What eats this type of algae? - Page 2

Tuffloud1 · 11/28/2014, 09:01 PM

Here is the picture

scubadan206 · 11/29/2014, 12:49 PM

Starve it out and do water changes.... Don't let it get any worse.... Treat it like cyano and then escalate from there.
In my case, the stuff was bad enough I was willing to do anything. After a double dose of Chemi-clean did nothing, I ended up taking drastic measures. I removed all the corals that were not attached to the rocks and put them in a separate tank. In the main tank I did three weeks lights out and then did about a 90% waterchange. During lights out, the nitrates spiked from near zero to over 50 PPM.
The ide is to kill it, release it into the water column, and remove it in large volumes any way possible.

Daniel.

Tuffloud1 · 11/30/2014, 12:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scubadan206

Starve it out and do water changes.... Don't let it get any worse.... Treat it like cyano and then escalate from there.
In my case, the stuff was bad enough I was willing to do anything. After a double dose of Chemi-clean did nothing, I ended up taking drastic measures. I removed all the corals that were not attached to the rocks and put them in a separate tank. In the main tank I did three weeks lights out and then did about a 90% waterchange. During lights out, the nitrates spiked from near zero to over 50 PPM.
The ide is to kill it, release it into the water column, and remove it in large volumes any way possible.

Daniel.

Did it work?

scubadan206 · 11/30/2014, 04:18 PM

Yes it did in my case.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2428496

Fishmaster13 · 11/30/2014, 04:45 PM

It's cyano for sure. I hate that stuff so much. Last year I went on vacation to Colorado for a few days and had a friend feed the tank. The timers got messed up somehow and the light was on the whole time, so of course, algea started growing like crazy. But I had never seen this before. I came home and my 75 gallon tank was an enormous purple block. I freaked out. It didn't harm any fish though, so that was receiving. I did some research and it probably hitchhiked on some live rock (i had had that tank running for years but just started with live rock). It took me months to get every last bit of it out. I was starting to get the upper hand by using reverse osmosis (RO) water and doing regular water changes with it. Then I found something called Slimanator from a company called Ruby Reef. It is completely reed safe. Im not sure if they ship onlone I found it at a convention in Chicago. It worked like a charm. But then again, this is all pretty expensive. If you don't have that kind of money to toss around, just try to suck the majority of it up when you do water changes, make them frequent, and just try to beat it. I found out that Emerald crabs, some hermit crabs, and some snails (turbo, nassasorus, and cerith, along with a few others) will occasionally nip at it and can help control it a little bit if you have it under control, but won't eat all that you have now. What filters are you running? Do you have a protein skimmer? A protein skimmer will help. It's completely gone from my tank now so don't wory, it will be a long fight but it is winnable! Sorry this is so long and I hope I helped!

Fishmaster13 · 11/30/2014, 04:51 PM

Oh ya the reason RO water and frequent water changes are important is because they starve it out, as mentioned above. It can't survive in good, clean water. Also some fish will eat it as well. My flame angel, blue tang and moorish idol did quite a deal on it (especially the moorish idol!). Those are very delicate fish though (the moorish idols) and not the right fish unless you are a very experienced aquarist. Which I wasn't. And aren't. Im very lucky it survived i moved it to a 200 gallon tank because a 75 was much to small for it. They have a 5% survival rate in captivity it was an impulse buy the guy at the store had no idea what they even were and just tried to sell it to me so I took it because I had no idea either. Uhg sorry for getting off topic again! At least now you know not to buy moorish idols!

Nuluxe · 11/30/2014, 05:11 PM

I recommend doing biweekly water changes, with a mixture kalkwasser into the fresh mix.
This will help stabilize the system. At least it isn't dino, which is much more difficult to get rid of. Oh and don't forget flow.

Dan_P · 11/30/2014, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slief

Huh?? Wrong. Increased pH doesn't slow cyano growth. It increases it. Fact is that lower pH slows Cyano growth and pH levels of 8.0+ (where we keep our tanks) are ideal conditions for cyano growth.
http://jb.asm.org/content/149/1/237.full.pdf

This paper is not about the cyanobacteria that grows in our aquariums.

Dan_P · 11/30/2014, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tuffloud1

Another

Take a look at this cropped version of your picture. These projections lead me to question the identification of this slime as cyanobacteria. Also, the mats seem thick and gelatinous in appearance.

Tuffloud1 · 12/01/2014, 12:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan_P

Take a look at this cropped version of your picture. These projections lead me to question the identification of this slime as cyanobacteria. Also, the mats seem thick and gelatinous in appearance.

Do you think it is dino?

There are definetly thick "hair" strands all over my rock. This has been there for months. I think they are harmless filter feeders. They seems to be entirley seperate than the "goop" in question. These hair like things I am speaking of seem to densly pack around the base of my sps frags on the superglue. They are not goopy or slimy at all and do not seem to brush off even with a tooth brush. You can see some of these hair things in the top right hand corner of that picture.

The goop is extremely hard to identify. I do get some purple cyano in my sump every once and awhile. I know for sure it is cyano. This brownish/goldish goopy/bubbly stuff is entirely different looking than the purple cyano I occasionally get.

I dont see all out explosions in its growth. I powerhead blast everthing and sift the sand every Sunday right before I do my water change. After that, the same exact spots on the same rocks seem to just slowly regenerate more over the week until I blast it off again. It comes off extremely easily and only seems to grow on the rocks.

Tuffloud1 · 12/01/2014, 05:59 PM

Here is a picture of all the "hairs".

What is this ?

wcarterh · 12/02/2014, 02:51 AM

If you have access to a microscope, it is easy to diagnose which on 40X mag.

If cyano, and you've reduced nutrients, a last chance success I've had was Ultralife Red Slime Remover. But be warned, I've seen reviews that reported a crashed tank. Personally, I followed the instructions exactly and had no issues. I had to adjust my skimmer about once an hour (trying to get ideal operation out of it). It can deplete your oxygen. WILL cause excessive bubbling and microbubbles. Though worked for me in 48 hours (most noticed in the last 12 hours), where nothing else would get rid on it.

Jaffy · 12/02/2014, 03:05 AM

For any type of algae bloom I have had, I find the best practice is just increasing water changes, watching what food is going in, and removing the algae manually. Once on top of it, stay on top of it. Turkey baste it, move around the substrate and make sure you have a good diverse cleanup crew (detritus eaters, food eaters, algae and meat eaters, etc) snails, cleaner shrimp, algae eating fish. I get blooms every now and again but the main problem is if I were to wait until it is too late. Stay on top of it and have patience, good husbandry and you will win! ...assuming there is no underlying cause to spark the bloom.

Tuffloud1 · 12/02/2014, 08:02 PM

I was able to get a decent picture of the goop under my microscope. This is on 10x, the 40x is really blurry.

wcarterh · 12/02/2014, 08:10 PM

Not a high enough magnification.

If you search "cyanobacteria microscope", "diatoms microscope", and "dinoflagellates microscope" you will see what they look like. Cyano looks like small balls in a string, dinos look like a flat oval or square, dino depends on stage. Stage 2 looks like a tripod with a pointy head, and stage 1 looks round ovalish ( http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/BOT201/...tes%20page.GIF ).

Tuffloud1 · 01/15/2015, 10:45 PM

Okay so I set up an automatic water change system.

It is changing 1.5 gallons a day on my 100 gallon system. This stuff is better, but it still slowly creeps up over a weeks worth of time, but not as large of an amount as before.

My nitrates are undetectable with the salifert test kit.

Phosphate is at .02, I am running GFO and Carbon.

I am feeding extremely conservatively.

I am trying to understand how people run higher nitrate levels and manage to get away with none of this stuff.

11/29/2014, 12:49 PM	#27
scubadan206 Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Kenosha WI Posts: 985	Starve it out and do water changes.... Don't let it get any worse.... Treat it like cyano and then escalate from there. In my case, the stuff was bad enough I was willing to do anything. After a double dose of Chemi-clean did nothing, I ended up taking drastic measures. I removed all the corals that were not attached to the rocks and put them in a separate tank. In the main tank I did three weeks lights out and then did about a 90% waterchange. During lights out, the nitrates spiked from near zero to over 50 PPM. The ide is to kill it, release it into the water column, and remove it in large volumes any way possible. Daniel.

11/30/2014, 04:18 PM	#29
scubadan206 Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Kenosha WI Posts: 985	Yes it did in my case. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2428496

11/30/2014, 04:45 PM	#30
Fishmaster13 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 126	It's cyano for sure. I hate that stuff so much. Last year I went on vacation to Colorado for a few days and had a friend feed the tank. The timers got messed up somehow and the light was on the whole time, so of course, algea started growing like crazy. But I had never seen this before. I came home and my 75 gallon tank was an enormous purple block. I freaked out. It didn't harm any fish though, so that was receiving. I did some research and it probably hitchhiked on some live rock (i had had that tank running for years but just started with live rock). It took me months to get every last bit of it out. I was starting to get the upper hand by using reverse osmosis (RO) water and doing regular water changes with it. Then I found something called Slimanator from a company called Ruby Reef. It is completely reed safe. Im not sure if they ship onlone I found it at a convention in Chicago. It worked like a charm. But then again, this is all pretty expensive. If you don't have that kind of money to toss around, just try to suck the majority of it up when you do water changes, make them frequent, and just try to beat it. I found out that Emerald crabs, some hermit crabs, and some snails (turbo, nassasorus, and cerith, along with a few others) will occasionally nip at it and can help control it a little bit if you have it under control, but won't eat all that you have now. What filters are you running? Do you have a protein skimmer? A protein skimmer will help. It's completely gone from my tank now so don't wory, it will be a long fight but it is winnable! Sorry this is so long and I hope I helped!

11/30/2014, 04:51 PM	#31
Fishmaster13 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 126	Oh ya the reason RO water and frequent water changes are important is because they starve it out, as mentioned above. It can't survive in good, clean water. Also some fish will eat it as well. My flame angel, blue tang and moorish idol did quite a deal on it (especially the moorish idol!). Those are very delicate fish though (the moorish idols) and not the right fish unless you are a very experienced aquarist. Which I wasn't. And aren't. Im very lucky it survived i moved it to a 200 gallon tank because a 75 was much to small for it. They have a 5% survival rate in captivity it was an impulse buy the guy at the store had no idea what they even were and just tried to sell it to me so I took it because I had no idea either. Uhg sorry for getting off topic again! At least now you know not to buy moorish idols!

11/30/2014, 05:11 PM	#32
Nuluxe Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Posts: 62	I recommend doing biweekly water changes, with a mixture kalkwasser into the fresh mix. This will help stabilize the system. At least it isn't dino, which is much more difficult to get rid of. Oh and don't forget flow.

12/02/2014, 02:51 AM	#37
wcarterh Registered Member Join Date: Jul 2014 Location: Tn, USA Posts: 238	If you have access to a microscope, it is easy to diagnose which on 40X mag. If cyano, and you've reduced nutrients, a last chance success I've had was Ultralife Red Slime Remover. But be warned, I've seen reviews that reported a crashed tank. Personally, I followed the instructions exactly and had no issues. I had to adjust my skimmer about once an hour (trying to get ideal operation out of it). It can deplete your oxygen. WILL cause excessive bubbling and microbubbles. Though worked for me in 48 hours (most noticed in the last 12 hours), where nothing else would get rid on it.

12/02/2014, 03:05 AM	#38
Jaffy Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 175	For any type of algae bloom I have had, I find the best practice is just increasing water changes, watching what food is going in, and removing the algae manually. Once on top of it, stay on top of it. Turkey baste it, move around the substrate and make sure you have a good diverse cleanup crew (detritus eaters, food eaters, algae and meat eaters, etc) snails, cleaner shrimp, algae eating fish. I get blooms every now and again but the main problem is if I were to wait until it is too late. Stay on top of it and have patience, good husbandry and you will win! ...assuming there is no underlying cause to spark the bloom.

12/02/2014, 08:10 PM	#40
wcarterh Registered Member Join Date: Jul 2014 Location: Tn, USA Posts: 238	Not a high enough magnification. If you search "cyanobacteria microscope", "diatoms microscope", and "dinoflagellates microscope" you will see what they look like. Cyano looks like small balls in a string, dinos look like a flat oval or square, dino depends on stage. Stage 2 looks like a tripod with a pointy head, and stage 1 looks round ovalish ( http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/BOT201/...tes%20page.GIF ).

01/15/2015, 10:45 PM	#41
Tuffloud1 Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: The People's Republic of California Posts: 600	Okay so I set up an automatic water change system. It is changing 1.5 gallons a day on my 100 gallon system. This stuff is better, but it still slowly creeps up over a weeks worth of time, but not as large of an amount as before. My nitrates are undetectable with the salifert test kit. Phosphate is at .02, I am running GFO and Carbon. I am feeding extremely conservatively. I am trying to understand how people run higher nitrate levels and manage to get away with none of this stuff.