This is diatoms? Fighting the Ugly tank

[LagunaGlide]

First some info. 240Gal tank been supporting fish life since early march '18. No corals in tank yet.

I think I am experiencing new/ugly tank syndrome, but wanted some thoughts. The pics below are what I have going on. Any bit of sand that is exposed to light has this brown algae on it which I believe to be diatoms. I had a nitrate problem and have gotten that under control, but since the nitrates came down the issue seems to have gotten worse. I have been less hoping the tangs would clean up algae on the rocks, and they have done a great job, but the sand just gets worse. I did a siphon/sand cleaning about 2 weeks ago. I have reduced my white light cycle about 2 hours per day. My CC is kind of slim right now as a good bit of my snails died off before this became an issue.

I am just curious if I keep waiting it out, or if there is something I can check/do to help get rid of it.

 

[sfin52]

What’s your phosphates & nitrates.

 

[Maggie321]

With a tank that new, it's certainly a case of the uglies. My suspicion is, the diatoms are sucking in your nitrates lowering your readable numbers. Keep going with 10 to 15% Wc's weekly. As far as cleaning the sand goes, I wouldn't cram the siphon down deep, but only skim over the surface to get the loose stuff on top. Feed sparingly and if you rinse your frozen foods, it will remove a ton of phosphates before they make it in your tank.

 

[LagunaGlide]

What’s your phosphates & nitrates.

I will test tomorrow.

With a tank that new, it's certainly a case of the uglies. My suspicion is, the diatoms are sucking in your nitrates lowering your readable numbers. Keep going with 10 to 15% Wc's weekly. As far as cleaning the sand goes, I wouldn't cram the siphon down deep, but only skim over the surface to get the loose stuff on top. Feed sparingly and if you rinse your frozen foods, it will remove a ton of phosphates before they make it in your tank.

I have been "draining" off excess "juice" when I thaw it as I am not sure how you could rinse brine shrimp without just washing away the brine. I use a mix of frozen brine and mysis currently. How do you rinse frozen food?

 

[Maggie321]

I use this for my mysis rinse. Thaw in RODI, drain and pour some RODI through the net.

 

[mcarroll]

I'm curious what you have been using for a "get started" guide as you have set up your tank and gotten it to this point? Is there any chance you've been using a particular book or other resource or are you "going by the internet"?

240Gal tank been supporting fish life since early march '18. No corals in tank yet.

How long has the tank been set up?

Was live rock or dead rock used?

Any bit of sand that is exposed to light has this brown algae on it which I believe to be diatoms.

Diatoms if you're lucky...do they go away somewhat or all the way at night or are they 100% consistent day and night?

...let's try to figure it out for sure.

Start with this:

1. put a sample of your algae into a vial
2. shake it vigorously to break it up
3. place it under a light and leave it
4. if it coagulates into a snotty mass after a while, you have dinoflagellates

You can put another sample into hydrogen peroxide to test for cyano....sometimes they bloom together. If there's cyano it will bubble quite a bit. Other algae like this will not.

I had a nitrate problem and have gotten that under control, but since the nitrates came down the issue seems to have gotten worse.

How was this handled?

What have your NO3 and PO4 numbers been before and after the nitrate problem? And what are they on your most recent tests?

FWIW, balancing your nutrients is a better move that removing nutrients...especially on a new tank.

Do you know what led to the nitrate spike, BTW?

Also, do you run activated carbon? If these prove to be dino's, they can be very toxic....your snails dying off kinda hints at this as well.

Last thing: Do you see any pods? Are they moving vigorously or sitting still or moving slow like they are stunned? Your remaining snails might be acting the same way.

Pods and snails are good bellwethers as they graze on things like dino's and diatoms all the time. When they run into toxic ones, you can tell.

 

[mcarroll]

If you're up for some reading, start going through some of the info on the first post here:
Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?


(And I'll cross my fingers that the tests just come back telling you diatoms.)

 

[WVNed]

My tank is about the same age as yours.
Apr 11 I decide to convert my FOWLR to keep some corals. I went from 25 to 300 watts of LED.

No algae or brown goop.

Today

My whole sand bed looked like this. This is the lowest flow section of the tank and it is still heavy there. It is clearing out in other places. It doesn't grow at all in shaded areas.
It hasn't bothered my livestock.
Cutting the lights back and increasing flow will knock it down but I think it has to run it's course.

 

[WVNed]

Turned up my pumps overnight and a lot of it goes away.

 

[sfin52]

It goes away at night and comes back during the day is that correct

 

[WVNed]

It goes away when I turn the flow up and comes back when I turn it down. It does not go away at night. It grows slower at night or if I turn the lights down. I ran high flow for 3 days and got rid of it but made some stuff mad. I haven't found a happy medium yet.
Green algae just appeared in the tank 3 days ago.

 

[LagunaGlide]

What’s your phosphates & nitrates.

I'm curious what you have been using for a "get started" guide as you have set up your tank and gotten it to this point? Is there any chance you've been using a particular book or other resource or are you "going by the internet"?



How long has the tank been set up?

Was live rock or dead rock used?



Diatoms if you're lucky...do they go away somewhat or all the way at night or are they 100% consistent day and night?

...let's try to figure it out for sure.

Start with this:

1. put a sample of your algae into a vial
2. shake it vigorously to break it up
3. place it under a light and leave it
4. if it coagulates into a snotty mass after a while, you have dinoflagellates

You can put another sample into hydrogen peroxide to test for cyano....sometimes they bloom together. If there's cyano it will bubble quite a bit. Other algae like this will not.



How was this handled?

What have your NO3 and PO4 numbers been before and after the nitrate problem? And what are they on your most recent tests?

FWIW, balancing your nutrients is a better move that removing nutrients...especially on a new tank.

Do you know what led to the nitrate spike, BTW?

Also, do you run activated carbon? If these prove to be dino's, they can be very toxic....your snails dying off kinda hints at this as well.

Last thing: Do you see any pods? Are they moving vigorously or sitting still or moving slow like they are stunned? Your remaining snails might be acting the same way.

Pods and snails are good bellwethers as they graze on things like dino's and diatoms all the time. When they run into toxic ones, you can tell.

Alright so I did some tests
API Nitrate tests between 10-20ppm
Red Sea Nitrate High range tests at around 8ppm
Red sea Phos tests at .08

My was live rock, and was in this same system before. I bought a system that was setup. It got torn down for a few months, but the rock always stayed in sump with saltwater with heat and flow. When it was time to set tank back up I did about 80% water change on the sump before filling the tank with fresh water.

I honestly do not know if it goes away at night. I will check tonight.

Nitrates were around 80ppm right after setup. It took me some time to get them down with water changes, chaeto, and getting the skimmer up and running. They are down drastically from what they were. When I feed I try to drain off excess water and goo from my frozen foods, but I am going to start rinsing as well.

I have some carbon running in the system currently. I need to change it soon, and change my filter media which gets done about once a week.

As far as snails and pods they are in the tank and active. The only snails I have lost seem to be ones that couldn't self right themselves and become food for the hermits. The hermit population seems to be fine. The tangs can be seen eating from the brown crap on the sand not and again.

 

[kecked]

Bye

 

[LagunaGlide]

That looks like Dinos but you need a scope to be sure. Since it goes away when light are out and comes back and make snotty threads and bubbles that is sure Dino like behavior. Go over to the dino thread NOW before it gets out of hand. What does the Phosphate level look like as you got pleny of Nitrate at 80ppm! Really need more like 10ppm. If Your Phosphate is on the ground dose that and it will come down on its own. Not posting more here. See Dino thread.

Eh... I said WAS at 80ppm after setup. Much lower now as my test results (first part of my post) indicates. I never said it goes away at night and the slurry test is still in progress. Thanks for not posting more here.

 

[buganddoug]

I would raise your alkalinity close to 10 kdh .That's Always work for me. Every time I see this in my club I find that the kdh is to low. So when the club member gets it around 10 kdh there tanks start looking better. Befor you know it you'll get rid of that algae.
I keep my 265 around 9.0-10 kdh and my sand bed is very clean .

 

[Mag]

I had the same problem! Then I found out that on every water change you strip out the bad bacteria as well as the good bacteria. So what I did is add some in with every water change. Try that and see what happens having good bacteria is beneficial to your tank

 

[mcarroll]

Nitrates were around 80ppm right after setup. It took me some time to get them down with water changes, chaeto, and getting the skimmer up and running. They are down drastically from what they were.

Had you been tracking phosphates through that "descent" from 80 ppm of nitrate?

At this point I'd have to speculate that while things look very good by the numbers right now, I think 80 ppm is a LOT of nitrogen fuel for your chaeto and as a result your tank may have been severely phosphate limited by your efforts to get nitrates to drop. Very likely, IMO.

Alright so I did some tests
API Nitrate tests between 10-20ppm
Red Sea Nitrate High range tests at around 8ppm
Red sea Phos tests at .08

How long would you say these numbers have been typical and stable? Especially PO4 as we haven't heard as much about that history yet.

 

[LagunaGlide]

Had you been tracking phosphates through that "descent" from 80 ppm of nitrate?

At this point I'd have to speculate that while things look very good by the numbers right now, I think 80 ppm is a LOT of nitrogen fuel for your chaeto and as a result your tank may have been severely phosphate limited by your efforts to get nitrates to drop. Very likely, IMO.



How long would you say these numbers have been typical and stable? Especially PO4 as we haven't heard as much about that history yet.

If I am being honest I don't check it that often . I haven't had any algae issues, and my chaeto is growing well. I have a little GHA in my sump, but it's very little. The last time I tested it was the same as this test at .08. That test was before I dropped the Nitrates. I didn't think to check as I was lowering Nitrates because I was just focused on getting those down. The chaeto has been growing more since I got the nitrates down, but maybe the chaeto and my efforts have worked together and the chaeto isn't using much Phos

 

[mcarroll]

My thinking was that for algae to use up 80 ppm of nitrates in growth, it could require about 0.50 ppm PO4 to do it...way more than you had.

However, it's always fun to see how theory and practice diverge...look at how chaeto responds to nutrients:

Effect of nitrogen and phosphorus supply on growth, chlorophyll content and tissue composition of the macroalga Chaetomorpha linum (O.F. Mull), Kutz, in a Mediterranean Coastal Lagoon
Article home http://hdl.handle.net/2445/32444
PDF via http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/scimar.2002.66n4355

N to P ratio in the algae's tissue went down on all tests where phosphate was (also) added. It may be interesting to note that N to P inside the algae only went below redfield (16:1) when only phosphates were dosed.

However, when nitrates were dosed without phosphates (line #2) the chaeto's N to P ratio doubled.

The deal is that chaeto appears to have a pretty large capacity to absorb and hold extra N and/or P for later use or release.

So I guess your chaeto is probably where all your nitrates went, in spite of not having nearly enough phosphates.

If you throw out that chaeto and get new, you might just be able to throw away your problem....or a good chunk of the problem, anyway. At least harvest it down to a golfball size.

 

[ALRUI]

if it coagulates into a snotty mass after a while, you have dinoflagellates

Great test but how long is "after a while"? Please advise. Thanks!