Fighting algae with bacteria - Test

ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
I've been having an algae outbreak for the past month or so. At first my parameters were fine, phos 0 and nitrate <10ppm. Though since 3 weeks ago they been climbing steadily.
I did WC almost twice a weak to get the nitrates down and remove the algae manually, without much success.

My RSM 250 mainly consists out of dry rock and very little LR, so I believe the bacteria culture ain't seeded enough yet, while my life stock increased.
So now I'm going to start a test with the Red Sea Marine Care program. First I'm going to introduce more bacteria into the aquarium with the "Reef Mature Pro Kit". Afterwards I'm going to follow it up with the "NO3:pO4-X" management program.
I will try to starve the algae out this way, as the other ways proved ineffective for me.

More info on the program can be found here:
http://www.redseafish.com/index.aspx?id=4404

Vivid Aquariums opinion about the product:
[video=youtube;OYtnRXIK03U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYtnRXIK03U[/video]


I thought it would be interesting to keep a log and post results on the forum, so others might see how effective or ineffective this "road" will be.
Important note: I will keep doing the normal husbandry while following this program!

Day 1 - 29/07/2013

Started with the recommended dosing of the Reef Mature Pro Kit.
The mentioned dosage is for my RSM 250 so 250L ~55g

Dosages:
- Added 20ml of KH-Coralline Gro to raise KH from 7.6 to 8.4
- Added 50ml of Nitro Bac
- Added 25ml of Bacto-Start
- Added 7.5ml of NO3:pO4-X

Parameters:

Ammonia:0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate: 16
KH: 7.5
pH: 8.1

This is after 2 days of not cleaning. It grow fairly fast!





Day 2 - 30/07/2013

Dosages:

- Added 25ml of Nitro Bac
- Added 7.5 ml of NO3:pO4-X

Parameters:

Ammonia: 0.2 spike in the morning, back to 0.0 again tonight
Nitrite: 0.05 ( I believe it spiked in the morning as well)
Nitrate: 10 (down from 16 the day before)
KH: 8.5
pH: 8.1

According to the manual, there would be a bloom of green algae the coming days. Sure enough it already started. (I cleaned everything yesterday before starting with the program)
So if you ever try this, do not be alarmed by the sudden outbreak. It's mentioned clearly in the manual as a normal stage of the program.


 
Last edited:
nivek

nivek

Well-Known Member
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RS Ambassador
Looks like you and I like have the same approach when experimenting with our tanks :)
 
reefer gladness

reefer gladness

Well-Known Member
I don't see much of a clean-up crew there. There would be at least 15 snails on the glass with that much algae if that was my tank.

You sure you have a sufficient CUC for that size tank? I only saw 1 ornamental shrimp.
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
reefer gladness said:
I don't see much of a clean-up crew there. There would be at least 15 snails on the glass with that much algae if that was my tank.

You sure you have a sufficient CUC for that size tank? I only saw 1 ornamental shrimp.
Click to expand...

I do not have a lot of CuC indeed, well spotted. However I do not believe adding more CuC would fix my algae problem. I'm more of a "fix the problem at the root" kind of guy. Adding CuC would reduce the algae indeed, but wouldn't do anything about the root of the problem, which is the nutrients. As long as I don't get those nutrients under control, they will keep on growing, CuC or no CuC.

Thanks for the advice though.
 
reefer gladness

reefer gladness

Well-Known Member
ReefingFun said:
I do not have a lot of CuC indeed, well spotted. However I do not believe adding more CuC would fix my algae problem. I'm more of a "fix the problem at the root" kind of guy. Adding CuC would reduce the algae indeed, but wouldn't do anything about the root of the problem, which is the nutrients. As long as I don't get those nutrients under control, they will keep on growing, CuC or no CuC.

Thanks for the advice though.
Click to expand...

I think I get what you're trying to accomplish but you're probably fighting an uphill battle. It looks like your tank is fairly young and it doesn't look like you have a lot of LR in there so relying anaerobic bacteria to do so much work might not be realistic.

Good luck any way you go though. There's certainly more than one way to maintain healthy tank parameters.
 
Mike Johnson

Mike Johnson

Well-Known Member
reefer gladness has taken the words out of my mouth in each of his posts. IMO opinion there will be algae growth in any healthy tank and a CUC is a necessity not an option. More live rock will help. And, I would like to add one more thing to the lack of a complete nitrogen cycle and a future problem waiting to happen; the sand bed looks to be just the right depth to be a nitrate colonizing factory. Less than the minimum of 3" and a lot more than 1/2".
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
Mike Johnson said:
reefer gladness has taken the words out of my mouth in each of his posts. IMO opinion there will be algae growth in any healthy tank and a CUC is a necessity not an option. More live rock will help. And, I would like to add one more thing to the lack of a complete nitrogen cycle and a future problem waiting to happen; the sand bed looks to be just the right depth to be a nitrate colonizing factory. Less than the minimum of 3" and a lot more than 1/2".
Click to expand...

You are right that there will always be algae growth, but there is a limit tbh. You don't want a totally overgrow tank every couple of days, so imo you need to address the root of the problem. CuC will help, but I simply don't believe in CuC being a remedy. That's my opinion btw, not a statement that it won't work.

When you have a constant headache, don't you go to the doctor to find out what the cause is, instead of tanking aspirins and ignoring the "why"? I do the same with my tank. CuC is the aspirin in this case. It smooths over the problem, but it doesn't completely remove it.

I completely agree with you both that this way could be ineffective, but this is why it says "test" in the title. I want to test several ways and see which one is the most effective in my case.

About the substrate, it actually was more than 3", well it still is in the back. Though my goby just dug away the front and moved most of the sand to the back. I need to redo it soon as he is digging in a lot of rocks in the back :>

The reason why I am doing this now, is to try out an article. In the article they stated an experiment of dosing bacteria to a 90g tank with only DR, when the tank was 9 months old. It was logged and in the end they had success. Now I'm trying to see if I can do the same, with keeping up the husbandry, but adding more help to create a LN system.

I do appreciate your input though! There certainly are many ways/views on the subject and I love discussing them, so cheers!
 
nivek

nivek

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RS Ambassador
I did exactly the same thing on my tank with the Prodibio program and hit ULNS (Ultra Low Nutrient System) and am now maintaining my tank using this system. I feed my fish twice a day and only need to clean my glass around once in 2-3 weeks. There are only 4 turbo snails in my DT (36" x 18" x 18") and all readings are at 0. Have actually started with the same system on my pico.

Forgot to add that I have since removed my phosphate reactor and only have a skimmer in my sump.
 
Bearjohnson

Bearjohnson

Well-Known Member
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RS Ambassador
There are many ways to achieve success in this passion/addiction of ours and I think it's great that some of you have thought "out of the box" so to speak.

Rock on :biker
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
Day 4 - 01/08/13

Dosage:

- Added 7.5ml NO3:pO4-X

Parameters:

- Ammonia: 0
- Nitrate:14
- Nitrite: 0.1 (gone up a tad since last time)
- Phosphates: 0.02 (gone down)

The algae are still the same as last so no new update on that.
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
Been off to go diving for 3 days, so couldn't post results during that time. I'm lucky enough to have a great mother in law that is into the hobby and came to dose the NO3:pO4-X every day and do the tests!

Day 5 - 02/08/13

Dosage:

- Added 7.5ml NO3:pO4-X

Parameters:

- Ammonia: 0
- Nitrite: 0.2 (spiked again in the morning, was 0 in the evening)
- Nitrate: 16
- Phosphate: 0.02


Day 6 - 03/08/13

Dosage:

- Added 7.5ml NO3:pO4-X

Parameters:

- Ammonia: 0
- Nitrite: 0.1
- Nitrate: 16
- Phosphate: 0.02



Day 7 - 04/08/13

Dosage:

- Added 7.5ml NO3:pO4-X

Did a 5% WC as instructed!

Parameters(taken before the WC!):

- Ammonia: 0
- Nitrite: 0.0
- Nitrate: 12
- Phosphate: 0.02


Will include pics tomorrow as lights in the tank were already off when we came home.
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
As promised, some pics!
It actually seems like it's working. I didn't clean the windows since the start of the test and if you look back at day 1, it was totally covered in all kinds of algae.
Now the algae and diatoms are slowly getting faint in color and are dying off, as you can see on the glass.





Look at the side walls on this one and compare it to the shots taken on day 1 to see the big difference.



Day 8 - 05/08/13

Dosage:

- Added 7.5 ml NO3:pO4-X

Parameters:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 8
Phos: 0
pH: 8.2
KH: 8.4
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
Hmm no negative changes on my acropora, hammer nor the clam. I did notice that my frogspawn takes longer to open up in the morning and is a tad less extended, but the change is fairly minimal.

Ill try to take some pics tomorrow, but I'm no Kevin when it comes to taking good pictures ;)

Omw home now with 2 new additions: lobophyllia and porite sp. :)




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
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