What is this?

[tablesalt]

Tank is 6 months old.
In the past 3 weeks or so this stuff has been creeping up on me. I scrubbed it off of the rocks with a tooth brush 3 days ago and it's back with a vengeance. What is this and what should I be doing to treat it?

 

[mcarroll]

Guessing until we have more info. But looks like cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates.

Can you post your most recent set of test results for everything including nitrates and phosphates?

Also tell us about the system and how it is put together and running.

 

[tablesalt]

Guessing until we have more info. But looks like cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates.

Can you post your most recent set of test results for everything including nitrates and phosphates?

Also tell us about the system and how it is put together and running.

I'm at work now but as of this morning I'm at 1.023 salinity and between 78-78.8 degrees steady. I'll try to measure more tonight. It's around 45 gallons with a 3 gallon macro algae fuge on the back. I've had Cyano and/or Dino and treated with chemi clean a few months back. I tried a treatment of the stuff again and nothing happened. I scrubbed the rocks and vacuumed out what I could and it came back within 2 days... even thicker. I'm going out of town next week and am going to have to try just leaving it alone to fix itself... Corals (leathers and Zoas) have been growing well (most have doubled in size in past 6 months). My leathers are open and look happy ATM.

 

[mcarroll]

If you're doing any filtration like bio pellets or carbon dosing or excessive bio media then take those things off-line before you leave. The most common cause for our breaks like this is actually nutrient starvation.

If you're lucky some green algae maybe grilling when you get back. If the bloom goes toward the dinos, it can get very bad but does not always do so. Restoring some nutrients to the system should make the Dino action less likely in the green algae option or more likely, but it depends on the current state of things.

 

[ReefersDelite]

Plus 1 on the cyano and UWC Vibrant killed mine back 80% in 24 hours and within 3 days it was all gone but find the source first.

 

[mrtian97]

I maybe in the same situation, I had green ‘algae’ which I believe cyano and red cyano that grows on sand bed. Every day I blow it with turkey baster, they dissolved but then came back the next day. I dosed chemiclean, the green cyano went away, but the red stays.
I have low nutrient system, should I increase my dose of amino acids (I am using Red Sea Energy A and B) to get rid of the red cyano?

Thanks