Purple is taking over my tank!

dookie67

dookie67

New member
I like the look of this smooth purple stuff that is taking over all the surfaces, but:
  • What is it?
  • Is it natural to the reef?
  • Will it harm my corals or fish?
Any info would be appreciated. Tank was started in December.

DOOKIE
 

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Oh my.....ok not good...not good at all! That is cyano bacteria. Well kill everything if not taken care of. First are you using carbon, gfo, skimmer? Do you do water changes? Have you check your nitrates, phosphates...how much do you feed...and how long are your lights on
 
do big water changes, testing nitrates and phosphates are not gonna do you much good. with that much cyano they will probably read 0 neacuse its eating them up. if you have cyano or any form of algae you have nitrates and phosphates. Start doing some reading on the ways of getting rid of it. Later on start testing for them
 
ouch.... I would take the fish and corals out and put them in a QT system, lights out the tank for a week and siphon all the algae out when its dead. After that I would change 50% of the water 2 days in a row, then add my fish back in and get into good husbandry practices.

Not saying my advice is the right advice its just what I would do in that situation. Another option is to use Chemi-clean to kill all the Cyano, it will however cause a huge PO4/nitrate boom in your tank and you will need to do multiple water changes and most likely multiple treatments. good luck.
 
I would pull/siphon out as much as possible before doing any kind of attempt to kill it so it doesn't pollute everything more when it dies.
 
Have you been using just tap water, I would use rodi water, you can buy it from wallmart if you dont have the filter, and a clean up crew, get some snails n some hermits runnin around in there. and would definitely limit my lights.
 
That's a helluva lot o cyano!!
Definitely want to manually remove what you can by hand and by siphoning. When mixing your saltwater, do you use RO/DI filtered water? If not, that's probably the problem or over feeding/bad light spectrum.
I'm battling a bit of this stuff in one of my tanks.... so you're not alone. I'm thinking my problem could be old light bulbs and maybe detritus trapped in DSB is causing mine.
Good luck!!!
 
Equipment Absence

Equipment Absence

I dont want to jump the gun but Im curious as to what you have for skimming, filtration, making water (RODI), water circulation, even lighting. One thing with saltwater tanks is there is some cost involved. With the proper equipment your tank can run without major bacteria outbreaks like what your dealing with. Sadly with an outbreak this large it will be an uphill challenge to get rid of but it can be done. The trick is keeping it away. I would start by trying to vacuum the algea off while doing water changes with RODI water to get yuor levels to zero. Make sure you dont introduce more levels by over feeding also. Addressing what equipment you have or dont have is the other step. I wish you the best and hope you recover quickly.
 
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