Please help with this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please refer to the following pics. We have been dealing with this for 4 months. We have tried cleaning this up daily but to no avail. We decide to let it grow to to a size we could take a pic. This is about 2 weeks of growth. Right know we have a crushed coral bottom but are moving in June so we will be changing to a sand bottom. It seems to be growing more rapidly near or on our non-live rocks. We have about 4 pieces left in our tank from about 6 years ago.
Tank specs for April 16, 2005
PO4 0 - .25
Ca 380 which we know is low
NO3 less than 5
Ph 7.9
Kh 90
Fe 0
NO2 Less than .1
NH3 0

[Murminator]

Originally Posted by geeeman

Little bigger
I have the same problem I need help too

[Beverly]

What is your water change schedule? How much and how often? Using tap or RO? What is your tank size? What kind of and how many fish? How much and how often do you feed? Do you have any macroalgae in your system to help utilize the nutrients? What are the tank's magnesium levels?

We change or water every month. We have tried weekly, bi-weekly monthly. there is no difference in this growth. We use store bought RO water and do 10 gal water changes. The tank is 75gal with a 33gal sump. There are 3 clowns, 1 regal, 1 emperior, 1 damsel. We also have frog spone, zeina, star polyps and a couple of hard corals. We feed once a day with a 1/3 of frozen food qube. There is no macroalgae and we haven't tested for magnesium ever

[DanG]

Doesn't sound like you're changing enough water. I'd try upping it to 20g and see how it works out.

[rickjames]

Is that cyano?

You are getting readings of N02, NO3, and P04, so you want to lower those through some sort of nutrient export (i.e. more and/or larger water changes or better protein skimmer). If I were you I would:

1) Do one large water change with (aged) water closely mixed to the same salt content and temperature.
2) invest in a better skimmer.

[Beverly]

Here is what I would do:

1. Step up your water changes to weekly 15% of the total water volume. However, now that you have a pretty good cyano problem, I would probably do a couple of 30-40% water changes to help lower nutrient levels. Great that you are using RO

2. Adding some macroalgae will help utilize the nutrients in your tank. Depending on the species of macroalgae, your tangs may eat it too.

3. I would agree that upgrading your skimmer would help. However, we don't skim our tanks, but keep the number of fish to a minimum to reduce bioload and nutrient production.

4. If you haven't changed your lights in over a year, doing so will improve the quality of light in your tank and may help reduce the cyano. However, changing your lighting alone will not solve your cyano problems.

5. Get a magnesium test kit and start using it weekly until you have a sound understanding of the magnesium needs of your particular system. Magnesium is as important to overall water chemistry as is alkalinity and calcium. Here are some articles on water chemistry:

Aquarium System Volume Calculator:

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/volcalc.html

The Reef Chemistry Calculator:

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

Magnesium in Reef Aquaria:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/oct2003/chem.htm

Solving Calcium and Alkalinity Problems:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

HTH