Loosing my patience with the uglies

Signalhead · May 25, 2023

Good morning, im having a issue with algae. And im starting to lose my patience.....First green, them dinos, and now this brown thing it looks like hair. For the green it went way and the powder blue tank helped, dinos making the tank dark, pick up by hand, turkey baster, water changes, and done. Now is brown and looks like hair. First I felt it was cyano, so I did the pulling it from the sand and the turkey baster and 2 rounds of chemiclean and slow down a bit, but back at it again.
Tanks is been running almost 6 months
Sal:1.023 to 1.024
Temp around 78° to 80°
Ph 7.9
NO3 around 5 ppm
Phosphate. .60ppm
Amonia 0
That's using Hanna "egg" checkers with current reagent. UV is off since dinos and running the skimmer. Replace sock twice a week. Thank you for not following to sleep.
Any suggestions are welcome.

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · May 25, 2023

It can definitely be frustrating and I'm sorry you're having such a bad ugly stage... unfortunately, uglies can go on for a year. What type of clean up crew do you have?

doubleshot00 · May 25, 2023

Well this is a bit off.
NO3 around 5 ppm
Phosphate. .60ppm

How big is this tank? And what kind of cleaners do you have?

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · May 25, 2023

doubleshot00 said:
Well this is a bit off.
NO3 around 5 ppm
Phosphate. .60ppm

How big is this tank? And what kind of cleaners do you have?

I didn't catch that... Yes, phosphate seems high given the nitrate level... by an order of 10

doubleshot00 · May 25, 2023

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal said:
I didn't catch that... Yes, phosphate seems high given the nitrate level... by an order of 10

Thats when i started to get GHA in my nano then increased my NO3 and added an urchin to clean it up.

1112-425XL · May 25, 2023

As bad as it gets, it will pass. Mine probably didn't get bad until the 5 or 6 mos mark and then it was horrible. Brushing, siphoning, and netting for the next six mos. THEN IT WAS GONE!!

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · May 25, 2023

1112-425XL said:
As bad as it gets, it will pass. Mine probably didn't get bad until the 5 or 6 mos mark and then it was horrible. Brushing, siphoning, and netting for the next six mos. THEN IT WAS GONE!!

Yep, it can take a tank started with dry rock about a year to stabilize... and that's without complicating the biome by using chemicals to wipe out one thing, leaving the door open for other issues. Added instability can make it take even longer IMO/IME.

Signalhead · May 25, 2023

doubleshot00 said:
Well this is a bit off.
NO3 around 5 ppm
Phosphate. .60ppm

How big is this tank? And what kind of cleaners do you have?

What you mean is off? Maybe I'm reading the tester wrong. I stop using api because can see the colors right. I use the phosphate and nitrate ulr. The tanks 150 plus sump. I have snails and hermit crab. Blue leg crabs and Mexican turbo, Florida Cerith,astraea, about 40 in total

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · May 25, 2023

Signalhead said:
What you mean is off? Maybe I'm reading the tester wrong. I stop using api because can see the colors right. I use the phosphate and nitrate ulr. The tanks 150 plus sump. I have snails and hermit crab. Blue leg crabs and Mexican turbo, Florida Cerith,astraea, about 40 in total

"Off" meaning a better ratio of nitrate to phosphate is *often* around 100:1. Right now you're at 10:1.

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · May 25, 2023

Signalhead said:
What you mean is off? Maybe I'm reading the tester wrong. I stop using api because can see the colors right. I use the phosphate and nitrate ulr. The tanks 150 plus sump. I have snails and hermit crab. Blue leg crabs and Mexican turbo, Florida Cerith,astraea, about 40 in total

40 snails/crabs in a 150 is a very understaffed cuc.

Signalhead · May 25, 2023

1112-425XL said:
As bad as it gets, it will pass. Mine probably didn't get bad until the 5 or 6 mos mark and then it was horrible. Brushing, siphoning, and netting for the next six mos. THEN IT WAS GONE!!

I had the same tank in another house and it was clean with in 4 months. Never an issue after like 2 years later with the RO water. I was expecting to be the same. Old people don't have patience (per my wife)

livinlifeinBKK · May 25, 2023

I'd advise just replacing as much of the rock as possible with live ocean rock if you can afford it...

Signalhead · May 25, 2023

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal said:
"Off" meaning a better ratio of nitrate to phosphate is *often* around 100:1. Right now you're at 10:1.

Ok got it!

Signalhead · May 25, 2023

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal said:
40 snails/crabs in a 150 is a very understaffed cuc.

I have about 15 hermit crabs coming tomorrow (I hope, ups is not my friend)

Signalhead · May 25, 2023

livinlifeinBKK said:
I'd advise just replacing as much of the rock as possible with live ocean rock if you can afford it...

I start with live sand, some old base rock that I had in the tank before and with 20lbs from a friend. His tank is clean and no surprises. I figure it was enough

Lavey29 · May 25, 2023

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal said:
Yep, it can take a tank started with dry rock about a year to stabilize... and that's without complicating the biome by using chemicals to wipe out one thing, leaving the door open for other issues. Added instability can make it take even longer IMO/IME.

Agreed and chemicals are only bandaid fixes not addressing the underlying problems which cause the situation to begin with. Chemiclean kills good bacteria along with bad which is why you often see people who use it kill off one nuisance algae but open the door for a worse algae to take over. Biodiversity and microfauna are critical to the tank biome and success.

Troylee · May 25, 2023

Your so called brown hair looks like a bad case of Dino’s! That would be a side effect of using chemiclean… I’d black the tank out for 3-4 days and keep your lights low while using a uv light 24/7

Signalhead · May 25, 2023

Lavey29 said:
Agreed and chemicals are only bandaid fixes, not addressing the underlying problems which cause the situation to begin with. Chemiclean kills good bacteria along with bad which is why you often see people who use it kill off one nuisance algae but open the door for a worse algae to take over. Biodiversity and microfauna are critical to the tank biome and success.

I was planning to do a 40 gallon water change. In your opinion, should I do it and add some good stuff (bacteria)? With the water change? will be adding more hermits ttomorrow, andthis weekend i be getting more snails. Coming to town. Yes

vetteguy53081 · May 25, 2023

Signalhead said:
Good morning, im having a issue with algae. And im starting to lose my patience.....First green, them dinos, and now this brown thing it looks like hair. For the green it went way and the powder blue tank helped, dinos making the tank dark, pick up by hand, turkey baster, water changes, and done. Now is brown and looks like hair. First I felt it was cyano, so I did the pulling it from the sand and the turkey baster and 2 rounds of chemiclean and slow down a bit, but back at it again.
Tanks is been running almost 6 months
Sal:1.023 to 1.024
Temp around 78° to 80°
Ph 7.9
NO3 around 5 ppm
Phosphate. .60ppm
Amonia 0
That's using Hanna "egg" checkers with current reagent. UV is off since dinos and running the skimmer. Replace sock twice a week. Thank you for not following to sleep.
Any suggestions are welcome.

Can you provide a clearer pic under white lighting?
Phos as mentioned very high (you want .04-.08-up to .1)
Are you using RODI water, and is it purchased or made your self?
Is tank at or near a window?

Adding a pouch of ChemiPure Elite will help bring down phos level slowly with addition of daily 2 gallon water changes.

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · May 25, 2023

Signalhead said:
I was planning to do a 40 gallon water change. In your opinion, should I do it and add some good stuff (bacteria)? With the water change? will be adding more hermits ttomorrow, andthis weekend i be getting more snails. Coming to town. Yes

As mentioned, the best way to add good bacteria is with actual live rock, either from a very established tank (sounds like you did this at startup) or some of the maricultured live rock from Florida, etc.

A few more questions...
Are you running a refugium?
How difficult would it be to remove the rocks and scrub/rinse in old tank water?

Manual removal is still a key to helping get things under control. If it is dinos, then there are some good threads on R2R about ways to help combat these since most cuc won't touch them.