Yet another red hair algae thread

[Fmellish]

I've read a thousand "help I have red algae" threads, but yet I still feel compelled to seek the advice of my peers.

I have been fighting a small battle against red hair algae recently. It's just read hairy stuff that is so delicate that I blast it away with a turkey baster.

In the last week it has gotten much worse. It blankets my sand bed. I now have a RSB, (Red Sand Bed). I can blast it off, or stir my sand, but it grows back instantly. I mean, you can watch this stuff grow. My entire sand bed will be covered in less than a 24 hour period.

What really got me worried as that today I noticed it has started to grow on my corals and macro algae. I simply don't have the time to turkey baste my tank 4 times daily. It has gotten so far out of control. My tank is 6.5 months old, (6.5 months post cycle).

I don't know if this is Cyano. It's hairy and slimey, not just slimey or just hairy. It grows on everything. Mainly the sand and glass, but most recently now on my corals which aren't extending their polyps due to it. It seems to love my gorgonias.

So I've looked at the reasons people say this stuff can exist, and none of them apply to me.

- Phosphates: I shouldn't have any. I use RO/DI water with TDS = 0
- Lights: I only have a 6 hour photoperiod, and my halides aren't ready for replacement yet
- Ammonia / Death: Nothing has died in my tank nothing is spoiling in my tank.
- Excess nutrients: I feed my fish as much food as they can eat in 30 seconds, twice a day. There shouldn't be any excess nutrients in the water.

My params are good. My calcium and dKH are a little low, but not dangeriously low.

Please help. My tank looks like cr@p with the sand red and hairy. And my corals are just draped in this stuff. I can blow it all off with a power head and it will be re grown in less than a day.

Any advice?

Thanks
Josh

 

[818]

Its definatley Cyno. U have excess nutrients/phospates.

Test it, just because your using RO/DI doesnt mean your tank will be reading at 0 phosphates.

Sam

 

[Fmellish]

Thanks. I need to pick up a phosphate test kit.

Last time I tried to reduce my fishes caloric intake, two of them died. I'm already scarcely feeding them. I can't feed them any less.

Do I need a phosban reactor or something?

Thanks
Josh

 

[stryker]

have you tried chemi-clean? works great on cyanobacteria!

 

[818]

If I were you yes.

As you stated, you barely supply with the demand of food needed.

If you run a phosban reactor 24/7 with some ROWAPHOS you can feed heavy as I do and not get a single spec of cyano/algae. And with the weekly water changes your all set.

I feed so heavy I make sure my hermits/ and snails get a full tummy

Yes get a test kit also.

Sam

 

[Fmellish]

No I haven't tried anything yet other than blowing the stuff away.

Maybe I'm strange, but I'm a little reluctant to add any chemicals to my tank.

i will look into it.

Josh

 

[818]

Dont add any chemicals like Chemi Clean, and all that Cr@p....

Rowaphos If I remember is made from natural elements. Its so powerfull a teaspoon of that stuff cleaned up my 60g along with water changes. Yet none of my corals r fish were harmed.

I too am scared of liquid chemicals

 

[tankslave]

That stuff hates high flow. Its not cutting your fishs' diet, its exporting what you put in. Cyano feeds where detritus settles.

How is your skimmer doing? Might need some tweaking/cleaning. got a cleanup crew in there?

 

[marcrothschild]

Does it create lots of bubbles which get worse as the photo period goes on? Is it the consistency of mucus? If it is/does, you could have dinoflaggelates....which mens you are in for alot of work to get rid of them.
I had them in an old system I had. I cut my MH to 4hr daily, actinic 6hr. I dosed Kalk to keep pH 8.5 24-7, I siphoned into 50 micron sock daily(then blasted the sock clean w a hose) I did 20%WC every 3x a week, and I skimmed super wet. After 45-60 days it was gone and I slowly increased my photoperiod to 6hr MH. HTH, but the only way to get rid of dinos is lots of work on the tank, and the only way to know for sure its dinos is with a quality microscope. I would just treat imperically. HTH

 

[tankslave]

YEa, get some Rowaphos, run it in a fluidized chamber for max effectiveness. Dont starve your fish, you shouldnt have to.

Export by any means possible!

You can always suck out that sandbed and go bare bottom! That'll give you easy access to suck out the detritus as it accumulates, and allow you to boost your flow

Otherwise, you're going to need some critters in that sand to help it process all the detritus

How long has the system been going?

 

[NicoleC]

Yep... I was just wondering if it was dinos. Those aren't fun at all. When I battled them, I did not cut my photo period, but I wore myself out with manual removal and water changes. In may case, my water filters has gone slightly down hill and the more water changes I did, the worse it got. I actually STOPPED water changes for several weeks and poof! they all died.

I had nothing sensitive then, though. It wouldn't be an option for me now.

If it's cyano, the issue is usually flow, but manual removal is a must to really kick it.

Either way, I would check your water filtration system and bleach/ then dechlorinate all your tank tools. Then daily siphon out the gunk, not just blow it around. Think of it as nutrient removal! 5g water change a day is very doable without too much extra effort.

 

[Fmellish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7547646#post7547646 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tankslave
That stuff hates high flow. Its not cutting your fishs' diet, its exporting what you put in. Cyano feeds where detritus settles.

How is your skimmer doing? Might need some tweaking/cleaning. got a cleanup crew in there?

It's a 120 gallon. I have 9 snails.

I have tons of detritus. I turkey baste my rocks daily, and I always get large clouds of muck from every rock. Even the ones I just turkey basted.

As far as skimming. I just changed skimmer pumps and I seem to be going through a break-in period (again), as I'm not producing any sitcky foam. I'm producing foam, but it pops. It doesn't stick together and climb my skimmer neck. Normally I skim really well, but lately, not so well.

Should I use any of the Salifert or Kent Marine phosphate filter medias?

Also, this problem didn't exist before I started using carbon. Someone convinced me to add carbon to my system even though I had never used it before, and now here we are. Maybe the carbon added some phosphate?



Josh

 

[Fmellish]

My flow was reduced recently. I added a chiller, and that yanked about 400 GPH away from my return flow.

If I think about all the recent changes:
- Changed skimmer pump, skimmer not producing skimmate yet
- Added chiller (Reduced flow)

Josh

 

[Fmellish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7547689#post7547689 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NicoleC
Yep... I was just wondering if it was dinos. Those aren't fun at all. When I battled them, I did not cut my photo period, but I wore myself out with manual removal and water changes. In may case, my water filters has gone slightly down hill and the more water changes I did, the worse it got. I actually STOPPED water changes for several weeks and poof! they all died.

I had nothing sensitive then, though. It wouldn't be an option for me now.

If it's cyano, the issue is usually flow, but manual removal is a must to really kick it.

Either way, I would check your water filtration system and bleach/ then dechlorinate all your tank tools. Then daily siphon out the gunk, not just blow it around. Think of it as nutrient removal! 5g water change a day is very doable without too much extra effort.

I've been changing 18 gallons a week. I used to only do 18 g a month, but since this out break I've been doing it weekly. 18 Gallons is about 13% water change for me.

 

[Fmellish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7547648#post7547648 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by marcrothschild
Does it create lots of bubbles which get worse as the photo period goes on? Is it the consistency of mucus? If it is/does, you could have dinoflaggelates....which mens you are in for alot of work to get rid of them.
I had them in an old system I had. I cut my MH to 4hr daily, actinic 6hr. I dosed Kalk to keep pH 8.5 24-7, I siphoned into 50 micron sock daily(then blasted the sock clean w a hose) I did 20%WC every 3x a week, and I skimmed super wet. After 45-60 days it was gone and I slowly increased my photoperiod to 6hr MH. HTH, but the only way to get rid of dinos is lots of work on the tank, and the only way to know for sure its dinos is with a quality microscope. I would just treat imperically. HTH

Yes, air bubbles do get trapped in it. It is slimey, but is has fine hairs. When it's covering the glass it looks like slime with soft fine hairs.

It grows quicker than I can siphon it out. I'm not kidding. I can blast it off a rock on one side of the tank, change sides, work on other rocks, then come back to the original side and it will have red cr@p on it again.

I'm not overfeeding. It may be arguable that I'm not exporting nutrients since my skimmer is not producing skimmate right now. However my Xenia colonies and my macro algae are out of control. I trim a couple feet of kelp every week.

Josh

 

[Fmellish]

I'll take a pic tonight and post on my website.

http://fmellish.shackspace.com/aquarium/

Check it after 8:30 PM or so.


Josh

 

[tankslave]

Ok, perfect ingredients for cyano. Reduced flow, skimmer not online, detritus everywhere...

When you do water changes (the water changes alone wont get rid of it) siphon off as much detritus as you can. Dont just change the water, make sure something is going with it. Also, check your source water for PO4, NO3. You MUST have a test kit to rule out your source water. Your skimmer wont function for about two weeks until all the plasticisers come off. Not much you can do. As long as you see foam, its ok if it just pops, that'll wear off.

You must get some flow in there. You want to see your fish on a treadmill. Chaotic flow patterns. 10x turnover is not unheard of. Throw some Sieos in there at least.

 

[Fmellish]

Im' not worried about the skimmer. You are right, it will kick in soon. I actually just switched it over to a better pump and I am excited about all the bubbles I see. I removed and cleaned the entire skimmer, so it looks brand new, and the new pump is kickin butt. I remember this same break-in period with the old pump. it took about 2 weeks, but once it started working, the bubbles turned sticky. I expect to reach that point soon.

When I do water changes I normally just siphon water out of the sump. I will try to make sure "something goes with it" next time.

I have a 1850 GPH Tunze and a 900 GPH Eheim 1262 in my setup, so max GPH could be 2750GPH or 23x flow. However my chiller has stripped my Eheim of most of its flow, and I run my Tunze at 25% to keep my sand on the bed, so I esitimate my flow to be more around 500 GPH + 400 GPH, (900 GPH or 7.5x flow).

My sand is like powdered sugar. If I turn my tunze to even 50% I have a sand storm.

Josh

 

[ezcompany]

here's a solution
u said 120?

-turn off pumps
-place AC110s around 3 all set with filter media
-apply boyd's red slime remover
-baste your whole tank to hell
-manually siphon out large pieces
-after an hour most of the red crap should be sucked up and trapped in your filter media


just baseting spreads ur stuff and makes the situation worse.

my solution is impractical but its a suggestion

 

[Fmellish]

Here are the pics from

http://fmellish.shackspace.com/aquarium/

Thanks
Josh