What is going on with my tanktank

[BC1906]

I seem to be dealing with a serious cyano/algae problems. My tank, which has been up since December, has been dealing with a lot of cyanobacteria. I did the h2o2 test and the sample turned green. What was on my rocks and sand bed was Really dark red hairy algae looking. On my corals there would be bright red spots like a film over it. I treated with chemiclean twice. It seemed to take care of the cyano but now my tank is covered what looks to be green hair algae has it is not red anymore. Perhaps I was dealing with both cyano and green hair algae at that same time and the chemiclean only took care of the cyano. My question is, what can I do to make my tank clean and clear again. I do weekly water changes of about 5 gallons. I have tested my water supply that I get from my LFS and it has come back fine with 0 TDS. They use red sea pro salt. So far I have been battling one problem after another. The first 3 pictures is what I'm dealing with now. The last 3 is what I was dealing with a couple of weeks ago. I would scrub every piece of rock and coral with a toothbrush to clean it off and it would just come right back in matter of a few days.

Here is my setup/parameters

Biocube 29
Aquamaxx HOB-1
Rw4
Maxijet 900
Hydra twenty-six HD
Seachem matrix
Deep blue phosphate pads

Parameters:
SG: 1.026
Temp: 78
PH: 8
Amn: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 5ppm
Phos: 0
Cal: 480
Alk: 8.1
Mag: 1200

Lighting schedule:
I usually only ran my hydra at 50% blues and only about 10-15% white. Since getting the BTA I have dimmed the lights to 30% until it gets acclimated.

12pm lights on ramp to 2pm

7pm ramp down to 9pm lights off

Fish/corals:
Pair of clownfish
Yellow watchmen goby
Pistol shrimp
Peppermint shrimp
Variety of snails
2 red leg hermits
6 blue leg hermits
BTA
Acans
Torch
Duncan
Scoly
Frogspawn
Sun coral

I only feed my fish every other day and only half of a frozen mysis shrimp cube.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Salty1962]

Chemclean is only a bandaid to help you while your looking at other sources of the outbreak. The green algae is mostly from high Po4 or No3. You can put another water pump and point it towards the sandbed, that helps cyano allot. I would get a blenny, I use a Lawnmower, to help eat the GHA. You can remove as much as your can by hand until you get it under control. I hate to say it but it's part of a newer tank setup. It took me 2 mths. to get through mine.

 

[brandon429]

You need to:
See the peroxide thread in the macros forum then

Catch fish and motile animals and xfer to holding bucket with clean nice matched water to temp and salt levels

Put rocks in sep container and corals in another, have all containers ready.

Throw out the sand and put new sand that was heavily rinsed purely clean no clouding back in tank clean all cruddy surfaces like new and throw out all old water

Refill with crisp new sand and clean water. New bag of sand is cheap

Do the peroxide method on the rocks and clean them off in their own bucket then put back in tank

Reacclimate fish and motiles back into the tank and it doesn't recycle it's just clean. Adjust lights etc and touch up rocks again in a week. Number of tanks I've fixed exactly in that way in threads is 2264. If you are determined to keep the sand then blast rinse all of it under cold tap water and peroxide until it rinses clean. Everything regarding bacteria is factored above, that's why there are such large threads with that many tanks doing it. It's the most non bandaid action a person could undertake, all else a vast second place mode.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

You should throw some torochus snails in there. I have a new tank that ran over a few weeks , it was full of hair algae just like yours. Even the bare bottom of the tank had some growing, i threw around 12 torchus in there and they cleaned it out in 2 or 3 days. Even thought that won't solve an underlying issue, it will help visually.

 

[BC1906]

You need to:
See the peroxide thread in the macros forum then

Catch fish and motile animals and xfer to holding bucket with clean nice matched water to temp and salt levels

Put rocks in sep container and corals in another, have all containers ready.

Throw out the sand and put new sand that was heavily rinsed purely clean no clouding back in tank clean all cruddy surfaces like new and throw out all old water

Refill with crisp new sand and clean water. New bag of sand is cheap

Do the peroxide method on the rocks and clean them off in their own bucket then put back in tank

Reacclimate fish and motiles back into the tank and it doesn't recycle it's just clean. Adjust lights etc and touch up rocks again in a week. Number of tanks I've fixed exactly in that way in threads is 2264. If you are determined to keep the sand then blast rinse all of it under cold tap water and peroxide until it rinses clean. Everything regarding bacteria is factored above, that's why there are such large threads with that many tanks doing it. It's the most non bandaid action a person could undertake, all else a vast second place mode.

I want to change my sand and make it deeper since its only about a 1/4" deep and little deeper in some spots. If I take out all of my sand and replace it won't that restart my cycle?

Chemclean is only a bandaid to help you while your looking at other sources of the outbreak. The green algae is mostly from high Po4 or No3. You can put another water pump and point it towards the sandbed, that helps cyano allot. I would get a blenny, I use a Lawnmower, to help eat the GHA. You can remove as much as your can by hand until you get it under control. I hate to say it but it's part of a newer tank setup. It took me 2 mths. to get through mine.

I know chemiclean is just a quick fix but I'm not sure what else to change to help it. I don't over feed, my parameters are in check and I do regular water changes.

 

[Labridaedicted]

Any time I had an out break like that in my systems, I siphon out the algae when doing water changes. While tests may not show high nutrient levels, that is because it's all bound up in the tissue of the algae.

Doctor prescribes weekly water changes of 25% siphoning algae out. What kind of food do you use and do you rinse prior to feeding?

 

[brandon429]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/the-of...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

Sand bedding with no recycle

In a tank your size, a sandbed that cannot pass the drop test listed in that thread is a liability. This cleaning mode above starts you over and has all bacteria considerations at play for no cycle as stated

 

[brandon429]

See the macros forum here for how to get those frags algae free, threads are right up top

Work is what fixes your tank all at once in a couple hours. Any nutrient tricks, additives, animals are for prevention, not restoration, that's all done at once. The biological action that is taking place in your tank is called eutrophication, its not hard to arrest at all very quickly. we restore tanks all the time in the manner stated above as additional options for having this fixed by Friday. most of your corals can be lifted off the rocks and housed alone, they wont be part of the rock cleaning part. all the algae needs to be removed off your LR so that porosity and filtration abilities rebound, currently its a plug.

the surface microlayer of water around live rock is an active exchange zone for gasses, waste, nutrients and the algae is preventing its natural abilities in and around your live rock.

 

[BC1906]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/the-of...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

Sand bedding with no recycle

In a tank your size, a sandbed that cannot pass the drop test listed in that thread is a liability. This cleaning mode above starts you over and has all bacteria considerations at play for no cycle as stated

So your basically saying I should replace my sand bed and rinse the new sand first and then put it in the tank.

 

[brandon429]

only if you want to be that thorough, many wont. we at least wanted to show a bunch of tanks doing it though as reference. my own tank gets the sandbed washed out with tap water in that thread, and I do it a few times a year such that I never see any invader ever, of any kind. these thorough actions are not the normal way of doing things, and they gain abnormal results too (a reef that cannot be invaded)

its options in the toolbelt to consider...nearly every action we take in reefing such as dosing things like no pox, or carbon sources, or adding GFO to filters, is to make up for having an untouched nutrient sink somewhere in the system.

 

[BC1906]

only if you want to be that thorough, many wont. we at least wanted to show a bunch of tanks doing it though as reference. my own tank gets the sandbed washed out with tap water in that thread, and I do it a few times a year such that I never see any invader ever, of any kind. these thorough actions are not the normal way of doing things, and they gain abnormal results too (a reef that cannot be invaded)

its options in the toolbelt to consider...

I'm willing to try anything at this point. I'll try it out this weekend and see what happens

 

[brandon429]

wanted to add the risky parts, to watch out for. in tank rippings, we saw mistakes and losses come about in these ways its not too bad but something to consider:

-any form of kicking up waste from that sandbed into cloudiness that touches corals or fish, where it may have an ammonia component (but yours doesn't look that bad, mainly topical growths its not solid black spots we can see) but its something to mind. detritus is what causes the nutrient issues, and the losses if we don't predict where it is

some is in the live rock:
that's why we house the live rock for cleaning in a bucket of its own with nothing else, as you remove that algae some of the detritus will literally and slowly come out in the storage bucket too, with a white bottom youll see the pellets in time. don't house fish there...

-once we had a tank ripper rinse out his sandbed w tap, purely clean of waste, and then he didn't have enough mixed sw on hand for both the tank fill and the clean sandbed rinse, so that we don't put tap back in the tank. it still survived but was tap-mad

 

[BC1906]

wanted to add the risky parts, to watch out for. in tank rippings, we saw mistakes and losses come about in these ways its not too bad but something to consider:

-any form of kicking up waste from that sandbed into cloudiness that touches corals or fish, where it may have an ammonia component (but yours doesn't look that bad, mainly topical growths its not solid black spots we can see) but its something to mind. detritus is what causes the nutrient issues, and the losses if we don't predict where it is

some is in the live rock:
that's why we house the live rock for cleaning in a bucket of its own with nothing else, as you remove that algae some of the detritus will literally and slowly come out in the storage bucket too, with a white bottom youll see the pellets in time. don't house fish there...

-once we had a tank ripper rinse out his sandbed w tap, purely clean of waste, and then he didn't have enough mixed sw on hand for both the tank fill and the clean sandbed rinse, so that we don't put tap back in the tank. it still survived but was tap-mad

Should I try to salvage the sand I already have or just get fresh? What kind of sand should I look for? Also, if I am to get rid of my current sand, what's the best way to remove it?

 

[brandon429]

for the removal its the order listed above in that first post or in the thread, just rip it all out after the delicates have been stored elsewhere and throw it away. rinse the new, install.

I would get fresh sand its so cheap.