Ready to leave the hobby......

[ReelRednekReefer]

I've been battling this for many months. I'm at the point I'm ready to scrap it and go to oscars but I do like my tank and the wife likes "marlin" the clown fish.

90 gallon with sump. 120g total volume. Big gyre keeps things stirred up.

Skimmer is undersized yet constantly pulls out dark skimmate and I only feed the two fishevery 3 days.

Lights are Chinese leds.

RODI (0tds) used with reef crystals.

I've tried large water changes, gfo, carbon, phosguard. peroxide dips and scrubbing rocks daily. I have siphoned ssb till it runs clear. Turbos and Cerritos will eat it but can't keep up. When I had a yellow tang it must've kept it mowed down. Problem resurface shortly after its demise. Black outs have little effect.

Only sps is encrusting monti which is spreading with good polyp extension but minimal color

LPS survive but grow very slowly

Corals grow slowly if at all and lack color since I'm petrified to feed or dose acro power.

GSP grows excellent but zoas not so lucky which makes me think it's less of a nutrient issue but with this issue I obviously am not an expert on this stuff

Tank is nearly 2years old

 

[Reefltx]

Did you start with dry rocks?

What are your testing results alk, cal, no3, po4, etc..

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

Yes these were dry rocks from a previous tank. Acid bathed and LC treated and dried again before starting tank.

After a year of stable tank readings I stopped testing. LFS confirmed my readings along the way. I will run them tommorow and report back but only parameter that has ever been off was PO4 which was at .8 at one time but usually listed at 0 and ph is low despite fresh air line to skimmer.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Can we get bigger pics?

 

[Maritimer]

Gotta admit, I've never seen that before - doesn't seem to be one of the usual troubling algaes. Wondering if anyone else on the #reefsquad has seen an encrustation like that?

~Bruce

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

ph is low despite fresh air line to skimmer.

are you dosing cal/alk? how and when and what. whats the water change shed and do you run a refugium? or ATS?

 

[jsker]

I would say once we know the parameters, we can knock this one out.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

No dosing of anything. Nothing in fuge. Had cheato but it didn't grow much and kept getting into return portion.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

Can we get bigger pics?

Bigger how? Wider view or larger file size?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Bigger how? Wider view or larger file size?

file size thanks.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

thanks. Is it Pink?
def check the params.
what kind of clen up crew do ya have?

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

thanks. Is it Pink?
def check the params.
what kind of clen up crew do ya have?

No it's clearing slimy coating that turns brown at it gets long enough to be stringy. That seems to be getting some green to it.

Clean up is down to 3 large turbos and couple ceriths and handful of nassarius. Sand sifting star and brittle star.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I'm not finding an name on it.

Have you tied any of the trendy algae treatments yet? VIbrant etc.
if that keeps coming back after all that you should look at a harsher solution.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

I've heard Dino's, chysophytes cyano etc. nothing definitive. I'm open to an prefer a "trendy" fix at this point.

 

[hybridazn]

Look at your lights, I used to run a Chinese led fixture over a frag system and no matter what I did I got the same brown goop algae that would grow on everything. I swapped it out for a kessil and it literally disappeared over a few weeks.

I believe @mdbannister had the same issue and after I told him this he pulled his lights and had the same results.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Look up the VIbrant thread. It's like three thousand pages. It's an odd bacterial "algecide". Never seen ant thing like it. There are some side effects sometimes. Low nutrients some invert death lingering cyano.
Many rave about it. Just follow the directions.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

Look at your lights, I used to run a Chinese led fixture over a frag system and no matter what I did I got the same brown goop algae that would grow on everything. I swapped it out for a kessil and it literally disappeared over a few weeks.

I believe @mdbannister had the same issue and after I told him this he pulled his lights and had the same results.

I have thought this could be an issue........

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Look at your lights, I used to run a Chinese led fixture over a frag system and no matter what I did I got the same brown goop algae that would grow on everything. I swapped it out for a kessil and it literally disappeared over a few weeks.

I believe @mdbannister had the same issue and after I told him this he pulled his lights and had the same results.

Really?

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

Look up the VIbrant thread. It's like three thousand pages. It's an odd bacterial "algecide". Never seen ant thing like it. There are some side effects sometimes. Low nutrients some invert death lingering cyano.
Many rave about it. Just follow the directions.

I was doing just that