sand is mostly lightly covered in cyano and rocks are maybe 15% covered), could that be up taking all the phosphates? I feel like I'm adding a very large amount of phosphates to my tank and I don't know where they are going, which could be a ticking time bomb.

My system is the same... My corals are getting ****** because my levels drop and then i do a big dose and they shoot back up. My PO4 and NO3 both drop to 0.00 if I don't dose. I over feed like crazy both fish and coral. I only run the skimmer and filter floss. Good news is that as long as I keep the PO4 up my Chryso hasn't come back and is now completely gone on its own since my last manual removal and GFO treatment. I'm thinking I need to get on the daily plan to keep the levels up vs spiking the system every 3 or 4 days.

I'm in the same boat, folks. I have to dose up my PO4 almost daily to .1 and my NO3 every couple of days to 5 otherwise they drop to zero. Just running a skimmer and a refugium with some different macros in it. My fish load is light and I will be adding more to help get the nutrient levels up without the need for dosing.

 

[mcarroll]

I wonder if I should do another lights out period for 3 days? I did just get in about 10 new acro frags, so I will probably need to wait a week or so for them to recover from shipping before I can do a light out period.

I would not do another lights out. I would try hard to stabilize the system now.....no more new stuff or significant changes if you can help it. This will help establish the new norm without chrysophytes.

3-5 cubes of frozen food

Try to stabilize the amount of food going into the system....pick either 3 or 5, whichever is more correct for your fish, and stick with it. (Probably more vs fewer, but you would know best.)

(See next comments too)

I'm thinking I need to get on the daily plan to keep the levels up vs spiking the system every 3 or 4 days.

My fish load is light and I will be adding more to help get the nutrient levels up without the need for dosing.

I'd suggest all of you consider an Eheim auto-feeder to get a really regular addition of food going into the system. Dry foods should not be your staple food item, but they are definitely useful in their place.

I plan to do the same.

Start with a small addition to your normal routine so there's no spike in nutrients.....the idea is to smooth out the peaks and valleys of your normal feeding routine.