Red algae

[KennethJ24]

Tank has been set up for a little over 3 months and I’m getting a reddish algae on my sand bottom. Grows quick and has hair like growth coming off of it. Should I be alarmed or is this normal for young salt water aquariums. Ammonia and nitrites are fine. PH and alkalinity are a little low but other than that, fish look fine and healthy. Thank you, Kenny

 

[Copingwithpods]

Cyano bacteria, odd it would show up on such a young tank, what are your PO4 NO3 levels and how often are you doing a water change?

 

[lapin]

Since the tank is young and you have nutrients, things will grow. Cyano bacteria and some green algaes are the first to take advantage. Cyano likes white light and no flow.
You can increase the flow to that spot. Vac it off the sand bed. Over time it should go away.

 

[KennethJ24]

Cyano bacteria, odd it would show up on such a young tank, what are your PO4 NO3 levels and how often are you doing water

Cyano bacteria, odd it would show up on such a young tank, what are your PO4 NO3 levels and how often are you doing a water change?

Water changes have been 10% every 2 weeks on a 75 gallon. Nitrate has been 40 for a while now. Not sure on the PO4.

 

[KennethJ24]

Since the tank is young and you have nutrients, things will grow. Cyano bacteria and some green algaes are the first to take advantage. Cyano likes white light and no flow.
You can increase the flow to that spot. Vac it off the sand bed. Over time it should go away.

Thank you

 

[lapin]

Oh Howdy and welcome

 

[OceansinAZ]

I had a very similar issue. I would clean it out and within hours you would see it coming back. I got aggressive before it went to my rocks and now it is gone. Here is what I did. I pulled out what I could by hand. I then sucked water out using a gravel vacuum, concentrating on areas of the sand that were bad. I did a normal water change amount 10% for me. After I added the new water in, i dosed some Vibrant (bought off Amazon) and then covered the tank with a thick towel. I covered it for 3 days, only taking it off to feed my fish and then putting it right back on. After three days I took it off and slightly reduced my white lights. No more Cyno. It has been three weeks and no trace of it coming back.

 

[KennethJ24]

Th

I had a very similar issue. I would clean it out and within hours you would see it coming back. I got aggressive before it went to my rocks and now it is gone. Here is what I did. I pulled out what I could by hand. I then sucked water out using a gravel vacuum, concentrating on areas of the sand that were bad. I did a normal water change amount 10% for me. After I added the new water in, i dosed some Vibrant (bought off Amazon) and then covered the tank with a thick towel. I covered it for 3 days, only taking it off to feed my fish and then putting it right back on. After three days I took it off and slightly reduced my white lights. No more Cyno. It has been three weeks and no trace of it coming back.

Thank you for all the input. I’ll give that a try!

 

[Brandon42]

https://gyazo.com/534d08be6ef6924a926bab9387e88922


if it gets bad start adding this. it takes awhile to really notice, but once it starts working itll be a long time before you see cyano again. just make sure you get youre nutrients down before hand.

 

[KennethJ24]

https://gyazo.com/534d08be6ef6924a926bab9387e88922


if it gets bad start adding this. it takes awhile to really notice, but once it starts working itll be a long time before you see cyano again. just make sure you get youre nutrients down before hand.

Ok thank you for that but to ask a stupid question... what do you mean by getting my nutrients down?

 

[lapin]

Nutrients are your Nitrate and Phosphate levels.

 

[Brandon42]

the product i posted is a bacteria that will out compete the cyano bacteria (red algae youre seeing). But if you do not reduce the levels of nitrate and phosphate you wont get to the root cause of why its there in the first place. if you can get those levels down and dose that you should see the cyano go away after a month or so and if you can keep them down the cyano clean bacteria will stay present and keep any grow back at bay for a long time. i dealt with a lot of this in my first couple years of reefing and tried just about everything. this is the only product i ever had real success with. chemiclean works sorta, itll kill most of the cyano but your tank will suffer through the treatment and then the die off plus not killing all of it, it almost always comes right back. i tried vibrant as well for some time as someone else posted but only seemed to get diatoms from using it as the bottle said. im not sure it ever did anything for the cyano but i continued to dose it but far under what they recommend. carbon dosing may help speed up the cyano clean as well by giving the bacteria a larger food source.

 

[KennethJ24]

Nutrients are your Nitrate and Phosphate levels.

Ok, gotcha. I probably better invest in a more thorough water testing kit and I’m guessing more frequent and larger water changes get those two down. Thanks for all your help.