Algae Outbreak

[jimv]

I have a new algae outbreak in my tank that I am trying to get out of control. Its been about a week and unfortunately I have made several changes to my tank recently so I really don't know what has caused it. It looks like I have both Cyano and Diatoms starting to show up. This has not changed but is worth noting that the Diatoms are in the back left hand corner of the tank where the tank gets very little natural light and the Cyano is in the front right corner of the tank where it gets some natural light. Here are the changes I recently made:

1. cleaned out the back chambers of my RSM 130 for the first time since I set up the tank (8 months)
2. replaced the Chemi Pure Elite
3. replaced the purigen
4. cleaned the skimmer body
5. replaced the black sponge about a week after doing (1-4)
6. started dosing B-ionic 2 part (last 3 weeks)
7. have been increasing the intensity of my LED's
8. have been doing regular 10% weekly water changes

Interestingly my skimmer worked great for two days after I cleaned it and has not produced any foam since. I only had two fish (added a third after the outbreak started) and feed sparingly. My parameters are as follows:

Temp: stable at 80-81
Salinity: 1.025
PH: 8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
Calcium: 500
KH: 9 (was 7 before I started dosing)

My CUC consists of 10 blue leg hermit crabs and about 30 small cerith snails. I have tried adding other types of snails but the always parish and my crabs get new shells. I think the ceriths are too small for them to bother with.

The tank had little to know algae on the sand previous to this. To combat the issue I have cut the lights back to 6 hours but not reduced the intensity, did two water changes this week instead of 1, manually removed the red algae but it returned the next day, cranked up my mp 10 and took a turkey baster to the rocks to see if it would get my skimmer going (it did not).

I am not really sure how to proceed from here. I'm about to dump the stock skimmer but it was working well enough for me before.

 

[ReefingFun]

Could be a combination of things rly. Did you test your RO water? Howmany TDS is coming out?

If you cleaned the skimmer good, like a total scrub, the skimmer needs to be dialed in again and could take a while.
Increasing the intensity of the lights could play a role aswell.

I would hole off on waterchanges till you know your RO is good. Otherwise you just introduce more nutrients.

I tried to look up B-Ionic to see whats in it, but my internet is too crap on my ipad to do an extensive search, so not sure if it contains any nutrients.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Bearjohnson]

I don't see any Magnesium numbers. Do you test for mag?

 

[jimv]

Could be a combination of things rly. Did you test your RO water? Howmany TDS is coming out?

If you cleaned the skimmer good, like a total scrub, the skimmer needs to be dialed in again and could take a while.
Increasing the intensity of the lights could play a role aswell.

I would hole off on waterchanges till you know your RO is good. Otherwise you just introduce more nutrients.

I tried to look up B-Ionic to see whats in it, but my internet is too crap on my ipad to do an extensive search, so not sure if it contains any nutrients.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

I have an in line tds meter on my RODI unit and I have zero tds coming out of the DI unit.

 

[DaveK]

...
6. started dosing B-ionic 2 part (last 3 weeks)
....

This is the first place I'd start looking. The other things you did to the system do not usually cause algae outbreak issues.

This gets us to the question, what made you think that you needed to dose anything at all? Generally you dose something like B-ionic because the corals are consuming calcium faster than water changes can replace it. This usually only happens when a tank has massive amounts of fast growing corals.

It's very easy to get into chasing numbers trying to get the tank "just right". Don't fall into that trap.

Here is what I would do. Test the tank and the newly mixed water your using for a water change. See if there are any major differences. You want to test SG, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, and pH. Since your having an algae issue also test nitrate and phosphate. You are not looking for a perfect match, but the numbers should be within normal ranges, except that nitrate and phosphate in new water should be 0.

If you see the newly mixed water off, then you should either supplement it then, or use a better brand of salt. If the old water is off, then you need to look into it's causes.

Low magnesium can be an issue because this can make it difficult to maintain the calcium and alkalinity balance. In other words, you got to have this level correct before you mess with the others.

Now if the old water is being depleted of calcium, or the alkalinity is low, you may need to dose B-ionic.

As for the algae outbreak, it's really not too bad. Keep after it though. What ever you do, do not use one of the read algae control products. Unless you fix the actual problem, you'll only replace one problem algae with another one.

 

[jimv]

I have don't have a Magnesium test kit and have never had the water tested for it so I have don't what those numbers are. I will order one and test it out soon. I should have checked to see if the lfs tests for Mag. I am currently using some Kent marine reef salt but I am almost done with my last bag so I picked up a bucket of Red Sea Coral Pro. I will start using that in the next couple of weeks when the Kent salt runs out. Hopefully that helps with my levels. I started dosing B-ionic because my PH and KH were low(PH 7.8, KH 7). My calcium has always been fine (500 to 520) and it has remained stable even with the extra dosing. All my other levels are fine but maybe that is because the algae is using up the excess. I guess I could have inadvertently started a mini cycle by over cleaning the tank.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Anytime I see cyano, 1st thing I think is ... what do you feed, how much do you feed & how often do you feed?

In my tank, anytime I see a bit of cyano, it's because I have been overfeeding. This is just one element ... but a good one to start looking at ... excess nutrients.

 

[jimv]

Anytime I see cyano, 1st thing I think is ... what do you feed, how much do you feed & how often do you feed?

In my tank, anytime I see a bit of cyano, it's because I have been overfeeding. This is just one element ... but a good one to start looking at ... excess nutrients.

I feed the fish only what they will consume once a day and target feed the LPS twice a week (I feel its only what they consume but its hard to tell). I know the CUC like to steel the food from them so I don't think a lot extra get into the tank.

I probably should have mentioned that I had another major change. About two months ago I changed out my stock lighting for LED's. I have 27 3 what Cree LED's (18 royal blue and 9 warm white), this is supposed to mimic a 20,000k metal halide. I have been slowly increasing the intensity from 30% to just over 50%. I did not what to cut back on the intensity because it took me so long to acclimate my corals to it so I cut back how many hours they lights where on to combat the outbreak instead.

 

[Kremlin]

my ss starfish eats diatoms and keeps my sand clean. i know some people dont like them, but mine does a good job.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

What are you feeding & how much? When you say only what they will consume... how much is that? I feed my 6 fish one cube frozen every other day and keep nori hung daily for my tang, I am sure I could feed 3 cubes daily & they would keep eating non stop, in fact I have never seen them stop eating, I am not sure how much I would have to feed to see this...

See what others think... I just always start with nutrients when I see cyano (red slime) ...

 

[ReefingFun]

+1 to what Nano said rly. I seem to have the exact same feeding schedule as Nano for the same number of fish. At first I fed my clowns almost 1/2 cube a day for just them, cause they really can keep eating. Same with my tang. I noticed a big cyano outbreak and reduced the the feeding like said above. I still have cyano now and then, but far less than before.

I strongly believe in direct nutrients reduction, like cutting the feeding amount etc.

 

[jimv]

What are you feeding & how much? When you say only what they will consume... how much is that? I feed my 6 fish one cube frozen every other day and keep nori hung daily for my tang, I am sure I could feed 3 cubes daily & they would keep eating non stop, in fact I have never seen them stop eating, I am not sure how much I would have to feed to see this...

See what others think... I just always start with nutrients when I see cyano (red slime) ...

I feed the small clown 6-10 1mm spectrum pellets a day (he will not eat flake) and the big clown 2-5 prime reef flakes (he will not eat pellets). I feed them 1 at a time until they start slowing down, once a day. I target feed the coral half a cube of mysis or brine once a week.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

That doesn't sound like overfeeding... are you running any powerheads (like a vortech mp10) or just the stock pumps?

Increasing flow will help...

 

[jimv]

That doesn't sound like overfeeding... are you running any powerheads (like a vortech mp10) or just the stock pumps?

Increasing flow will help...

I have a mp10 running in reef crest mode at 50%. I moved the pump to the front of the tank so the flow would be directly on the algae and switched it to nutrient transport mode. I increased the mp10 to 60% and the tank started to look like a snow globe. I ran it like that for a couple of days with no change.

 

[jimv]

I took Glenn's advice. I did not really increase my flow but I did redirect it a bit. I realized when I did my big cleaning I had to remove the pumps and I had both of the return nozzles pointing up. I straightened one out and also moved my MP10 from the left side of my RSM130 to the right side of the tank like most people have it. the left side of the tank faces a cabinet and I placed it on that side to keep my kids from pulling it off. This appears to have wiped out the Diatoms overnight. The red algae is still not budging though. I am going to crank up the MP10 again and see if that helps.