Cyano and maybe something else

Docdiggy · Nov 25, 2017

So I've been battling cyano forever. I seem to have a red hair algae too. If I try and suck up the cyano on the sand bed it comes up like there is a root system in the sand making it impossible to just suck up cyano. I stopped using filter socks a week ago to see if it helps, but it hasn't. I'm waiting till Tuesday and my Hanna phos checker comes in. I pinched some off a rock and it kinda turns to mush. Any idea what this is?

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 25, 2017

Can we look at the parameters you have ?
Can you test the ph tonight and then in the morning ?

What kind of food and coral foods do you use.

Docdiggy · Nov 25, 2017

Alk 9
Sg .026
Ca 420
Mag 1350
I never test my ph so I can't answer that. I dose brs big 3. I use a gallon of alk and ca a month. I have 5 fish and feed 1 cube of mysis a day with a half a algae sheet. Tank is a 75 with 55 sump. Omega 150 skimmer.

Docdiggy · Nov 25, 2017

I'm starting to think its gelidium

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 25, 2017

It's possible. Can tell from the pictures.

Most of those are a branching alge.

Docdiggy · Nov 25, 2017

It's hard to get a better pic. There is cyano for sure, but this looks like a filament like cyano. Everything is doing good, but this is driving ME nuts looking at it. I was reading you can treat it like byropsis. It also grows heavy on the other side of my overflow and my turbo snail will go over and devour it. He's too big to get in between corals though. They also are terrible sand walkers.

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 25, 2017

Docdiggy said:
It's hard to get a better pic. There is cyano for sure, but this looks like a filament like cyano. Everything is doing good, but this is driving ME nuts looking at it. I was reading you can treat it like byropsis. It also grows heavy on the other side of my overflow and my turbo snail will go over and devour it. He's too big to get in between corals though. They also are terrible sand walkers.

Hahaa.
If it's a soft stringy algae flunazole alhge ad MAY work. I'd doubt that but...

Id shop for a hand full of small turbos.

Docdiggy · Nov 25, 2017

This is a pic on the over flow. Its hard to get a real clear one.

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 25, 2017

Looks like a red hair algae to me.

Would you describe it that way?
Like velvet cloth almost.

Docdiggy · Nov 25, 2017

Yes. The sand is weird with root like stuff in the sand. If you've ever seen war of the worlds with Tom cruise, at the end there are these blood looking veins and that's what it reminds me of. Lol. I tried looking up red hair algae, but it turned into a discussion about gelidium.

jsker · Nov 25, 2017

Have you test your nutrients? I would say that you phosphates and nitrates are to low and out of balance

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 25, 2017

Hahaha.
I got this odd fuzz too. Kinda took over. I stared to freak, for snails bla bla bla , then one day I hit it with the tooth brush and it never came back to those spots. Really weird.

Are you dosing any other elements beside the big 3

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 25, 2017

jsker said:
Have you test your nutrients? I would say that you phosphates and nitrates are to low and out of balance

It's so complex. Despite having plenty of both , once I changed from esv to TM balling , the dictoya I've had in the system for three years took off.

Docdiggy · Nov 25, 2017

That's all I dose. I'm waiting for my phos tester to come in. I was feeding 2 cubes and cut down to 1 because I thought it was polluting. Can low nutrients cause this? I skim wet and Empty it every 2 days. I stopped using socks because they would get bits of cyano on them after a couple days. Since I stopped using them the skimmer is picking up all types of crud.

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 25, 2017

In specific nutrient limitation scenarios yes.
We're all dukeing it out in another thread on "balance "
Lol.

jsker · Nov 25, 2017

Docdiggy said:
That's all I dose. I'm waiting for my phos tester to come in. I was feeding 2 cubes and cut down to 1 because I thought it was polluting. Can low nutrients cause this? I skim wet and Empty it every 2 days. I stopped using socks because they would get bits of cyano on them after a couple days. Since I stopped using them the skimmer is picking up all types of crud.

here is some good reading link

Docdiggy · Nov 28, 2017

Update. Hanna ULR is reading 18 and converting shows .055 phosphate. I never research this so I don't really know how bad that is. I'm going to test my fresh RODI and then a fresh batch of sw and see if anything stems from that. If not I guess step up on wc.

brandon429 · Nov 28, 2017

You have a way to stop this invasion and re adjust the plant balance. How many gallons is this tank, the closer to nano the better. the pics of the sps on the wall up under the invasion are typically associated with larger setups, 60+?

the reason I ask this is its all about access. we have several full tank teardowns/algae cleanings already documented, skipping a cycle in resetup is the easy part. The hard part, accessing the sandbed (waste/feed site) and all the targets all at once is very hard for large tankers to do.

When we still did it anyway, to force a win by Thursday vs coax one by February, hopefully, we drained off all that topwater into rubbermaids and the keeper now had access to the entire system

rip clean or replace the whole bed.

power rinse out rocks, no more detritus and we pre-model all this before running it tankwide

put back the water, and as much brand new as you can stand to mix, have a sparkling tank by Thursday. we use a critical red algaecide at the right phase, easily another win. post fts

Docdiggy · Nov 28, 2017

Tear down is not an option. 75g with 55g sump. Only 5 fish. 2 clowns, 1 sixline, 1 starry blenny, and 1 foxface. This sump has only been running a few months. My old under tank sump probably created most of this problem. A snail die off in the past probably didn't help either. With regular wc and a cleaner system I'm hoping for the best.