The reef gods have it in for me!

[Quinn]

So everything in my tank has been going dandy for the last six months. No livestock losses since a single cleaner shrimp died mysteriously in the summer, lots of frags looking very nice, skimmer producing nice coffee-coloured skimmate...

All of a sudden, I have a huge cyano outbreak. It is basically covering all of my sandbed whereever light touches. I have tried siphoning it out but that seems like a lost cause. My strawberry conch seemed to be doing a good job for the first two weeks but in the last few days it's become a thick red mat. Coupled with that, I am now seeing the green type as well. I finally cleaned off my fuge walls today and found that rather than being half caulerpa and half tube worms, it's almost entirely filled with tube worms with a few sprigs of caulerpa here and there. I have translucent sea squirts everywhere in my live rock. I mentioned that I had a flood the other day when I added nine new SPS frags, thanks to the epoxy I expect. The weird thing is, over the last two days, my skimmer has been producing a full two litres of skimmate a day, and it looks like weak tea, rather than the two litres of dark stuff I used to get every two weeks.

So the problems basically are:
-Cyano like crazy
-Skimmer going nuts

Possible factors:
-Too many nutrients
-Worms may have killed off the caulerpa in the sump
-I started feeding my tang romaine lettuce rather than nori, and quite a bit
-I feed three times a day, first and second time pellets and flakes, then mysis before bed
-TDS and other levels
-I am doing tests now and will post when I have the readings

Unlikely factors:
-Lighting
-I have dual 400w Ushios
-Flow
-Mag 12 and four MJ1200s for about 15x turnover

So I am thinking I will clean out the fuge and get rid of some of the worms, clean the skimmer (I did this right after the flood though), and feed a bit less (twice a day).

Any suggestions or comments? My tank specifications are at http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5489.

[martym]

You mentioned the flood due to the expoxy of your new frags. Is it possible this is creating something in the water colum???? Good luck

[Jack]

Quinn, what skimmer are you using?

My guess would be the heavy feeding of the flake and pellet foods causing the mess.

[Quinn]

Just a Berlin Hang-On running in the sump. The thing is, I've been feeding like this for months with no problems.

[Jack]

Well organics may have been building up and building up then bam an outbreak. I think you are underskimmed for your size and type of tank, IMO.

I just built a huge DIY beckett and it was easy, might be a fun weekend project. :question:

[Quinn]

I agree I am underskimming. Unfortunately there are a few cards against me as far as acquiring a new skimmer goes, mainly cost and size. I'll see what everyone else thinks, regardless.

[Jack]

Mine wasn't too expensive at all but I'd get opinions non the less..

Did any overflowing skimmate get into the tank? Maybe the dissruption in the skimmer built up organics... hopefully this goes away!

[StirCrazy]

Teevee, did you go with a DSB?

Steve

[reefburnaby]

Teevee,

Hmmm...you can add DSB crashing as another possible problem.

I would try upgrading the pump on the Red Sea. Which Rio are you using for it now?

Is cyano growing on your DSB and your refugium?

- Victor.

[AJ_77]

Victor, are sandbeds crashing in 6 months now? :confused:
He has a buildup of nutrients from overfeeding, IME. Had that happen a few times myself, must be an Alberta thing. :biggrin: Upgrade the skimmer, deal with the excessive feeding, and you'll be on your way. And avoid that epoxy...

Oh, and for a short-term solution, try Dr Bob's Chemi-Clean. Cleans that stuff up like nobody's business. (Large water change after.) Check for LTA compatibility though... just thought of that.

[Quinn]

I figured someone would bring the DSB into this. I do have one, four inches deep. Here's a few photos of it:

http://quinn.rdcpsych.org/fish/cyano%20and%20dsb%20oct%2030%2003/4.jpg

http://quinn.rdcpsych.org/fish/cyano%20and%20dsb%20oct%2030%2003/5.jpg

http://quinn.rdcpsych.org/fish/cyano%20and%20dsb%20oct%2030%2003/6.jpg

You can see that it has some dark brown bands in it, along with green areas. Lots of worm tubes and such. In the fuge I have seven inches, and it looks similar.

Here's some photos of the cyano. For some reason it is looking a little better since I originally started this thread, probably because I fished my goby out of the sump when I came home from school and now he's doing his thing, moving sand around. I'm sure it will return soon enough.

http://quinn.rdcpsych.org/fish/cyano%20and%20dsb%20oct%2030%2003/1.jpg

http://quinn.rdcpsych.org/fish/cyano%20and%20dsb%20oct%2030%2003/2.jpg

http://quinn.rdcpsych.org/fish/cyano%20and%20dsb%20oct%2030%2003/3.jpg

[StirCrazy]

Victor, are sandbeds crashing in 6 months now? :confused:


it seams from almost every one I have seen laitly that they start to do minor crashes at aprox 1 year. I don't meen a total devistation type crash but rather if you look at posts and such you will see that people start developing turf/hair/other type of algae problems. while most of these present them selves as nussences that seam to come and go it just seams to much of a coincidence to me as the majority of people developing these problems also have DSBs.

Also the frequency seams to be partialy tied to the average amount fed to the tank. now I know I did do some heavy feeding on my tank myself but my phosphate/nitrate/ect levels were always perfect.

This has led me to my theory that a DSB will adsorb this stuff but it only has a certian rate of intake. now this intake can be super charged for short periods of time in which there will be a unusaly high amount of nutrents in the top layer of the sand. once the top layer becomes saturated the rate of intake will slow allowing algae growth to start. then from time to time something or some one will disturb that saturate top layer after which the sand bed will releases the excess nutrents that it is storing in the top layer at that moment. this leads to algae problems and such and it is done in such a matter that the slow prerelease of nutrents allows a good algae base to grow then when the major nutrents are released by some stiring of the surface level they are adsorbed by the algae almost as fast as they are releases by the sand bed. this explains why so many people who have DSBs and algae problems still have very good water quality levels.

anyways this is my theory and it could be totaly wrong but it makes sence to me.

Steve

[monza]

IMO I'd quick guess the same; over feeding and under skimming. Less light and food for a while and see if that helps to clear it up.

Best of Luck

dave

[monza]

Teevee

Had another look at the pics can'y really tell for sure but is that some aptaisia in your sand bed? Hopefully not, if so I'd get on that battle at the same time.

dave

[Quinn]

Nope, tube worms. No aptasia in my tank that I know of.

[reefburnaby]

Hi,

DSB crashing? It is a possibility and it could happen. When cyano and dino grow on the sandbed, it is commonly believed that the DSB is dead underneath the cyano.

I agree with Steve's Theory and it does make sense :)

Chemi-clean would probably work, but I would use it with caution and monitor the tank carefully (i.e. skimmer flooding). The only problem is that we won't understand the root cause of the problem.

- Victor.

[Bob I]

Having put up with Cyano outbreaks in the past, I am going to put forth the theory that Cyano is just part of the maturing of a tank. I have always had outbreaks at one point of a tank's life. From all the reading I have done on it, I have come to the conclusion that excess nutrients are NOT the problem. It seems to happen no matter what one tries. Yes I advocate Chemiclean, but in a tank of Quinn's size, it would get expensive., as one package treats 300 gallons. The package does state it is safe for reefs, and I have had no adverse effects from using it. The directions state you should turn off the skimmer for 24 hours during treatment, and to do a 20% water change afterwards.
No, I am not the Calgary salesman for Chemiclean,
:biggrin: I am just a fan. :eek:

And BTW, I don't believe the sandbed is part of the problem. I continued using the same sandbed after Cyano outbreaks, and there was no indication whatsoever that the sandbed had died. It is (in my opinion) just part of the current fad of trashing sandbeds. :rolleyes:

[Canadian Man]

For once Bob I actually agree with you. The sandbed is the first thing everyone starts to blame without giving anything else a 2nd thought.

Maybe it JUST overfeeding and has NOTHING to do with sand bed's crashing. :rolleyes: But automaticaly everyone starts blaming the sand bed because they read a thread on RC about it. Next we will all be ripping out our sandbeds :razz: :lol:

[Aquattro]

And BTW, I don't believe the sandbed is part of the problem. I continued using the same sandbed after Cyano outbreaks, and there was no indication whatsoever that the sandbed had died. It is (in my opinion) just part of the current fad of trashing sandbeds. :rolleyes:

I also agree with this. If the sandbed was old, then maybe, but it's new sand and I don't for a second think that is the problem. Add more skimming, take away some food. If feeding frozen, rinse before adding to the tank. It won't go away overnight, but it will go away.

[Jack]

:rolleyes: But automaticaly everyone starts blaming the sand bed because they read a thread on RC about it. Next we will all be ripping out our sandbeds :razz: :lol:

It's already happening :rolleyes:

[StirCrazy]

But automaticaly everyone starts blaming the sand bed because they read a thread on RC about it. Next we will all be ripping out our sandbeds :razz: :lol:


maybe both you and bob should read my post again.. I said it could be a possability, not that it absolutly was.

frankly I started suspecting something was wrong with my sand bed befor I ever saw that post. if you want to get technical it was about 8 months ago when I started wondering if it was the cause of my problems.

If you ask Teevee he had all the same types of sand bed disruption laitly that I noted brought on diatom and algae out breaks.

Bob as for cyno being a normal algae process I will call BS on that one.. Cyno is a bacteria not a algae so how can it be a normal algae cycle? Cyno is simple.. something is allowing a bacteria to culture in your tank. for what it is worth I never got cyno once in my tank and I didn't get any algae outbreaks untill my sand bed was over 6 months old. and then what I noticed is that if my sand bed was disturbed with in a week I would get a gold/brown algae outbreak along with some diatoms. this would subside after a week or two then would reapear a week after the sand bed got disrupted again. (usaly from a power head).

I do believe in the merits of a sand bed but I think everyone jumped on the DSB bandwagon with out even researching it fully (even myself I hate to admidt. DSBs were one thing I never realy researched but rather I took for gosple as we had Dr Ron saying they were so good, and all the reefers with tanks that were less that 1 year old praising there DSBs) now that my tank was ripped apart and the opertunity afforded its self I started reading and finding that the people who are having the least algae outbreaks and the most sussess seam to be running about a 1 to 2" bed instead of a 4 to 6". there are several reasons that make sence for this but if you have a DSB you are going to automaticly not want to believe them as I did untill reciently. Even the good Dr is now saing that a DSB isn't going to work in our tanks as we have a average of only 14 of the 1000+ different types of organisms needed to make a DSB work. also it is documented that a DSB is a phosphate trap and the surface of the sand has elavated levels of phosphate while the water colume shows none or very little (this is why people are getting algae growing on the sand bed) so this is not only a idea that I came up with after that thread.. I have been thinking the DSB was my problem for 8 months now but like other I was trying to find every reason for it to be something else (by the way.. 8 months ago puts the age of my sand bed at 7 months old. I did feed heavy but my water tested perfect as the sand bed was adsorbing all the nutrents. besides we were always told to feed the DSB heavy). no one wants to admidt they spent a tone of money on something they didn't need to. I got over that part though as I have spent a insain amount of money on this tank that a 300 buck bill for sand isn't phasing me anymore :rolleyes: and I don't know weather this is good or bad.. :mrgreen:

I am also not saying that everyone with a DSB should tear it out but they should keep there eyes open and start a log of events. then at least is your can't see any coralation at the pressent time maybe a year from now you will look at your log and start seeing a patteren like I did. some of the things I wrot in my log was any time I fed a new food, when ever a pump quite working, or came lose, any time there was a disruption of the sand bed, new additions, when I harvested algae, and when fish died (this is what tipped me off to the toxic effects of some types of calurpa) ect..

so as you can see I am not being a bandwagon jumper this time like WE ALL WERE when we started our DSBs but rather I am only taking the next logical step to iron out some issues that I have observed in my tank. and I am not saying Teevee it is definatly your DSB, but rather think about it and see if there are any coincidents or factors that could lead you to suspect your DSB and don't rule it out because Bob or CM said so and don;t assume it is the DSB because I sad so.. you have to watch your tank and rule out one thing at a time.

now who's soap box was I standing on?

Steve

[Bob I]

Perhaps you should re read my post Steve. At no point in the post did I say it was part of an ALGAE process. I said it was part of a normal maturing process. But of course as usual Bob is wrong, and Steve is right. :evil:

[StirCrazy]

At no point in the post did I say it was part of an ALGAE process.

I'll give you that.. my mistake most of the time people refer to the maturing process as algae.. but I still see no reason to concider cyno a normal process. it may be commen but it should never be concidered normal :eek:

and I never said you were wrong only that you are to quick to discount others opinions (as per normal).. so if you want to go sulk and feel wronged so be it.. but all I am doing is introducing another possibility like yourself. now if I would have come out and said checm cleen shem cleen why would you use chemicals in your tank to try solve a algae problem? I could see that you would have a good reason to pout but I didn't.. I mearly said I had a simular problem that turned out to be the sand bed.

and in my last post I said to watch and try figure out what is going on befor the gun is jumpped. sory if you feel telling some one to slow down and observe there tank for a bit is wrong info.. maybe I should have said to run out and buy 4 packs of chemicals in to get rid of what ever befor we know whate the cause is... whould that have made you happy Bob?

Steve

[reefburnaby]

Hi,

Given the information we know from RC, we should at least look at the possibility of the DSB doing something that we didn't intend.

If it was simply an overfeeding problem, then we should have seen this problem since day one. I seemed to recall that Teevee said that his tank has been doing quite well until recently.

One puzzling thing is the refugium...where did all of the macro algae go? The worms are an indication of high nutrient content in the water. I guess we can use them as nutrient export? You can also try to grow Xenia's...good nutrient exports too :)

One simple test to see if your DSB is okay and running properly is to check for Nitrogen gas. If your DSB is releasing nitrogen gas on a regular basis, then it is working properly and efficiently. If it isn't...umm...either you don't have significant levels of nutrients in your tank or...it is not working properly. In TeeVee's pictures, I do see gas pockets in his sand bed. The question is...are those pockets growing and is the gas being released?

Any who...the solution to the problem is the same as what others have said...export nutrients (skimming, restart refugium, siphon and etc) and feed less. You could use an oxidizer like Chemi-clear to supercharge your skimmer, but I would use it with caution -- especially with sensitive corals.

Good luck!

- Victor.

[Quinn]

No need for anyone to get excited. I appreciate everyone's comments and I'll be starting out with some simply fixes - less food, more water changes. I stopped doing regular 20 gallon water changes and switched off to irregular 6 gallon water changes, and that may be a part of the problem. Another potential factor is the fact that my lights are getting old. I don't know if this is really an issue, but some people have suggested it might be. I will see if I can afford some new bulbs around Xmas.

I think the main thing to remember here is that one cannot make cause and effect statements based on correlation. These tanks are a bundle of variables, and it would take rigorous scientific testing to nail down the exact problems. For now I am going to attempt to treat the symptoms rather than the problem. Removing the DSB is not an option no matter what. As most of you know, I have to sell this tank this spring anyways. At that time the new buyer can do whatever they wish with the sand bed. There is no point in risking my livestock at this time.

[Canadian Man]

But automaticaly everyone starts blaming the sand bed because they read a thread on RC about it. Next we will all be ripping out our sandbeds :razz: :lol:


maybe both you and bob should read my post again.. I said it could be a possability, not that it absolutly was.

frankly I started suspecting something was wrong with my sand bed befor I ever saw that post. if you want to get technical it was about 8 months ago when I started wondering if it was the cause of my problems.

If you ask Teevee he had all the same types of sand bed disruption laitly that I noted brought on diatom and algae out breaks.

Bob as for cyno being a normal algae process I will call BS on that one.. Cyno is a bacteria not a algae so how can it be a normal algae cycle? Cyno is simple.. something is allowing a bacteria to culture in your tank. for what it is worth I never got cyno once in my tank and I didn't get any algae outbreaks untill my sand bed was over 6 months old. and then what I noticed is that if my sand bed was disturbed with in a week I would get a gold/brown algae outbreak along with some diatoms. this would subside after a week or two then would reapear a week after the sand bed got disrupted again. (usaly from a power head).

I do believe in the merits of a sand bed but I think everyone jumped on the DSB bandwagon with out even researching it fully (even myself I hate to admidt. DSBs were one thing I never realy researched but rather I took for gosple as we had Dr Ron saying they were so good, and all the reefers with tanks that were less that 1 year old praising there DSBs) now that my tank was ripped apart and the opertunity afforded its self I started reading and finding that the people who are having the least algae outbreaks and the most sussess seam to be running about a 1 to 2" bed instead of a 4 to 6". there are several reasons that make sence for this but if you have a DSB you are going to automaticly not want to believe them as I did untill reciently. Even the good Dr is now saing that a DSB isn't going to work in our tanks as we have a average of only 14 of the 1000+ different types of organisms needed to make a DSB work. also it is documented that a DSB is a phosphate trap and the surface of the sand has elavated levels of phosphate while the water colume shows none or very little (this is why people are getting algae growing on the sand bed) so this is not only a idea that I came up with after that thread.. I have been thinking the DSB was my problem for 8 months now but like other I was trying to find every reason for it to be something else (by the way.. 8 months ago puts the age of my sand bed at 7 months old. I did feed heavy but my water tested perfect as the sand bed was adsorbing all the nutrents. besides we were always told to feed the DSB heavy). no one wants to admidt they spent a tone of money on something they didn't need to. I got over that part though as I have spent a insain amount of money on this tank that a 300 buck bill for sand isn't phasing me anymore :rolleyes: and I don't know weather this is good or bad.. :mrgreen:

I am also not saying that everyone with a DSB should tear it out but they should keep there eyes open and start a log of events. then at least is your can't see any coralation at the pressent time maybe a year from now you will look at your log and start seeing a patteren like I did. some of the things I wrot in my log was any time I fed a new food, when ever a pump quite working, or came lose, any time there was a disruption of the sand bed, new additions, when I harvested algae, and when fish died (this is what tipped me off to the toxic effects of some types of calurpa) ect..

so as you can see I am not being a bandwagon jumper this time like WE ALL WERE when we started our DSBs but rather I am only taking the next logical step to iron out some issues that I have observed in my tank. and I am not saying Teevee it is definatly your DSB, but rather think about it and see if there are any coincidents or factors that could lead you to suspect your DSB and don't rule it out because Bob or CM said so and don;t assume it is the DSB because I sad so.. you have to watch your tank and rule out one thing at a time.

now who's soap box was I standing on?

Steve

WHOOOO Steve O. I didn't mean to push any sensitive buttons. :eek: Just giving another "outsider" opinon. This whole hobbie is all about opinons. There is no right or wrong as we should all know. And like Quinn said there is many possabilities for ones tank that contains so many diffrent variables.

[Michel]

My 2 cents worth !
I don't have a DSB merely 1.5inches of Sugar aragonite, my tank in in quarantine (no fish) since I have had a bad ICH attack and decided to run empty for 5 weeks ( diificult on patience I tell ya) so I do not feed ... I still do water changes and guess what... cyano on the bottom ... Mind you not as much as before but still you would think that without nutrient it would have starved but no still there and I suck it out as soon as it appears so ????

[Samw]

My 2 cents worth !
I don't have a DSB merely 1.5inches of Sugar aragonite, my tank in in quarantine (no fish) since I have had a bad ICH attack and decided to run empty for 5 weeks ( diificult on patience I tell ya) so I do not feed ... I still do water changes and guess what... cyano on the bottom ... Mind you not as much as before but still you would think that without nutrient it would have starved but no still there and I suck it out as soon as it appears so ????


Interesting. I have about 1.5-2" of CaribSea Seaflor aragonite. I have a high bioload and nitrates at about 50 for many months. I have a few patches of cyno growing on my live rock. I always thought it was because of my poor water quality but I see that people with excellent water quality can also get this. I do stir my sand every couple of months.

[Canadian Man]

And I have about 2 to 3 inches of the same sand and feed heavily and have many fish and I have never once had cyano in over 2 years now.

Like I said. TOOOO many factors in this equation. :confused:

[Quinn]

Pleased to announce that after I stopped feeding so much last week, cyano started to disappear. Sand is now as white or whiter than it was when I put it in.

[Canadian Man]

:cool: Good thing you didn't rip out your sand bed :razz: :rolleyes: :lol:

[StirCrazy]

but is it? realy? :mrgreen: I went throught the same thing and it would keep happening.. each time it was harder to get rid of it.. what it seamed like to me was that the sand bed was getting full and choking up easyer each time so that it would be harder for me to corect the algae each time it happened..

This is what ultimatly led me to removing the sand bed.

now like I said Teevee should still keep a log of how much he is feeding and what else he does. yes this could have simpily been a over feeding problem, but if iit keeps reocuring a log will make patterens easyer to see and give clues as to what is setting it off and such. we all know how good trying to remember events from the last 15 months can be :rolleyes: :mrgreen:

Steve

[Quinn]

I won't own this tank in 15 months. :confused: :razz: