Silica test kit

pickupman66 · Oct 4, 2013

Does anyone have a silica test kit they would be wiling to Mail me? ill pay for the Flat rate USPS fee and have it back to you within a week. I think the black sand I used for my little office tank is leeching something into my water. with very seasoned rocks in the tank that are covered in mushrooms, I am getting some helacious bubbly cyano slimey growth. Long strings yucky stuff. I even changed 95% of the water Tuesday and still get the growth. Glass films up with green growth in just a few hours.

I tested the water before the change and my phosphate was .05 and nitrates were 20. BTW, that rock was 100% clean and came from my 180 on Tuesday morning. there was ZERO slime on it.

NanaReefer · Oct 4, 2013

Could use more info on your setup please

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pickupman66 · Oct 4, 2013

its a 5 gallon Fluval CHI. running AC20 on it with Purigen and Chemipure elite and the sponge that came with the AC20. 18x 3 watt Cree LEDs. setup for about a month. Rock was from my current tank and has been in a reef tank for multiple years. was in mine about a month (it came from another tank). the tank is in my office.

Previous rock I had in there coated up with slime and looked AWFUL. I figured it was new tank syndrome. in my frustration and disgust, i decided to pull two mushroom covered rocks from my tank and replace the previous rock. the mushroom rocks were completely covered with mushrooms and completely clean of any nuisance slime or algae.

The ONLY thing I can think of is the sand. It was not Tahitian moon from carib sea, but another brand I got from a local fish store. Wish I could remember the brand on it. Im starting to think it is the root of the issue.

Tomoko Schum · Oct 4, 2013

Why silica kit? Cyano is not known to use silica. We usually suspect silica for diatom...

pickupman66 · Oct 4, 2013

Maybe they are diatom. All I know is it is slimer and nasty yuck. Yet my water tests are in decent ranges. Something is causing it.

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Tomoko Schum · Oct 4, 2013

pickupman66 said:
Maybe they are diatom. All I know is it is slimer and nasty yuck. Yet my water tests are in decent ranges. Something is causing it.

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Slimy, bubbly yuck sounds like cyano. They don't need much nutrients to bloom since they can fix their own nitrogen by utilizing N2 in the air unlike other algae which need to have it in the nitrate form in water. Cyano just need a tiny amount of phosphate to proliferate. 0.05 ppm can certaily get them going.

Diatom looks more powdery/granular on sand and it seems to stick to rocks. Astreae snails will clean up diatom on rocks in short order.

pickupman66 · Oct 4, 2013

Yeah. Not dusty. Way more nasty than anything I've had in my 180 too.

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NanaReefer · Oct 4, 2013

From your description I suspect Cyanobacteria also. Siphon siphon siphon, less feedings, increase flow to affected areas and if all else fails ChemiClean

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pickupman66 · Oct 4, 2013

Hmmm... chemi-clean. I have some.... not a bad idea. Let me look into it. It's a very small system. No skimmer.

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NanaReefer · Oct 4, 2013

pickupman66 said:
Hmmm... chemi-clean. I have some.... not a bad idea. Let me look into it. It's a very small system. No skimmer.

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I've used it on my 8g...no problems at all. Ran a Whisper/air stone, no skimmer either

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pickupman66 · Oct 7, 2013

How much water change did you do and was it 24 or 48 hours?

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Tomoko Schum · Oct 7, 2013

I have used Red slime remover in the past. The instructions said that you can repeat the treatment in 48 hours. I did not need to repeat the treatment and I did a relatively large water change at that point.

HTH

Dowtish · Oct 7, 2013

Get some bacteria in a bottle. Micro-bacter 7 or microbe lift special blend and dose accordingly. It will clear up on its own over time being that its a new tank though adding the bacteria will speedy up the process.

pickupman66 · Oct 7, 2013

Chris, i thought about that. is it considered a new tank if all of the rock has been in a tank for several years? I dosed 1/2 of the spoon of Chemiclean this morning in the tank. I took out the Purigen and Chemi-pure and cleaned the filter sponge. I added an air stone to the tank as well. We will let it run like this for 24-48 hours then Ill do a 50% water change with new salt water.

Ill admit that I do have some small patches of it in my 180, but they stay VERY manageable and are declining. this stuff was way stringier than anything I have ever had.

Tomoko Schum · Oct 7, 2013

Stringy? I hope it's not dinoflagellate...

pickupman66 · Oct 7, 2013

Dowtish · Oct 7, 2013

When I setup my 30 gallon for dipping my acros, I went barebottom and used established rock from my DT, but I still had a 2-3 week outbreak of a brown stringy slimy algae. I dosed MB7 and added GFO and it was gone in 2 weeks.

pickupman66 · Oct 7, 2013

Hmmm... I have a bottle of mb7 I think but not sure of the age.

This yuck is frustrating me and my mushrooms.

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