Looking for system critique/advice.

[mthedude]

my suggestion would be to test your TDS of your makeup water, buy a sample of another salt mix and try water changes w/this brand to see if it helps. Maybe double your amount of Phosphate media, prune your macro more often and perhaps change your MH Bulbs.

The rocks coming from a high nutrient tank sounds kind of suspect. If you can pull out the bad rock/rocks, do it and "cook" them so it doesn't happen again. I'd place my money on salt/bad RO/DI filter or the rock leaching though.

 

[Shooter7]

Yeah, I posted up above that my TDS is 0 - 1. If it goes above one, I change out my DI resin. Oh, and that's another thing, my macro looks like it's dying off in some areas. I sort of attributed this to the low nutrient levels I was getting with my tests though. It may need pruning though, it's in a tank about 15 gals and it's maybe the size of 2 or 3 softballs.

Craig, with regards to the picture...no, mine doesn't look like that. That actually looks like old cyano to me. Mine is not like a mat, it's scattered about, some of it has tendrils/fuzz coming up, other parts of it just looks like small globs. And it's not nearly that dark either. Maybe a light tan at best.

thanks

 

[rdnyva]

Here's something interesting. I took out and scrubbed the rocks I could easily remove a few days ago and I put one back in a different place. Well the algae underneath that one was starting to disappear. So it may have something to do with lighting. I just changed 2 of my 3 MHs so it's not the bulbs, but thee photoperiod may be the key at this point. I deliberately put small rocks on top of some rocks with heavy algae on them to see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

Also: I find it's strange that there is no algae in my sump or fuge. The fuge has much diferent lighting so another finger pointing to lights. I also can't figure out why macroalgae in fuge (chaeto and caulerpa) refuses to grow.

 

[Shooter7]

Ok, here's an attempt at pics.

Small rock by itself on the sand. Has the grayish fuzz on it. A couple of different settings on the camera, still not terribly visible.

Heavier amount of it up on the main rocks:

And the self-serving obligatory full tank shot :

If any of that helps at all.

 

[Craig Lambert]

Looks like the stuff I had. (I posted the picture earlier). My sand was white in the morning and looked like the picture I posted just before the main lights went off. The next morning it was clear, and then brown again late in the day. The picture I posted was when it was at its absolute worst. It could not be vacumed, as there was nothing to vacum off the sand other than the sand itself. It also had bubbles in it late in the day.

I use a spetrapure 5 stage RODI with 0 tds. I have a lightly stocked 75G tank. (5 fish), and skim with an AquaC EV-180. (lots of skimming for a 75G). I also have a fuge w/cheato.

The stuff began appearing when the tank was 6 months old. I decided it was just "new tank syndrome" and let it be. It was stubborn, but was gone in about 90 days time.

(I did cut back feeding to 2 days a week, and increase the frequency of water changes, but that was all I did).

 

[Shooter7]

Well, that would be cool, considering I'm about 60 days into it. :thumbsup:

 

[poppin_fresh]

My tanks over a year old and I have it, so I dont think its related to a new tank.

 

[Shooter7]

Well dang, I was hoping that since mine started at about the 6 month point I'd get similar results.

 

[rdnyva]

I went into my closet and dug out a book entitled ALGAE by Julian Sprung and on page 55 is a picture of what I have. It's called Hincksia and is a type of brown hair algae. The book says to control it siphon it off the substrate and use a phosphate absorbing media. My phosphate test kit is on order so I can't test yet, but at least I may be on the right track. Hope this may help someone else also.