Thinking of Taking It Down...Again.

[64Ivy]

This is the latest FTS of my 1 year old 500g Barebottom reeftank.

Not too bad, until you get up close. Then you see this:

and this:

and this:

It is an algae, not cyano, although there are spots where cyano grows on top of it. The algae does not brush or blow off easily. The infested rock must be removed then the surface scrubbed clean. And although I have yet to lose a coral to it, I have no doubt that left untreated, it would easily overgrow every frag I have. As it stands now, this stuff covers 90% of the rock surface of the entire tank and even some of the bare bottom (except where the encrusting living tissue of a coral will keep it at bay). Otherwise, it grows in spite of RO/DI water changes, aggressive skimming, light feeding of the fish, and PO4 test results that read everything from 0ppm (Salifert) to 0.07 (Hanna Meter). I also have a clean-up crew consisting of urchins and various snails, some of which now have the algae actually growing on their shells.

Things have been this way for several months now with absolutely no sign of slowing down. My rock is a combination of 20% old, seeded live rock (which never had this problem before), 40% BRS Pukani, 20% Premium Aquatics Cured Manado, and 20% Marco. The dry stuff was all cured for several weeks and treated with Lanthanum before introduction but, admittedly rushed into the DT before totally 'clean'.

Having reached the end of my rope, my plan is to remove and store the corals on racks in the DT, remove all the LR and bathe it in Muriatic acid. Then, once rinsed and dried, to slowly rebuild the reef scape, reattach the corals and get on with my 'life'. Going slowly, so as not to recycle the tank while the fish and corals are in it, I figure I'm looking at a 6-8 month rebuild.

Is there anything I'm overlooking before I begin this undertaking or is there another way? I'm particularly interested in what the peroxide advocates have to say about an infestation on this scale.

Oh, and does anyone know the name of this type of algae? TIA.

 

[ninjamini]

Algae is in everyone's tank. The question is do you feed it?

Algae consumes nitrates and phosphates and grows with light. It grows best with light in the 6500k range.

If you test for nitrates and phosphates the amount on the tank is much higher because it's being held in the algae itself.

Solution.
Less light, check light spectrum, add an algae that will consume these nutrients in a refugium. Put in less nutrients aka food. If you have a lot of fish thin it out. Get something that will eat it.

Remember no matter what you do you have to get those nutrients out of the tank. Macro algae that you prune does it. Run phosphate remover and nitrate reactor.

Water changes go a long way.

Good luck.

 

[DerekFF]

Your lights look very day light spectrum. This will fuel algae. Aim for a 14-20k spectrum to help. Add chaeto or some other fast growing macro to your sump. Make/buy an algae turf scrubber. They're amazingly efficient inventions and work very well. Sea hares are also great algae eaters.

 

[leveldrummer]

i would assault it hard with a ton of turbo snails, a handful of sea hares, and about 10 lettuce nudibranchs, kill the lights for 3 days, then wait a week and do 3 more days, half your feeding till this clears up

 

[r-balljunkie]

i wouldnt even think about breaking down a 500G tank that has medium rate coral growth and everything else in check.

the easiest thing for you to do is.......nothing. thats right, nothing.

i'd hold tight, ease up on the feeding and do a lights out for 4 days or so <like mentioned above>. be disciplined about not turning on the lights...stay patient. you're corals will be fine, your fish will be fine. just be patient.
get some old sheets and cover the whole tank.

GL
C

 

[1SlickFish]

Well, here is my 2 cents for a few ideas....

They always say not to clean the mess but find and fix the cause. Well, this is true, but, first thing is to make sure the corals you have stay safe. What do you have for snails? I would get about 15 of each kind, throw them in and see what eats what. Someone will have an appetite for something. Second is to sipon and filter the sand bed out the whazoo! Get a good large filter sock and just filter he sand bed over and over. I would not add too much new salt water as it contains a lot of nitrites in itself. If you like the look of the lights, you might have to cut back as it was mentioned, thats a good algae growing color spectrum. As mentioned, make a large algae scrubber, that will pick up half the algae load if you leave the lights on more often than not.

 

[Decadence]

I have some of that stuff. I recently found a thread on it but what I have been doing has been working pretty well to kick it. You know that it does require nitrate and phosphate to grow so the best thing that you can do is tackle it by starving it out. This stuff is really tough to beat because its minimum limiting nutrient level is extremely slow. In my tank, I had small patches of various algae which never grew and never bothered me. This stuff has outlived bryposis, bubble algae, a few types of caulerpa, hair algae... everything. Even the chaeto in my sump is dying.

What finally is kicking this stuff is a mix between carbon dosing and GFO. Specifically, what is kicking it is utilizing carbon dosing on a dosing pump. I have been using vinegar at a rate of 1ml per hour (100 total gallons) and skimming heavily. I believe the consensus was that this stuff is bacterial so if you try this, dose bacteria like MB7 with it so that you don't just fuel the bloom.

 

[64Ivy]

I am already running a GFO/GAC reactor, always have been. A biodenitrator too. And my lights are 400W MH's (Ushio 14K's).

For those who don't know the recent history of this tank, I am about 18 months out from a major crash caused by copper poisoning; the source of which is still unknown. Home test kits have detected no copper for the last year or so and the rock work was subsequently rebuilt. Right now, I am in the process of having my water professionally tested to see if any heavy metals still exist as I know that this condition will also feed algae.

Should the test come back negative for heavy metals, I'll try the lights out method, though this still doesn't address the issue of a cause. Otherwise, I feel I have no choice but to acid wash the rock and start again...not that this necessarily addresses the cause either but quite frankly, I am sick of looking at the tank in this condition. I'm also sick of trying to manually control it only to feel as though it grows back faster than I can scrub. Normally, I'm pretty patient but this has gone on for many months.

 

[betamed]

I had that 6-9 months after a tank crash. was doing tons of water changes and I think that was pulling PO4 out of the old rock. Algafix marine took care of it.

 

[sirreal63]

I have had what looks like the same stuff before,

If it is the same, it is a brutal algae that seems to thrive in clean water, it isn't light spectrum (where do people come up with that?) and probably is not an excess of nutrients. I have forgotten the name of it. I never found a fish or snail that would eat it. I have had it at least twice over the years and it eventually diminished on it's own within a year.

The peroxide may do it, I never tried it with that algae, but I would not treat the whole tank at first. I would pull out a few pieces and treat them remotely to see if it will do the trick. I suspect it will kill it or at least slow it down.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

It looks to me like the pink cotton candy algae. I had this in my 40B, and I was at my wits end trying for the better part of 6 months to remove the algae. I replaced the bulbs, ran aggressive GFO/GAC, reduced feedings on a lightly stocked tank, added a ton of cerith /nerite snail, but nothing would slow this algae down. I stripped the water to such a degree with the GFO/GAC that my frags stopped growing resulting in massive alk swings that nearly wiped my tank out.

Then....I got a mexican turbo snail. The pink algae has been on the run ever since adding this snail, combined with weekly manual removal. I now am interested in my tank again, and am starting to see the corals slightly recover from my aggressive attempts to control this menace. If you have the pink cotton algae, I cannot recommend the Mexican turbo snails highly enough. It is honestly the best $3 I ever spend on my tank.

Hope that helps.

 

[animalkingdom]

how is the battle coming mate?

 

[64Ivy]

At this point, I have removed and scrubbed approximately half of the LR. It is currently residing in a Brute trash can while I perform a couple of tests to see if it's leaching PO4. If so, I'll probably do a bit of lanthanum dosing to get it down. In the meantime, I am also trying to track down the source of my chronic copper issue. My last sample tested at 7.6 ppb (ENC Labs); clearly enough to be of concern. After 'home' testing continues to result in a clean sample, I have another sample (of my incoming water this time) out for professional testing. Should that sample come back clean, I can only think the copper must be coming from the LR itself as everything else has been gone over with several fine toothed combs.

Thanks for asking.

 

[echoreef]

Time to try chemo clean when all else fails. It did wonder for my tank.

 

[echoreef]

Time to try chemi clean when all else fails. It did wonder for my tank.

 

[jimrawr]

I dont get why people always recommend doing lights out. I had a similar algae in my tank, what I ended up doing is replacing all the rockwork. The algae covered rock sat in fresh saltwater mix in a bucket with a heater/flow in my basement, with a covered top. Total black out for 30 days and the algae was still attached after that time.

I think 4 days lights out might handle the cyano, but wont do anything against the hair algae growing on the rocks, literally nothing

 

[animalkingdom]

hope it turns around for you soon...keep us posted on the water test updates for copper
I've always admired your tanks and hope you get this turned around soon

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

man i know what your going thru my 150 cube was getting there. def sucks keep at it and try to fix it.

 

[KafudaFish]

It looks to me like the pink cotton candy algae. I had this in my 40B, and I was at my wits end trying for the better part of 6 months to remove the algae. I replaced the bulbs, ran aggressive GFO/GAC, reduced feedings on a lightly stocked tank, added a ton of cerith /nerite snail, but nothing would slow this algae down. I stripped the water to such a degree with the GFO/GAC that my frags stopped growing resulting in massive alk swings that nearly wiped my tank out.

Then....I got a mexican turbo snail. The pink algae has been on the run ever since adding this snail, combined with weekly manual removal. I now am interested in my tank again, and am starting to see the corals slightly recover from my aggressive attempts to control this menace. If you have the pink cotton algae, I cannot recommend the Mexican turbo snails highly enough. It is honestly the best $3 I ever spend on my tank.

Hope that helps.

Pretty much my experience with this. I used a "true" Mexican turbo (whatever that means) that was the size of a golf ball. It took around a month to win in a 95.

Good luck.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

Yep, my turbo is still going strong. I only see this vile stuff in hard to reach places or inside the refuge. I can honestly say that it was the best $3 I ever spent on my reef. Inside of a month I couldn't believe the difference the snail made in the amount of the cotton candy algae. Pick up a few and let them loose, what's the worst that happens?