3 day lights out for algae

[hampsterblade]

I have a really bad cyano and green hair outbreak. I also have this weird black algae that is forming as sheets over my rocks. I am doing a 3 day light out to help. I have some Kenya trees and zoas in the tank. Will this hurt the corals? Also should I leave the light on the sump for the chaeto or turn it off too? Will it be safe to do a large (25%) water change during this?
Also almost related, I have been reading about dosing Kent iron and manganese to help chaeto growth. Mine has been growing very slowly despite having high phosphates and about 6 nitrates. I have zoomed HO Blue and white LEDs over it. Would the iron possibly help. And will API calcium and magnesium test kits work until I can afford the salifert kits?

 

[mcgyvr]

3 days out won't hurt the corals..
But its also not really solving the real problem.
define "high phosphates"..
Forget about iron/mag now.. get the phosphate under control..
GFO can really help along with a few larger water changes.. siphon out all the cyano you can.. get those phoshpates down and you are probably overfeeding or something causing the high phosphates..

lights out is mostly a temporary fix and not a permanent solution.

 

[hampsterblade]

The phosphates are about .5 (tested with API so grain of salt here). A friend suggested it could be old tank syndrome as I used 40 lbs of used bleached dead rock and 18lbs of live to start the tank. I've been trying to avoid using GFO as reactors are a bit pricy and there are other things I want to get for the tank. Would a bag of phoszorb in the bubble trap help at all?

 

[hampsterblade]

Misread the kit. Looks closer to .25. I'm thinking 3 day lights out, some phoszorb. No feeding for the 3 days and 2 25% water changes should do the trick. Also have 2 at I true atinics and a purple plus bulb on order. I've read that cheap atinics are loved by cyano. And that the bulbs that come with the odyssea fixtures are about as bad as they come.

 

[tmz]

Light depravation may not kill corals but it certainly deprives them of energy from photosynthesis as much as it does autotrophic algae and/ or cyanobacteria. Depending on the coral it can be harmful. The algae and cyano will come back if nothing else changes in terms of th nutrients available to them.

The rock may be leaching PO4 . Keeping the level in the water low via a phospahte remover like gfo for a long period of time will exhaust PO4 off the rock over time as it equilibrates . Alternatively treating the rock out of tank with lanthanum chloride is a faster option.

 

[hampsterblade]

I will look into GFO if my current plans don't work. The reason I mentioned dosing iron and magnesium was that my chaeto should be exploding with the nutrients available but its only grown an inch or two from softball size in the month its been in my tank. I'm trying 24 hour lighting on the sump for the time being, some large water changes and if that doesn't work I'm going to try dosing vodka

 

[tmz]

Iron may eno9courage teh chaeto, Why magnesium?

 

[hampsterblade]

I have read magnesium and calcium are both important.

 

[Yarm79]

After a year of dealing with hair algae and trying every trick in the book I can assure you 3 day black out will do nothing at all
Cyano will be gone but will return as that is a bacteria.
I placed a rock with hair algae in my sunp which had no light and cupboard door was shut. 6 weeks later the algae was still on the rock, had not grown but not died, so no 3 days wont do anything except stress your tank.
You name it Iv tried it, seriously.
How Iv got mine under control
I bit the bullet emptied the tank
Had 3 buckets of water
Scrubbed the rock till there was no sign of algae
Rinsed in second bucket
Put it in third
Vacuumed all my sand, some very gross stuff in there.
Drilled my rock and rodded it, this enabled me to removed 50% of the rock, it was not needed it was simply there to stack the structure, that's gone in a container in the garage.
Placed the rodded rocks on the bare glass bottom put sand around its base so no crap can get stuck under the rock.
Put 2 power heads at bottom back corners for flow and two at top front corners, flow was then circulating all around the rocks.
The structure is now in the middle of the tank away from the glass and is very sturdy.
I removed my deep sand bed from the sump and put small bits of rock I didn't need from the display and put a small power head in there.
Cleaned all my sunp chambers out.
Put a 100 micron sock on my drain which stops any crap going into the sump leaving my skimmer to remove organics.
I now feed 3-4 times a day flake and corals liquid food daily.
My nitrates are zero - 1 my phosphates are 0.03 only place I get any hair algae is bits I originally missed where it hadn't all come off and it slowly started growing again
My urchins, snails and hermits can now keep an eye on housework without being overworked. I'd rather have hungry CUC than fish and coral.
When I was removing the rock it was pouring out like snow, it's amazing how much crap accumulates in the system you don't know about
Every few days I crank the power heads up full and all the crap comes out the nooks and crannys and filters down into the sock which I change out every couple of days.
Every other Saturday now I blast the rocks with a turkey baster clean out sump and vacuums sand.
My phosphates are now lowest I have had them in 5 years.
This post took a while to write on an iPhone so I hope people can get some help from it lol.
My tanks is 6x2x2 so was a big job and took a full weekend but I'm happy to say that up to now has been algae free for 8 weeks.
I did get a cyano bloom but after uping the feeding it disappeared

 

[Yarm79]

I also made a small algae scrubber with I have in the sump, I'm sure this helps
I run a reactor with carbon
A reactor with rowaphos
Skimmer 24/7 however I turn this and the return pump off when I'm feeding corals

 

[Dan_P]

Also almost related, I have been reading about dosing Kent iron and manganese to help chaeto growth. Mine has been growing very slowly despite having high phosphates and about 6 nitrates. I have zoomed HO Blue and white LEDs over it

Dosing iron may also help cynaobacteria grow as well.

Appropriate light levels are difficult to gauge. You might not have enough light shining on the Chaeto. Err on the side of giving it a lot. If that is not enough give it more. I have never run across a forum thread about bleaching algae!

 

[tmz]

I have read magnesium and calcium are both important.

Alkalinity, calcium and magnesium are all important and work together to support calcifying organisms . Recommended ranges for reef tanks are : alkalinity 7 to 11 dkh(seawater is 7), calcium 400 to 450ppm; magesium 1300 to 1400ppm . Nuisance algae aren't directly effected by variations but the overall condition of a reef tank is.

 

[tmz]

Dosing iron may also help cynaobacteria grow as well.

Appropriate light levels are difficult to gauge. You might not have enough light shining on the Chaeto. Err on the side of giving it a lot. If that is not enough give it more. I have never run across a forum thread about bleaching algae!

Chaeto and other macro algae thrive in good lighting and need space to grow and take up nutrients. They also need harvesting to give tehm room to grow and to remove the nutreints they've taken up..

Cyano bacteria are efficient iron scavengers; they can put out sidepores to gather it . This gives cyano an edge in low iron environments where competitors for the other nutrients like macro algae may wane from a lack of it.

 

[tmz]

And will API calcium and magnesium test kits work

Yes.

 

[foundnemo11]

I did a lights out and it worked I had really bad cyano.

I clean as much as I could then did a blackout for 72 hours. Then a water change and got whatever I could again. Then 3 days later did another blackout and water change (20%)

No more cyano

 

[hampsterblade]

Day two of no light and it seems most of the cyano is gone. Green hair is still bad. I'm going to take out the worst rocks and give them a scrub. Any good way to prune green hair in between ZOA's?

 

[Wally.B]

whoops double post. Site was down. (Forum newbie here). How do you delete a duplicate Post (edit didn't work)..

 

[Wally.B]

I like Post #9 from Yarm79, the idea of cleaning the tank &, scrubbing the rock, reducing waste catch spots. I have to do that every 6 months or else cyano comes back. My tank is cursed, but I figure that related to 15 year old rock that has had many adventures.

When I miss scrubbing all rocks perfectly the cyano comes back there first and spreads slowly elsewhere. After last scrub, it' taking a over 4 months to come back. I really cut back on feeding. Fish hate me, so does the cyano.

Reduction in lighting never helped me for very long. Last year when I had painters paint my whole house for over a week. Tank was covered in a clear drop cloth. No lights for a week. Things looked ok when drop cloth came off (Yes MUCH less cyano). Lights came back on, cyano came back .

I tried an experiment last cleanup and scrub. When scrubbing one rock, I didn't scrub a part of it in the shape of my initial "W". When cyano came back on that rock a few months later, you could vaguely see a "W" shape. Next time, I'm going to take a picture.

 

[tmz]

Any good way to prune green hair in between ZOA's?

I'd pull off what I could, then remove the colony from the tank and bathe it in 4 parts aqaurium water and 1 part standard 3% hydrogen peroxide for 5 miuntes. It will kill many types of algae ;the results may take a day or two after placing it back in the tank . Some algae like bryospis will come right back but many types won't.

 

[hampsterblade]

Any good way to prune green hair in between ZOA's?

I'd pull off what I could, then remove the colony from the tank and bathe it in 4 parts aqaurium water and 1 part standard 3% hydrogen peroxide for 5 miuntes. It will kill many types of algae ;the results may take a day or two after placing it back in the tank . Some algae like bryospis will come right back but many types won't.

And this won't negatively effect the zoa? Its a relitively new frag so not exactly thriving.