Hi all,
I have a question regarding cyanobacteria/red slime algae in my tank. It's a 120gal mixed reef. It has been established for a few months. Short cycle as I had transferred cured rock and other filtration from my previous tank. Long story short, everything was going well with stable parameters until early Dec 2018 when I basically killed off ~75% of my sps frags after my ATO failed and dumped my whole kalk reservoir in the tank over a few hours. dKH spiked to 13. I was keeping my dKH at 8.5-9 at that time. I also had low nutrients at that time with NO3 barely visible on Salifert test kit and PO4 6ppb on Hanna ULR. Since then I've slowly normalized my parameters as follows: pH 8-8.10, T 77-78F, dKH 7.8-8, Ca 450, Mg 1450, NO3 15, PO4 6ppb. I lowered my target dKH level to 8 and dosed nitrate that's why it's at 15 now. Anyway, since the past 2 weeks I've noticed some red slime growth in the tank. I'm assuming it's from the higher NO3 level. I only dosed nitrate for 2 days since NO3 shot up to 20 right away and has since stayed at 15 almost 2-3 weeks now without any further dosing. I do not dose any carbon.
My question is, the cyano seem to grow only on the dead sps skeletons and over the burnt tips of the surviving sps. I don't have it anywhere else on my rocks or the tank. I have pretty good flow with 2 Maxspect Gyres xf230s, 2 MP10s, and my return pump. The cyano is not even growing in possible deadspots. It's front and center on where I had placed my frags. Any reason for this? I know my issue is probably from excess nutrients. It's just weird that the cyano is not growing anywhere else. I don't have any other nuisance algae otherwise. I am planning to do more water changes and remove all the dead skeletons and clip the burnt tips. I just find it weird that the cyano is growing where it is. Thanks for any thoughts that you may have.
Nilo
I have a question regarding cyanobacteria/red slime algae in my tank. It's a 120gal mixed reef. It has been established for a few months. Short cycle as I had transferred cured rock and other filtration from my previous tank. Long story short, everything was going well with stable parameters until early Dec 2018 when I basically killed off ~75% of my sps frags after my ATO failed and dumped my whole kalk reservoir in the tank over a few hours. dKH spiked to 13. I was keeping my dKH at 8.5-9 at that time. I also had low nutrients at that time with NO3 barely visible on Salifert test kit and PO4 6ppb on Hanna ULR. Since then I've slowly normalized my parameters as follows: pH 8-8.10, T 77-78F, dKH 7.8-8, Ca 450, Mg 1450, NO3 15, PO4 6ppb. I lowered my target dKH level to 8 and dosed nitrate that's why it's at 15 now. Anyway, since the past 2 weeks I've noticed some red slime growth in the tank. I'm assuming it's from the higher NO3 level. I only dosed nitrate for 2 days since NO3 shot up to 20 right away and has since stayed at 15 almost 2-3 weeks now without any further dosing. I do not dose any carbon.
My question is, the cyano seem to grow only on the dead sps skeletons and over the burnt tips of the surviving sps. I don't have it anywhere else on my rocks or the tank. I have pretty good flow with 2 Maxspect Gyres xf230s, 2 MP10s, and my return pump. The cyano is not even growing in possible deadspots. It's front and center on where I had placed my frags. Any reason for this? I know my issue is probably from excess nutrients. It's just weird that the cyano is not growing anywhere else. I don't have any other nuisance algae otherwise. I am planning to do more water changes and remove all the dead skeletons and clip the burnt tips. I just find it weird that the cyano is growing where it is. Thanks for any thoughts that you may have.
Nilo
