Help identifying strange algae
 

Hello all,

Maybe im missing something in all my reading, but i am having a hard time identifying this type of algae. At first i thought it was red HA, but im starting to doubt that now.

Its really strange. It seems to only form in the morning on the sand and rock low in the tank. its deep red, almost maroon in color. Ive tried moving flow around to get at the areas more, but it doesnt seem to help anything. The really strange thing is, that after a couple hours in the morning, it starts to disappear. its mostly gone by the evening, aqnd doesnt start forming again until the next morning. This has been going on for a while now and its driving me crazy.

All parameters are in check as far as i can tell. last tests were 2 days ago: ph 7.8, alk 8, mag 1250, calc 410, temp 78, sg 1.025, nitrates 0, phos 0.01 on my hannah checker. I have a 75 gal tank with a 20g sump, using a tunze DOC 9006 skimmer, running carbon and GFO. All i have for tank inhabitants are 2 clowns, foxface, matted filefish, flame hawkfish, and solar fairy wrasse.

any help?

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It's a type of cyano and it is invading my tank at the moment as well. It doesn't like bright lights and it loves higher flow areas.
In my tank it is almost seasonal and "mostly" goes away by spring. Like any problem algae, nutrient control is the course of action to get rid of it

It's not an algae but cyano is a bacteria, usually caused by high phosphate in your water. Do you use RODI water in your water changes?

I have been running gfo ever since i took biopellets off my system, and just started using chaeto in my sump and Its growing pretty darn quick as well. I have been debating trying prodibio, but ive done a lot of changes to the tank lately with new additions and stuff so im gonna give it a couple months before i pull the trigger on anything that big like that. Strangely enough, ive never seen a sign of nitrates yet since removing the biopellets. Im pretty adamant about 15% water changes every 2 weeks, and the bioload is pretty light, so maybe thats why.

Its good to know that im not the only one with this as well. maybe running longer photoperiods might be the answer?

i do use RODI water. and phos has always tested low. like under .05, another thing that has baffled me.

Maybe the chemistry of the water changed when you took your bio pellets off line as that is the purpose of running bio pellets to add bennificial bacteria. You could try using chemi clean to get rid of the cyano, it works well but you will still have to figure out the oot cause.

ChemiClean is specifically to deal with red slime bacteria. I always keep some on hand and use it a couple of times a year for outbreaks. It will sort you out fine,
Dan

cyano
 

it might be nitrates as well,you seem to have a fair amount of aptasia,maybe uneaten food.your phosphates are good,are you using a hanna checker for your nitrates

fragit dan and jagermaier, is chemiclean fine for reef tanks? no harm to coral?

monocus, Ive had aiptasia problems right from the start. the LR i got was from a tear down of someone elses tank, so i got all the good and the bad with it. a matted filefish destroyed the problem last year around this time, but it came back. I just added the filefish on the 26th, so it wont be too long and he will have it under control (hopefully). Im using api kits for everything except phos (hannah checker), and mag (elos). nitrates show 0 and have for a very long time.

Chemi clean is perfectly fine for reefs. Just make sure you take your skimmer off line while using it and do a partial water change after. In other words...follow instructions carefully.

A Berghia nudibranch will better rid your tank of aptasia as it eats ALL of the aptasia so it does not regenerate. Just my opinion though... :smile:

+1 on the chemiclean, no problem for reef tanks. I use it on several without problem, as already mentioned, take your skimmer offline. I opt to remove the skimmer cup and leave the skimmer on to increase aeration, but this is with an in-sump skimmer and it leads to lots of foam in the sump. Also, carbon comes out during dosing. I'll turn the skimmer back on (replace the cup) for a few hours before my water change and turn it down a bit, and empty the cup (will be every couple of minutes for the first bit). When it calms down I do my water change. I'm under the impression this takes a lot of the crude out prior to the water change so gives me a cleaner tank in the end. Then the old carbon goes back online and gets changed the next day. It is also a good idea to inoculate your tank with a bacteriological product like MB7 afterwards as the chemiclean will wipe out a lot of the bacteria in your tank, bad AND good,
Dan

I tried berghia nudis a while ago. i got 12 from a place in the US. they all arrived alive, and i carefully placed them throughout the tank as the webside instructed using a pipette. cost me around 250$ for them. and six months later, there was no change. tried the matted filefish, and 2 months later, no visible aiptasia.

i got rid of the first filefish as i suspected him of nipping some zoas. hopefully this one will behave =P

just did some reading on chemiclean. The oxygenation issue has me a little worried. I have a flame hawkfish and have read that they require oxygen rich water. that and i dont want to lose any coral.

any reccomendations or personal experiences that would help out?

Just throw a couple of power heads in the display tank to aerate the water during the process and you will be fine, you do not have to worry about the corals...they will be fine!

man, at times all this makes me want to pull my hair out! (made more funny by the fact im bald =P). I am reading up on chemiclean. and it seems for some reason like every time i research nutrient reduction methods, or algae control, i come back to carabon dosing. I want to try vodka dosing, but biopellets are a carbon source as well. If results from vodka are anything like they were from biopellets, im not going anywhere near them!

maybe this is a topic for a new thread.

Bio pellets works fine, you just have to be patient as it takes time for them to have full benefits from them.

it took a month or 2 for them to start working, but after they kicked in on my system, all growth stopped, the emerald palys in the above picks bleached, all zoas melted, but i had no algae =S. took them off, and things are starting to grow again. including the algae =/

berghia
 

who told you to place them in different areas of your tank?i always tell everyone to place them in a shotglass and sink it in one area and let them crawl out on their own in one area.there is a guy in alberta that sells berghia(i think in calgary).i sell them for $14 each and with shipping(around $4o to alberta)

Before you get chemical, try and increase your air/water mix.
A power head blowing across the surface of your tank often does the trick.

The dealer I got mine from told me that they can starve to death before finding enough food. So to prevent that, spread them out. Just what I was told.

berghia
 

you keep them together so they can mate-if they can't find each other there is no offspring.they can go from one side of a 15 gal tank to the other in less than 5 minutes.they also usually feed in packs(although they do separate to individually feed)a group of berghia will start at the base of one aptasia-devour it and move onto the next

Sheesh, someone should start a bhergia nidibranch myth busting thread lol. I was also told that they won't eat the bigger ones and that if I wasn't careful the aiptasia would eat the nudis.

Oh well, this thread really got off topic lol

off topic
 

they will eat the large ones-just that they will group feed on them.aptasia wiil eat a berghia only if they fall on the feeding arms.as to your cyano,what salt are you using.i never had cyano untill i used h2ocean salt.i switched to seachem reef salt and only get cyano maybe twice a year-fixed with chemclean.it also could be a certain time of year where it occurs naturaly

I am using h2ocean. I have been since I started the tank. If I wanted to switch what kind of process would I be looking at? Just doing regular water changes with the new salt?

cyano
 

that's what i did-just switch for water changes-use up your old salt first.there was a breakdown on the chemicals in different salts on 1reef if i remember right.seachem reef salt had the highest magnesium and calcium

its a red slime algae/bacteria....

I used this and the problem was solved in a week or less & NO problems for any of my fish or Corals....

I dosed one time...

Red Slime Remover.... I have lots... PM ME. Save the Cash.

http://www.petstore.com/media/catalo...-Remover-1.jpg

hfp75, thanks but ive already ordered some chemiclean from JL.

monocus, its strange that you mention h2ocean as the probable cause. from what ive read, it seems to be a popular salt.

cyano
 

i talked with some of the staff a j&l and they said a lot of people had cyano out breaks when using that salt,of course it could have been the mix at the time,but i never went back to using it