Dark patches on the sand

[TekCat]

I have been syphoning brown slimy stingy patches on my sand for weeks. Dropped phosphate sponge/carbon in sump, increased waterflow, reduced feeding, prunned my chaeto in sump, but no luck.
Tank params:
Age 8 months
55G + 10G sump + 3G fuge
70Lbs LR
Temp 78-80
pH 8.2 (8.1 - 8.4)
salinity 35ppt
NH3(4), NO2, NO3, PO4 = 0
Alk 7dKH
Ca 390 ppm
Mg 1300 ppm


Here are few pix of my tank where patches shown:

What could it be and how can I get rid of it? It starts to cover bottom part of rocks too.

Please HEEEELP

 

[deepboy]

Have you tied the RedSlime remover

 

[TekCat]

RedSlime remover? what is it?

 

[bertoni]

Red Slime Remover is an antibiotic, from what I can tell. I wouldn't use it again. How long has this tank been running? New tanks often go through various blooms.

 

[TekCat]

Its been run for about 8 months.

 

[TekCat]

so, does it look like it is a cyano?
and is there an alternative to Red Slime Remover?

 

[JRistau81]

Chemiclean

 

[juke]

if you want to avoid chems, siphon it all out and point your powerhead to flow heavily over the area where the algae bloom was and that should help.

Remember this is a bacteria and comes and goes in most tanks!

At times it can be caused my silicates being too high. The most likely cause is po4 in your sand bed and not in your water column. That wouold not be detectable by a test kit, unless you test the water in the sandbed

 

[Markk96]

How long has your tank been setup?

 

[TekCat]

Markk96: tank had been set up for 8 months.

juke: I suspect it is the trapped junk in my sand bed. Initially, when I cured rocks in tank I had DSB and some dead stuff from rocks got trapped in the sand. Removing sand is not an option, it would be like starting all over...

What is soo bad about using chemical/bacterial remedies?

 

[juke]

chems are not naturally occuring on the reefs...

they are viable methods, but I have heard horror stories about this and ultimately they are a band-aid. You need to find the source and chemi-clean will not reduce a nitrate or silicate issue. the problem will just come back down the road

 

[mike89t]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7471015#post7471015 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TekCat
What is soo bad about using chemical/bacterial remedies?

#1: It only helps in the short term. Stuff will come back if you don't get to the source of the problem.

#2: It also kills the good bacteria that you want in your tank. This may cause your tank to cycle again.

 

[TekCat]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7471136#post7471136 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mike89t
#1: It only helps in the short term. Stuff will come back if you don't get to the source of the problem.

#2: It also kills the good bacteria that you want in your tank. This may cause your tank to cycle again.

I agree on #1, however my params are in check (I know, that tests might not show the "whole picture").

As far as #2 goes, wouldn't the vendors warn you that it kills good bacteria? (wishfull thinking )

 

[bertoni]

They don't usually cause the tank to cycle, but they have been known to cause problems. Usually, the cyanobacteria returns after a month or so. Chemi-Clean is the same as Red Slime Remover, as far as I can tell, and it has the same plusses and minuses.

I would suggest working on feeding or nutrient export. Growing and harvesting a macroalga might help a lot. More circulation might help, too, if the tank is on the low end there.

The dKH is on the low end of okay. You could try bumping it up to 10 dKH or so to see whether that might encourage coralline to grow.

 

[TekCat]

Thanks for tips, I'll be posting my progress

 

[Amy83820]

I will admit to using Red Slime Remover. It worked fine and all cyano was gone in 48 hours. In order to keep it from coming back however, i increased flow and cut down on feeding. It was my own stupidity that it was in the tank in the first place. I had just a bit on some on lr from the lfs and didn't realize what it was.

 

[VoidRaven]

Ugh, Red Slime "algae"....I do NOT miss battling that!

I would second Bertoni's advice. The only problem I ever had, though, was that my macro algae would harbor all kinds of crud and ended up increasing the amount of crud in the water than getting rid of it. Maybe it was just me, maybe it was the light I was using on my CPR refugium, but my chaeto would get all gunked up with other algaes and it would just transfer into the display. Hence that time I removed the CPR and kept up on regular water changes and that seems to have helped immensely.

Of course, my bioload has changed too...and the tank is now just over 2 years old so the maturity of the bio-system could also have something to do with it.

As one who used to swear by RSR I would say not to even waste the money on it. You still have to do your water changes and such, so your best bet is an aggressive cleaning campaign with maybe an investment in better powerheads?

 

[Sk8r]

Treatment will depress activity in your sandbed and lower pod population. It is a hard hit on your tank. Dr. Mac sells a snail he swears will eat the stuff. I have no personal experience with the snail. Your tank isn't bad yet. Try everything you can before resorting to Chemi-clean. There are consequences for using it.

 

[TekCat]

Thanks for all your replies, most helpful. However it had been a while before I started thinking about RSR. Here is a rundown of what I did before:

55G tank, with sump and fuge, minus sand and rocks gives aproximately 60G of total water volume.

AquaC Remora skimmer that skims "wet".

Light: 8x54W 48" T5 HO bulbs. 3-true actinic, 1-actinic blue, 3- 11K, and 1-6.5K

Powerheads inside my 55 tank: 2 MaxiJet 900 on the back blowing behind the rocks, SEIO 1100 and SEIO 820 pointing toward each other. I guess I have pretty good water circulation.

I feed very little: 1/4 frozen cube per day for O.clown, gramma, and blenny.

Other inhabitants: a few skarlet and hawaiian hermits; cerith, trochus, nassarius, strombus smails; 1 pep and 1 skunk shrimp; and a serpent star eat whatever they can get their "hands" on, I don't target feed them. Forgot to mention a medium clam.

Chaeto in my fuge grows slow, tumbled by dedicated maxijet, and lit under "melevs" fuge light.

Corals: ricoda (sp?) yamma frag, millepora frag, green acro frag, hammer coral, and unknown SPS frag.

Oh, and 4" DSB.

Water tests do not detect any nitrates or phosphates.

The only thing that I have "questionable" (that was pointed by bertoni) is my Alk, it is 7dKH, I am slowly trying to bring it to 10dKH.



Things I plan to do or doing already:
I am inconsequentially switching from IO salt to ReefCrystals. Due to very low Ca and its quick depletion.

Dosing baking soda to raise alk.

Trying to not hear a devil on my shoulder telling my to get RSR and use it.

 

[bertoni]

The 4" DSB might be an issue. What has been stocked for it?

Your circulation sounds fine to me, and the feeding rate is reasonable.

How big is the refugium? Also, I didn't have such good luck with that particular bulb. I switched to a PC fixture, and life got better.