Live rock turning black
- Thread starter Windy
- Start date
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Dextereef
Well-Known Member
Im not savvy with the vinegar dosing so I am unsure what part that is playing here. It seems like you have a diatom or dinoflagellate bloom. If its diatoms it sounds like a cycle happened. Hope its diatoms because dino is a pain to get rid of. When you are doing water changes try and scrub/vacuum the stuff off the rocks. Keep up with water changes and try and reduce nutrients going into the tank. Try spot feeding so you can limit excess food waste. What are you using for chemical filtration? Carbon, GFO, biopellets, resins? What are you using for light and what is the photoperiod?
cginter
Well-Known Member
im gonna guess die off or phosphates leaching from the rock. does the water smell? long time ago i had rock that was turning a dark color, i literally had to take all the rock that had this nasty dark color stuff on it and scrubbed with a tooth brush 4 different times (once a month) with very large water changes (i have a 125G). still i had problems. I then upgrade my filtration system. Got a Gfo and carbon reactor and changed my RO/DI filters. slowly but surely things started coming back around and looking good.
so id say check your water source, and phosphates. "if you have algae, you have unwanted phos...."
so id say check your water source, and phosphates. "if you have algae, you have unwanted phos...."
OP
OP
Windy
Active Member
I have checked my parameters many times and they show zero, but with the hair algae outbreak there is no question I have high phosphates in some of the live rock. I picked up another aquarium that was being closed down and I believe that is where it started. Most, but not quite all of the hair algae is gone now. But now where it was is turning black, so I am thinking based on other posts that it might be die-off.
So far I have built and installed a waterfall ATS with LED lights that is working quite well, I have been using phosban and also dosing vinegar. Slowing my brood stock system is cleaning up.
So far I have built and installed a waterfall ATS with LED lights that is working quite well, I have been using phosban and also dosing vinegar. Slowing my brood stock system is cleaning up.
Skynyrd Fish
Valuable Member
Sounds like you are on track to get the problem solved. I would wait on the black rock to see what happens. I just did a 1ml h2o2 per gallon treatment for 8 days. you could try it. it helps clean the algae out of the system. I'm on week 8 of vinegar, and the h2o2 helped with what I thought was a beginning of a dino outbreak. Or you could dip the rock in a 1 part h2o2 5 parts tank water dip. It should kill the algae so your gfo can get the PO4 out of the water. I'm revamping a 15 year old system. Please read on H2O2 treatments and make your own decision. It has worked well for me.
RLM60
Community Member
I had this happen to me a couple of years ago. I was also fighting an algea problem at the time. As it turns out it was a bacteria bloom and it went away on its own. My case was most likely caused by my chemistry going out of wack fighting hair algea. Hth
