Unreal algae "infestation"

leicaguy · Mar 13, 2023

I have kept aquariums since the early 70's, from 10 to 1000 gallons, I have never had an outbreak of algae like I just witnessed in a 4 years old 100g reef. Started about 3 weeks ago thought it was cyano treated with chemi clean. Started dosing microbacter 7 The outbreak looked resolved, then massive amounts of brown string algae that looked like big ropes, invaded on everything,
Corals /fish emergently placed in another tank, fish looked stressed, manually removed as much of the algae as i could, it returned with avengence placed a UV in the tank, decreased light intensity (radion) , next day brown bubbling clumps floating on the surface, it was grainy to the touch and truly smelly almost like rotten fish. Some clumps now a dark grey snotty apperance. We took out the rock and scrubbed with salt water, scrubbedout the glass, manually removed as much as possible and put an eheim filter in filled with floss to help remove floating debris. Next day it was present again, manually removed as much as I could decided to use an algaecide, will watch keep lights out maintain UV . Any other suggestions, wife wants to break it all down clean with bleach.
I have had dino and algae in a tanks but this was like dino on steroids, any other ideas what this could be, should I break it all down? anything else i shuld do ?

srobertb · Mar 13, 2023

Readings? Nitrates, phosphates, etc. I’d add airstones as sometimes, depending on what they are, these blooms can suck the oxygen out of the tank. Watching Ph can help too.

Any changes in the tank?

leicaguy · Mar 13, 2023

srobertb said:
Readings? Nitrates, phosphates, etc. I’d add airstones as sometimes, depending on what they are, these blooms can suck the oxygen out of the tank. Watching Ph can help too.

Any changes in the tank?

1.023, 78,8.1 to 8.4, nitrate 1.0, po4 0.2, 450, 1250 and the strings are back, yes I am using an air stone

Spare time · Mar 13, 2023

Can you show a pic in white light?

Jason_MrFrags · Mar 13, 2023

Even with all that algae po4 is high.
Any water changes?

bushdoc · Mar 13, 2023

I have a suspicion that Chemi Clean, which is almost certainly an antibiotic ( erythromycin) altered bacterial flora of your tank and initiated those changes. I am not a big fan of using algicide either. Prevention is better then cure. I tend to agree with your wife's opinion, that braking the tank down is next step, however pictures speak louder then words, so show us how your aquarium looks like.

vabben · Mar 13, 2023

bushdoc said:
I have a suspicion that Chemi Clean, which is almost certainly an antibiotic ( erythromycin) altered bacterial flora of your tank and initiated those changes. I am not a big fan of using algicide either. Prevention is better then cure. I tend to agree with your wife's opinion, that braking the tank down is next step, however pictures speak louder then words, so show us how your aquarium looks like.

I have to agree, I believe I had cyano and tried correcting the issue naturally but ultimately used Chemiclean to hit it with a hammer. Turns out it was actually dinos, I feel like the Chemiclean was steroids for the dino, because it went into straight killing mode. Started growing on my corals killing them.

srobertb · Mar 13, 2023

vabben said:
I have to agree, I believe I had cyano and tried correcting the issue naturally but ultimately used Chemiclean to hit it with a hammer. Turns out it was actually dinos, I feel like the Chemiclean was steroids for the dino, because it went into straight killing mode. Started growing on my corals killing them.

Can you give it time? Maybe some darkness and some off-the-shelf bacteria strains to balance things out followed by some UV? I hate to see a tank that old scrapped.

leicaguy · Mar 17, 2023

so i blacked out the tank for 3 days, took out corals and placed in a nurse tank, i used an algaecide, all the mess has gone

Dan_P · Mar 17, 2023

leicaguy said:
I have kept aquariums since the early 70's, from 10 to 1000 gallons, I have never had an outbreak of algae like I just witnessed in a 4 years old 100g reef. Started about 3 weeks ago thought it was cyano treated with chemi clean. Started dosing microbacter 7 The outbreak looked resolved, then massive amounts of brown string algae that looked like big ropes, invaded on everything,
Corals /fish emergently placed in another tank, fish looked stressed, manually removed as much of the algae as i could, it returned with avengence placed a UV in the tank, decreased light intensity (radion) , next day brown bubbling clumps floating on the surface, it was grainy to the touch and truly smelly almost like rotten fish. Some clumps now a dark grey snotty apperance. We took out the rock and scrubbed with salt water, scrubbedout the glass, manually removed as much as possible and put an eheim filter in filled with floss to help remove floating debris. Next day it was present again, manually removed as much as I could decided to use an algaecide, will watch keep lights out maintain UV . Any other suggestions, wife wants to break it all down clean with bleach.
I have had dino and algae in a tanks but this was like dino on steroids, any other ideas what this could be, should I break it all down? anything else i shuld do ?

Pictures?