Cyano or Diatoms for months.

[catchandreleas]

I have been fighting with algae in my 20G for months now, can't seem to win and my corals have been on life support for so long.

Anemone seems to be doing okay as well as the hammer. But my torch is looking terrible, frogspawn has been struggling, and candy cane is slowly coming back from a die off.

I can't tell if its Cyano or diatoms, blows easily off rocks, no air bubbles, coats pretty much everything. I vac it off the sand and its back in full force the next day. Picture below.

Params
Salinity, 1.26
PH 7.8
KH 9
N04 2
P04 0
Mg 1390
Ca 430

I run a skimmer, two socks. Nothing else.

I dose a small amount of Refine Nitrate and Phosphate Balance, magnesium, Ca, and KH to keep parameters stable.

I have tried leaving this alone and letting it die off, but its been there forever. It gets better when my nutrients his zero, but I dont want to keep them there for the corals. As soon as I add any nutrients or heavy feed for the corals, the algae comes right back.

So Im going to do another blackout, do I keep nutrients available for corals? let it hit zero for a while and choke the algae out? And for how long as its hard on the corals?

 

[djryan2000]

Considering how low your nutrients are I'd say diatoms. Nothing to do but late. Diatoms lasted in my tank for about 12 weeks and that was with old established live rock. According my to LFS, the diatoms just feed off the silicates from the silicon seal on the tank as well as silicates in sand.


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[catchandreleas]

Guess I should also mention tank has been running for almost 3 years.

 

[catchandreleas]

Considering how low your nutrients are I'd say diatoms. Nothing to do but late. Diatoms lasted in my tank for about 12 weeks and that was with old established live rock. According my to LFS, the diatoms just feed off the silicates from the silicon seal on the tank as well as silicates in sand.


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That's frustrating. Should I keep trying to maintain some nutrients for coral? Or let everything starve?

 

[djryan2000]

Guess I should also mention tank has been running for almost 3 years.

Hm. You may have a false reading for nutrients then. I know that happens with algae like hair algae, where your test kits say 0 or close it, whole in reality the algae has it. I'd recommend manually removing the stuff (probably cyano out of the two) and then testing nitrate and phosphate 20 minutes later. I bet you'll get a reading.


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[catchandreleas]

Hm. You may have a false reading for nutrients then. I know that happens with algae like hair algae, where your test kits say 0 or close it, whole in reality the algae has it. I'd recommend manually removing the stuff (probably cyano out of the two) and then testing nitrate and phosphate 20 minutes later. I bet you'll get a reading.


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100% the nitrates and phosphates are being absorbed by the algae.
The more I add and feed, the more algae growth I get. Yet, when I let it run at zero for weeks, the Algae dies down. Then comes back immediately when I try and get nutrients back up for the corals.

 

[catchandreleas]

Been doing more and more reading/examining now that I have some time.
I’m fairly certain this is Dinos. There is a lot of info on how to handle this out there so I’ll keep researching.
Anyone have any experience with UV filtration? I have started a 3 day blackout and found that this particular type of dino goes back into the water column without light, so theoretically I should be able to kill it with a UV filter.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

UV worked with my dinos. Give it a few months.

 

[catchandreleas]

UV worked with my dinos. Give it a few months.

For a 20G tank would this be sufficient to run at night?
I’m not sure how powerful the light would need to be, or is more wattage only required for larger volume tanks?

https://www.amazon.ca/SUN-Jup-02-St...arium&qid=1586910863&sprefix=UV+filter&sr=8-3