brown algae and cycling

[cpittmx]

I have had a 75 gallon cycling for about 7 weeks now. Actually it was just set-up with sump running etc for about 2 weeks then I added 50 lbs of live rock and a fresh shrimp to contribute the ammonia. So the actually cycle started about 5 weeks ago. About a week and a half ago LHS tested water and said ammonia was on way down and nitrites were prob just peaking. He said I would be seeing a lot of brown algae soon. I have not seen the brown algae yet. Is this something you will always see or if ammonia and nitrites are back down to zero are you good to add fish regardless of whether you went through the brown algae (diatoms) phase?

[stingythingy45]

Eventually everyone has a diatom bloom in a new tank.
As long as the tank went through the"cycle" there's no need to wait for diatoms to add fish.

[jherrin215]

What about adding fish while there is still the diatom bloom? Is this ok?Any idea how long this bloom usually lasts??

[stingythingy45]

Originally Posted by jherrin215

What about adding fish while there is still the diatom bloom? Is this ok?Any idea how long this bloom usually lasts??

That's fine.
They generally last a week or two.Just make sure not to use tap water.
Diatoms need silicates and most tap water is full of it.

[DC_40gallon]

Shoot, our 40 gallon breeder tank is months into its maturity and we still have diatoms or at least I think we do. It's brown algae that dusts the surface of my sugar sand. It gets really light in color throughout the night and the longer the lights are on the deeper the color gets.

It only gets on my sand too, not rocks or anything else.

It's rather strange, any advice would be appreciated!

[jherrin215]

That's what mine does, whenever the lights first come on in the morning, you can barely see any, but as the day goes on it gets awful!! But mine is on everything, not just the sand, rocks and glass as well. All parameters checked good and have only used RO/DI water from the get go. Hopefully it will clear itself up.

[DC_40gallon]

Jherrin215, I 100% agree. I'm RO/DI as well from the time the tank started to every water change. I've got 50 lbs live rock and 1.5-2 inch sugar sand argonite bed, 1 koralia 2 and 1 koralia 3 for movement. I also have a 330 gph tetra advanced powerfilter hang on back that I change the charcoal media filter first of every month along with a Eshopps protein skimmer.

If I could get rid of this diatom junk my tank would look gorgeous!

[bertoni]

You might not be seeing diatoms. It's likely to be a mixture of various microbial pests, and nutrient control is likely the best approach. If they were diatoms, many snails would be glad to eat them. What kind of cleanup crew is in the system?

[jherrin215]

I don't have hardly any CUC, I was hoping it was a problem that would work itself out. I also hadn't been doing any feeding since I just added fish about 4 days ago, i false perc and a foxface. I have like 3 hermits and 3 snails that I robbed from another tank. The cycle has been done for about 3 weeks and the brown algae has been bad for about 2 before I went ahead and added the fish. I added to perc first then the foxface after raeding that they like to eat algae.

[bertoni]

The foxface will eat macroalgae, but not films. A few herbivorous snails might (or might not) be useful. I don't know what kind you've added, but some species sold in the trade are predatory.

[DC_40gallon]

I have 20 nassarious snails, a halloween urchin, lawnmower blenny, 5-6 margherita and astrea snails a peppermint shrimp and a emerald crab.

I do a 10-15% RO/DI water change weekly, feed very conservatively (1x daily and always mysis shrimp) my 2 scissortail gobies eat it usually before it hits the ground and finishes it all.

[bertoni]

I think it's fairly likely that if the film was diatoms, the margarita and Astraea snails would be reasonably likely to eat it. Trochus would, too. The film might have a lot of cyanobacteria in it, or some dinoflagellates.

I'd feed my fish a more varied diet than mysid shrimp, but they might do well enough on that. I don't know how big your tank is, but I might feed 1/6 to 1/3 of a cube of frozen Formula 1 per day in a 29g tank, as a starting point.

[jherrin215]

Here are some pics of parts of my tank. It looks awful right now!!



Here are a couple pics of one rock in particular. Most of the others are just covered in a powder like the sand and glass.


And somehow I've only got 2 fish in my 180 and got them both sitting still together right in front of the camera. Sorry for the bad pics, just trying to get something.

[bertoni]

The first two pictures look like typical new tank infestations, more like cyanobacteria is said to look, in my opinion. The other pictures are harder to interpret. I'd likely just siphon out the slime, if that's easy to do, and wait.

[jherrin215]

You think the second set of pics may be bubble algae? There are a ton of bubbles on that rock, and I also saw the foxface picking at it earlier

[bertoni]

Most of it looks more like the blooms that get labeled as dinoflagellates, but there might be some bubble algae in there.

[DC_40gallon]

Here are pics of my tank for comparison.

Mind you that "was" white sugar argonite sand.

[DC_40gallon]

Bump.

[bertoni]

I don't think that looks like it's necessarily diatoms, either, although a closeup might help a bit. To know for sure, you'd need to use a microscope.

[toeside]

Yeah, I've been fighting brown algae off and on since I set up my 10g reef nearly three years ago. What has helped the most recently was significantly shortening the time the lights are on ... to like 4 or 5 hours per day. Most people run their lights much longer, so I'm trying to gradually increase that interval.

[MatesonG]

I am having the same problem with Diatom algae...and i cannot get rid of it.

Water paramaters are perfect, have great flow and I'm running a TLF Phosban reactor too..only have 2-MH-250w on from 12:00-6:00. and my two actinics before and after those for a dawn/dusk affect. About to get my RO/DI (The Filter Guys or Bulk Reef Supply)

So my only two options left, according to my knowledge is that my water supply is bad. It's containing to many contaminants that are feeding the algae. Where do you get you water from?

[/QUOTE]

[Bontrager]

From my limited knowledge, it looks like diatoms to me. I never had a diatom problem until I started using " so called purified water" from a dispensing machine when doing a water change. My guess is that the water that you are using contains silicates which is one of the causes for the diatom bloom.

Members, please correct me if I am wrong. I can't recall what I did but I know I lost interest in the tank; this was about 10 years ago.

Please follow the advice given on this forum; sooner than later.

Good luck.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by MatesonG

I am having the same problem with Diatom algae...and i cannot get rid of it.

Water paramaters are perfect, have great flow and I'm running a TLF Phosban reactor too..only have 2-MH-250w on from 12:00-6:00. and my two actinics before and after those for a dawn/dusk affect. About to get my RO/DI (The Filter Guys or Bulk Reef Supply)

So my only two options left, according to my knowledge is that my water supply is bad. It's containing to many contaminants that are feeding the algae. Where do you get you water from?

[/QUOTE]


if the tank is fairly new or you have added a decent quantity of new media lately it could well be diatoms, if so it will burn out eventually, can take a few weeks, its frustrating but will go, get some snails in there, and keep replacing the water with high quality nutrient free

edit, sorry nearly forgot use RO-DI water, from your own filtration unit or from a lfs near you

[-Pixie-]

From my experience which is very limited mind you, as my tank is only about 2 weeks older than yours that you havent had a diatom bloom yet, is more likely bubble algae, or some other type of green algae, i went through the same stage thinking this was diatoms, i added fish, a coral banded shrimp and a CUC 2 weeks later boom!

i found out what diatoms really are, they are very dark brown no green tinge to them at all, with correct RO/DI water good flow pointed at the main infestations and a decent water change 2 times a week, it is nearly all gone, also note that snails and hermits made a nice lunch of it also.

Every morning i would awake to nice corraline and whitespots where they had eaten it off, also here is a pic of diatoms so you know exactly what it looks like, i also cleaned the glass daily and added a sock filter, which i washed daily, after all the help from reefers here it was gone in a week, Thanks guys

Also note that the fish never seemed to even care, if anything they liked it.

[-Pixie-]

Also forgot to mention, as soon as i found a reliable source of Ro/DI water it helped immensly. I got this from a local LFS for $4.20 for 25 litres, i have now got 100 litres stocked, 2 barrels for top ups 2 for water changes