Help with sand algae please!

[Dan7575]

Hi all,

I am stuck atm and really don’t know what to do. I have always had a problem with my sand getting a brown colour on it but over the last 6 months or more it has started getting really thick. The algae is too thick and heavy to be picked up by a gravel cleaner and the only way I can remove it is too syphon it direct which always ends up taking my sand with it. It starts browning up the day after and is back to thick ugliness within a few days.

my phos and nitrates are low and I have read loads of posts saying that the algae is using it before the tester can read it but I can’t find any information on how to fix the algae issue first to fix the nutrient problem or vice versa…. How do you actually do it?

I have read about flow not being enough but there is flow along the sand, I can see the algae moving around.

alk - 8
Cal - 430
Mag - 1300
Phos - 0.04
No4 - 3

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Although your corals look happy in there, Have you tried adding n03 and p04? To raise them for a few weeks, because that is what's happening and you get stuck in a low nutrient cycle that only that nasty algae can survive in, when you notice coraling algae growth slow or seem unexistant thats a good sign of that happening, raise nutrients to a proper level for a few weeks see if it gets worse or better. IMO

 

[Dan7575]

Although your corals look happy in there, Have you tried adding n03 and p04? To raise them for a few weeks, because that is what's happening and you get stuck in a low nutrient cycle that only that nasty algae can survive in, when you notice coraling algae growth slow or seem unexistant thats a good sign of that happening, raise nutrients to a proper level for a few weeks see if it gets worse or better. IMO

That’s an interesting idea, the problem has got worse since trying to reduce the phos and no4.

 

[sixty_reefer]

The bacteria in your system will assimilate more nitrates and phosphates than the algae in the sand bed, the same bacteria that assimilates nitrates and phosphates will be responsible to reduce ammonia in your system.
Increasing nutrients in a system with algae will aid that bacteria to grow and reduce ammonia that will benefit the algae growth.

I would recommend you to raise nitrates and phosphates to 10ppm and 0.8 ppm respectively and add 0.5 ml of nopox or similar organic carbon source per 25 gallon of volume at lights out.
It may take at list 4 weeks until you see visible results.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I know you mentioned you have enough flow, but the first thought in my mind when I saw the pictures is "there is not enough flow in this tank."

 

[Dan7575]

The bacteria in your system will assimilate more nitrates and phosphates than the algae in the sand bed, the same bacteria that assimilates nitrates and phosphates will be responsible to reduce ammonia in your system.
Increasing nutrients in a system with algae will aid that bacteria to grow and reduce ammonia that will benefit the algae growth.

I would recommend you to raise nitrates and phosphates to 10ppm and 0.8 ppm respectively and add 0.5 ml of nopox or similar organic carbon source per 25 gallon of volume at lights out.
It may take at list 4 weeks until you see visible results.

Thanks for that, why would you dose nopox if trying to raise no4 and phos, wouldn’t that cancel it out?

 

[Dan7575]

I know you mentioned you have enough flow, but the first thought in my mind when I saw the pictures is "there is not enough flow in this tank."

I have ordered some new wavemakers to try out if I can get anything different to what I have now. The problem is if I turn the flow up anymore it irritates the corals too much.

 

[brandon429]

Dan why not rip clean the tank you’ll fix it in one day, measuring nothing

 

[brandon429]

Custom rip clean thread for nanos, top cure for dinos and cyano above any method.

This is probably my fiftieth rip clean thread, they tend to go out pages and pages of jobs over time. Let’s start a new 2022 one here reasons rip cleaning is the best option for nanos to rid your tank of cyano and dinos: known fix date and no tradeoff invasions. What do we see in the dinos...

www.reef2reef.com

read the example link provided in the thread, the one I list as first job example, your tank will never be invaded again. In one day, your tank is fixed we show.

 

[Dan7575]

Custom rip clean thread for nanos, top cure for dinos and cyano above any method.

This is probably my fiftieth rip clean thread, they tend to go out pages and pages of jobs over time. Let’s start a new 2022 one here reasons rip cleaning is the best option for nanos to rid your tank of cyano and dinos: known fix date and no tradeoff invasions. What do we see in the dinos...

www.reef2reef.com

read the example link provided in the thread, the one I list as first job example, your tank will never be invaded again. In one day, your tank is fixed we show.

I did read it a while ago and was quite interested in it

 

[sixty_reefer]

Thanks for that, why would you dose nopox if trying to raise no4 and phos, wouldn’t that cancel it out?

Not at those levels, heterotrophic bacteria can become limited for growth wend insufficient dissolved nutrients In the water column, if nitrates and phosphates are raised you will be creating more dissolved food for heterotrophic bacteria although they won’t be able to multiply if organic carbon is not present also hence the addition of dissolved organic carbon at night to ensure only heterotrophic bacteria can utilise. As the heterotrophic bacteria grows nutrients will slowly decrease ( if the tank not feed) with it ammonia will become rapidly depleted by the bacteria instead of the algae as bacteria can utilise it much faster than algae.

 

[brandon429]

Hey how big is your tank/hope not 75 gallons that's a huge job. Hoping it's a nano

Rip cleans are such a cheat insult to legit reefing lol. The legit fix community is very slow to the recommend: if we just rinse out your sandbed in tap water for three hours, everything will get better lol

Were it not for 500 logged jobs on file they'd drum me out of town for spouting crazy man advice

 

[Dan7575]

Not at those levels, heterotrophic bacteria can become limited for growth wend insufficient dissolved nutrients In the water column, if nitrates and phosphates are raised you will be creating more dissolved food for heterotrophic bacteria although they won’t be able to multiply if organic carbon is not present also hence the addition of dissolved organic carbon at night to ensure only heterotrophic bacteria can utilise. As the heterotrophic bacteria grows nutrients will slowly decrease ( if the tank not feed) with it ammonia will become rapidly depleted by the bacteria instead of the algae as bacteria can utilise it much faster than algae.

Super response, thank you

 

[Dan7575]

Hey how big is your tank/hope not 75 gallons that's a huge job. Hoping it's a nano

Rip cleans are such a cheat insult to legit reefing lol. The legit fix community is very slow to the recommend: if we just rinse out your sandbed in tap water for three hours, everything will get better lol

Were it not for 500 logged jobs on file they'd drum me out of town for spouting crazy man advice

No not nano, 55g

 

[Steve2020]

The bacteria in your system will assimilate more nitrates and phosphates than the algae in the sand bed, the same bacteria that assimilates nitrates and phosphates will be responsible to reduce ammonia in your system.
Increasing nutrients in a system with algae will aid that bacteria to grow and reduce ammonia that will benefit the algae growth.

I would recommend you to raise nitrates and phosphates to 10ppm and 0.8 ppm respectively and add 0.5 ml of nopox or similar organic carbon source per 25 gallon of volume at lights out.
It may take at list 4 weeks until you see visible results.

0.8ppm PO4? I'm pretty sure that's a typo. Did you mean 0.08ppm PO4?

 

[brandon429]

On a tank that big i would do a staggered sandbed add back


Meaning don't re add sand same day of rip clean. You'd run the tank bare bottom a few weeks to make sure dinos are gone, you'll likely need some catchup cleanings for having waited this long for action, keeping the bare bottom tank clean is orders easier

Then when ready we just add back in all your rinsed sand and it'll cloudlessly fall into place around the rocks

The heart of rip clean biology is you can do all this without recycling the tank, most would think it would cycle the tank but the public simply wasn't right in that assumption. Sandbed bacteria are not core required bacteria they're expendable at any time.

The reason it always skip cycles is because bacteria on rocks stay wet in saltwater during the takedown of the tank each job shows... those are the core bacteria we preserve. All else is simply nine extra steering wheels on a car. One is enough

It never recycles because even though we're removing some systemic bacteria, we're not welling up a cloud of waste detritus around the tank. The hassle of taking the tank apart ensures no contact between waste and sensitive animals: that's the real cause of cycling. It's not an ammonia poisoning event, a recycle is a waste upwelling and turnover event

There is no time your display reef tank will run low on bacteria. We could even rob half your live rock, any filter in place, your whole sandbed all at once and your system still won't recycle... half your live rock is still enough to carry the same full stack bioload. We're *that* far beyond needs for bacteria in a reef tank.

 

[gbru316]

I have ordered some new wavemakers to try out if I can get anything different to what I have now. The problem is if I turn the flow up anymore it irritates the corals too much.

There are 2 main components of flow: volume and velocity. Most coral can handle as much volume as we can throw at them, but the velocity must be kept low enough so it doesn't cause tissue damage.

This can be tough in the confined spaces of an aquarium. Some tricks I've used are pointing powerheads at rock to disperse the high velocity component, aiming powerheads at the surface or down one of the sides of the glass (as opposed to blowing directly at coral), using powerheads placed perpendicular to other powerheads to "steer" the high velocity stream away from livestock, using wide dispersal powerheads (ie Tunze 6040, gyres, etc).


Anecdotally, I run about 2500-3500 gph in my mixed type 40 breeder (62-87x turnover per hour), and sometimes I feel like it still isn't quite enough.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Yes it, sort

0.8ppm PO4? I'm pretty sure that's a typo. Did you mean 0.08ppm PO4?

Good thing you spotted it I mean 0.08. 0.06 ppm will be aimed at bacteria tissue building, I find that to be a safe number for the initial observation and if phosphates reached 0.02 ppm there’s enough time to increase phosphates again without allowing them to bottom out. At low residual phosphates there’s normally not much bound to rock and substrate hence needing to raise them slightly before Dissolved Organic Carbon additions, also it accounts for some inaccuracies in test kits as most can’t read accurately this low, Hannah has a 0.02 error others may have a larger error in accuracy.