maymania6
New member
Hey RC!
This is in my 180 gallon tank... setup almost 2months ago. I used all my live rock and water from my 90g tank (which was up for 7 months without problems) and used 100lbs new Caribsea Aragonite substrate. Have 3X150w (14,000K Phoenix) MH's, 4X96w 460nm Actinic PC's. Running 55g sump with Skimmer, UV. Total gallons of water 210 gallons.
Today's Params as follows:
Temp - 78 - 80 (currently 80)
Salinity - 1.025
Amm - 0
NitrI - 0
NitrA - 20ppm
Phos - 0 or <0.25
Calc - 480
PH - 7.8
KH - 7
Livestock
2 Tomato Clowns
2 BlueGreen Chromis
2 Bartletts Anthias
2 Yellow Tangs
1 Powder Blue Tang
1 Regal Tang
1 Foxface Rabbitfish
1 Blue Mandarin Goby
1 Gold headed sleeper Goby
2 RBTA
1 Emerald Crab
1 Pink/Green Cucumber
1 Coral banded shrimp
1 Cleaner shrimp
Cleanup crew consists of Longspine Urchin, 1 Conch snail, multiple Turbos and assorted snails and hermits.
Assorted soft corals, mushroom, zoas, GSP.
A few LPS, Blasto, Torch, Candy Cane.
A few SPS frags.
Feeding
1/2 cube plankton mixed with 1/2 cube mysis.. soaked in garlic/Zoe daily.
A pinch of Formula 2 flakes in am and pm, its eaten right away.
Go through 1 sheet of Nori daily between 4 tangs.
Twice a week Cyclopeeze Marine Plankton and Pellets.
The tank looked great for about 4 weeks then noticed a predictable diatom bloom. I waited that out, however... the tank never cleared and I am now dealing with what I believe to be Cyanobacteria, but fear it could be dinos. It looks brownish/red (more brown than red) looks slightly stringy and has attached air bubbles. It is mostly on the sand but it is also on the rocks. There are tons of trapped air bubbles under the sand, anytime my goby digs the bubbles rise to the surface. It cleans off very easily... when I scrub it from the rocks it comes off without ANY effort and looks "powdery" when released to the water.
I had been siphoning this stuff off and refilling with new salt water, cut back on my MH light cycle from 8 hrs to 6, and redirected power heads trying to maximize flow across the sand (where its worse). I believe my flow is adequate with large return pumping to two corner returns, and 4 Koralia power heads. After no improvement I decided to treat the tank with Chemi Clean, as follows:
Did a 30g water change/sand sift after scrubbing algae off rocks, followed by Chemi-clean dose-20 level scoops, accommodating for water volume loss from live rock/sand in tank and sump. I unplugged skimmer, UV and let the chemiclean work for two days. I did not see any reduction of the ?cyano besides initial decrease from siphoning the sand. At the end of the 2 days, I did a 35 water change, got the skimmer back online and waited a day before I decided to treat with an identical dose of chemi-clean again. The reason for the second treatment was that I did not see ANY reduction of this algae, in fact in came back during the first 2 day treatment just as bad as before I dosed. During this second treatment I turned off my MH's and ran Actinic PC's only. With MH's off the algae doesnt grow as quickly, but its still there. With MH on the stuff spreads like crazy. I waited another 2 days, did a 45gallon water change, siphoning out more gunk, got my skimmer and UV back on line and added PhosGuard and Purigen to the sump. That was three days ago and my sand bed is literally covered, and the rocks are covering up quickly now too.
I know my Alk and PH are low, I have Kent Pro Buffer dKH and Seachem Carbonate that I can start dosing, but which one of those should I use? Would those two things being off contribute to this problem?
Fish and corals all appear to be fine, they are eating, swimming, etc...
Also, does this look like Cyano or something else? Advice is much appreciated!
THANKS!!!!
This is in my 180 gallon tank... setup almost 2months ago. I used all my live rock and water from my 90g tank (which was up for 7 months without problems) and used 100lbs new Caribsea Aragonite substrate. Have 3X150w (14,000K Phoenix) MH's, 4X96w 460nm Actinic PC's. Running 55g sump with Skimmer, UV. Total gallons of water 210 gallons.
Today's Params as follows:
Temp - 78 - 80 (currently 80)
Salinity - 1.025
Amm - 0
NitrI - 0
NitrA - 20ppm
Phos - 0 or <0.25
Calc - 480
PH - 7.8
KH - 7
Livestock
2 Tomato Clowns
2 BlueGreen Chromis
2 Bartletts Anthias
2 Yellow Tangs
1 Powder Blue Tang
1 Regal Tang
1 Foxface Rabbitfish
1 Blue Mandarin Goby
1 Gold headed sleeper Goby
2 RBTA
1 Emerald Crab
1 Pink/Green Cucumber
1 Coral banded shrimp
1 Cleaner shrimp
Cleanup crew consists of Longspine Urchin, 1 Conch snail, multiple Turbos and assorted snails and hermits.
Assorted soft corals, mushroom, zoas, GSP.
A few LPS, Blasto, Torch, Candy Cane.
A few SPS frags.
Feeding
1/2 cube plankton mixed with 1/2 cube mysis.. soaked in garlic/Zoe daily.
A pinch of Formula 2 flakes in am and pm, its eaten right away.
Go through 1 sheet of Nori daily between 4 tangs.
Twice a week Cyclopeeze Marine Plankton and Pellets.
The tank looked great for about 4 weeks then noticed a predictable diatom bloom. I waited that out, however... the tank never cleared and I am now dealing with what I believe to be Cyanobacteria, but fear it could be dinos. It looks brownish/red (more brown than red) looks slightly stringy and has attached air bubbles. It is mostly on the sand but it is also on the rocks. There are tons of trapped air bubbles under the sand, anytime my goby digs the bubbles rise to the surface. It cleans off very easily... when I scrub it from the rocks it comes off without ANY effort and looks "powdery" when released to the water.
I had been siphoning this stuff off and refilling with new salt water, cut back on my MH light cycle from 8 hrs to 6, and redirected power heads trying to maximize flow across the sand (where its worse). I believe my flow is adequate with large return pumping to two corner returns, and 4 Koralia power heads. After no improvement I decided to treat the tank with Chemi Clean, as follows:
Did a 30g water change/sand sift after scrubbing algae off rocks, followed by Chemi-clean dose-20 level scoops, accommodating for water volume loss from live rock/sand in tank and sump. I unplugged skimmer, UV and let the chemiclean work for two days. I did not see any reduction of the ?cyano besides initial decrease from siphoning the sand. At the end of the 2 days, I did a 35 water change, got the skimmer back online and waited a day before I decided to treat with an identical dose of chemi-clean again. The reason for the second treatment was that I did not see ANY reduction of this algae, in fact in came back during the first 2 day treatment just as bad as before I dosed. During this second treatment I turned off my MH's and ran Actinic PC's only. With MH's off the algae doesnt grow as quickly, but its still there. With MH on the stuff spreads like crazy. I waited another 2 days, did a 45gallon water change, siphoning out more gunk, got my skimmer and UV back on line and added PhosGuard and Purigen to the sump. That was three days ago and my sand bed is literally covered, and the rocks are covering up quickly now too.
I know my Alk and PH are low, I have Kent Pro Buffer dKH and Seachem Carbonate that I can start dosing, but which one of those should I use? Would those two things being off contribute to this problem?
Fish and corals all appear to be fine, they are eating, swimming, etc...
Also, does this look like Cyano or something else? Advice is much appreciated!
THANKS!!!!
