Algea Troubleshooting plan

[rcoughtrey]

OK over the last month my cyno (brown bubble aglea) on my sand bed has got worse.

Current tank setup and stats

55g
HOB refugium
two little fishes reactor running PhosBan

All stats were 0 as of 1 hour ago
PH 8.3
Temp 79/80

Got to get a new calcium and phosphate tester this weekend

Lighting

Duel 250w hallies with 2 blue 2 fuji purple T5 HO 54w

Blue/Purple on time is 2pm
Hallies on time is 4pm

Blue/Purple off time is 11pm
Hallies off time is 10pm

Hallies total time is 6 hours (Have cut this back)

Refugium light is on from 1am to 8am


My actions so far

Brought my refugium with 4" sand bed small live rock and macroalgae

Also running a carbon bag in the refugium outlet section so the water flow goes through.

Raised my lighting to 11" from the top of the tank (originally was 6")

Clean my carbon bag weekly

Changed the sponges in the reactor to a mess.

My reactor's flow is very odd. The GFO inside see only get push through on one side. Tried to get the flow down to a slow bubble.

Feeding

My feeding schedule

Frozen cube rinsed in RO/DI water, planktanton gets mixed in. Also add a little garlic juice

Dried pellet

Seaweed for tang

Schedule is

M - Frozen cube
T - No feeding
W - Pellets with seaweed
TH - No feeding
F - Frozen cube
S - No feeding
S - Pellets with seaweed

Stock
Two clowns
1 yellow tank
1 Yellow tail damsel
3 Blue/green damsels

Cleanup

around 8 large turbo snails
3 snails that live in the sand bed ( cannot remember there name)
10x mix of red leg, blue leg and zebra
2 x peppermint shrimp
2 x cleaner shrimp

Corals

Number of different SPS corals
Leathers, Toadstool and mushrooms
Zoa's

Status

The tank seems to be in the best conidition I have seen it. The tank is around 6 to 7 months old right now. Fish seem heavly and corals are growing nicely

I just started applying the B-Onic calium buffer now for the last 3 weeks.

--------
It seems as the fast i suck up the algae the faster it comes back.

I get no algae on the glass.

Weekly water changes of around a single 5 gallon bucket

Green algae on the rocks is reduces

I see the this cyno algae actually lifting up with the water flow, so it makes me thinking I'm winning, then it goes right back to be bad.

Any suggestions would be nice

[Dustin1300]

IME first off the GFO should be 'tumbling' in the reactor so you are catching the surfaces of all the granules. Possibly try increasing the flow through the reactor so you get some better flow. Questions!

- How much flow do you have?
- How long has the GFO been in?
- Where is your water from? Is it tap water or is it RO/DI? If RO/DI, what is the TDS after the DI?

[JCCBURT]

bump... Im in roughly the same boat...

trey... I dont know if it has anything to do with the subject, as I am even newer than you are, but you mentioned just about everything else... so what is your flow like through your filter and in DT?

[rcoughtrey]

I have 2 x hydor evo 4 which is about 1200gph each.

The GFO was changed last week I change it monthly or every 2

The water is brought from a LFS and seems to be fine. what is recommended to test it for? I have always got my water from there.

[Dustin1300]

A TDS Meter can be used to see how much unwanted material is in the water. If the LFS is not changing out the RO Filters and DI then you could have a higher TDS which is where your nutrients are coming from. I have my own unit and only trust myself with this vital part of the system as you'll find the LFS is often not 100% dependable. The filters/DI may be quite dated and not changed as often as they should.

Personally, I change my filters out about every 6 months and change the DI out once the TDS reading hits 1. Just to give you an idea...My TDS is usually 400-450 coming from the tap and after the RO filters it gets down to 4-6 TDS which then goes to 0 after the DI cartidges. If the LFS is producing high quality water then they should have an inline TDS meter on the filtration or have a handheld meter to show you what TDS they are getting.

If they do not I'd suggest going and getting your own. It will save you a lot of work in hauling the water back and forth. In addition, its a whole lot cheaper in the long run.

Outside of the filtration discussion, I'd recommend testing for Phosphate/Nitrate in your tank.

[Michael]

poor quality lighting and excessive nutrients are the main reasons for cyano, I know you have heard that a thousand times lol, start with the basics when trying to find the route cause, did this occur recently after you raised your lights another 5" above the water level? how old are the bulbs? is 7 fish too many for a 55 gallon? have you sufficient rock to deal with the waste from 7 fish? is your skimmer dealing with the organic waste produced?

good luck.

Mike

[sbeason]

I would run your fuge lights from about about 1 hour before your tank lights shut off until 1 hour after they come back on the next day. This way, they are run opposite your main tank lights with some overlap. This helps maintain a constant ph also. Also, what do you have in your fuge?

I was battling cyano and when I put in a fuge with chaeto, ran the fuge light opposite my main tank like the schedule above, then added some flow to my tank, the cyano finally subsided.

Thanks, Steve

[Dustin1300]

I really don't think the livestock is a problem as long as you are changing your water to deal with trates as well as ensuring you have enough flow to ensure the organics in the water column get skimmed out by the skimmer. I'd say your four focuses should be water, lighting, flow, and nutrient export.

[dmarkham]

Another thing to think about is how old are the bulbs? Also is the cyno in the dead spots? Two power heads just seems light for a 55 gallon. I am assuming it is the standard 4' long tank.

[rcoughtrey]

First off, thank you for the replies and thank for the time to reply with info you can.

1. I have used the water from the same LFS store since I started. What I will do is ask them to test the water in front of me to make sure all is good. I'm customer and I want to know what I'm paying for is in good condition. No different than if you brought anything else.

2. The bulbs are only about 3 months old now. However I have no idea what they are. They could be very cheap bulbs. I will go speak with premium aquatics here in Indiana and see about replacing them out.

3. I'm not running chaeto, I have some other kind of macro aglea that i'm starting to remove. Something about that if it goes sexual can crash a tank?? I will be getting some chaeto just not had time to get out with the bad weather here.

I also have a 4" deepsand bed and a few small amount of live rock in the fuge.

Is there anything else that need to be in there?

4. The nitrates has been at 0 for the last 4 to 6 weeks now. I have been testing every weekend since adding the fuge. Phosphate is something i need to get my testing kit for. Its pay day on friday so I will be picking one of these up as my old got damaged.

I'm really unhappy with the phos reactor right now. I never get an even flow of tumbling, it seems to only tumble on one side and the other looks to be dead still.

5. The skimmer in built into the HOB fuge from CPR. The skimmer when first fitted was running like beast. I empty 1 cup a day of waste. Now i can clean it out every like 4 to 7 days. I feel that the skimmer is working.

-------------

I reading information about doing blackout, were you keep the lights out for 3 days. I a little unsure about this. Anyone got any experience with this? Will it crash my PH and effect my corals?

[rcoughtrey]

I thought Evo 4's were a little over kill. I have 2400 total flow from them right now.

I have actually just changed their position to actually point upwards rather than down at the sandbed. I know that sounds backwards, but it actually gave me a way better circulation of water around the tank.

What's the numbers on the flow, is something like 20GPH for every 1 gallon of water. If that's the case i have each gallon of water in my tank is flowed 43 times per hour.

[Dustin1300]

Seems like your flow is sufficient.

- In regards to the skimmer, I'd suggest making sure it is level and that nothing is blocked in the reactor. Does not take much flow to get it tumbling the granules in the whole reactor typically.
- Flow seems like it is enough but do you have dead spots?
- Lighting sounds fine.
- I'd switch to Chaeto as your macroalgae. What type of light do you have over fuge?

Based on these facts and that you have not seen evidence from LFS on a low TDS I'm suspecting that is the source of the nutrients.

[kduen]

Also in reference to the reactor. If it is not perfectly level side to side and front to back it will often tumble only on one side as you describe. I literally had to tinker with mine for an hour to get it to where the GFO would tumble evenly across the top and only have the top 1/2 inch or so tumble. Little to the left and only the right side would tumble I could get the whole thing to tumble by increasing the flow through it but then it looked like the GFO was in a popcorn popper.

[rcoughtrey]

The fuge has a 16w powercompact. Its the CPR lighting that was recommended for the 24" fuge.

The skimmer is all good, I assume you mean the reactor. You know actually my tank is not level there is a slight slant. I never thought about that. It would make sense as the side where the water flow pushes through in the granules is the down face side.

What I will look at doing is putting the reactor on the side of my tank which is at a even level and see how it goes.

I don't see any dead spots, water seems to be flowing. I always watch when put my cal buffer in and food to see where the flow pushes. So fast this new position seem Tobe way better.

Like anything it was last week and I will find another postiion

[Sk8r]

Cyano pops up a lot seasonally, as the meandering sun reaches a window---and your tank.

Skim hard, and turn your lights out 3 days, shielding your tank from direct windowlight and sunbeams. Do this once a month. It won't hurt corals or fish. Storms cause this darkening for days on end in the tropics.

[rcoughtrey]

SK8r thank you for that information.

Would you run blue/purple lights?

Just LEDS

Or none

On another note, I would say that my cyno has got worse since adding the Fuji purple to the mixture. It maybe bad timing, but i know that some algae likes the red spectrum.

[Sk8r]

None at all. If you'll click the blue number under my avatar, you can get to my blog, where I explain every I know about algae (among other things)...
Nearly all tanks get it to some degree. Usually it isn't nearly as much danger as the measures undertaken to get rid of it. And it's pretty easy to get rid of once you realize it isn't really an algae, but a sort of semi-plant, semi-animal, and that light is the one thing it absolutely has to have that we can deprive it of without harming our tanks.