Lighting and algae?

[Slyguy00]

So about a month ago I bought a maxspect razor led for my tank. Since then i have been on an ever going battle with some kind of brownish stringy algae that is beginning to destroy my tank. It is only on for 8 hours a day and 3 hours just blue. It ramps up from 10:30 and for 2 hours of the day i have blues at 80% and whites at 70% and then it goes back down. I have the light about 2 ft from my water, I syphon my sand, iv tried doing many water changes, iv tested my water and everything seems ok. But this stupid brown **** just keeps coming back, more and more. It also appears that there are little bubbles in with this algae. I tried chemiclean and it didn't do anything. If anything it appears worse. Im just about ready to start piecing this tank out if I can't beat this. So if anybody out there can suggest or tell me whats up id really appreciate it. Because I'm gonna lose my mind dealing with this stupid tank. Thanks again.

[spit.fire]

Add more flow and do a 75% water change IMO

[Slyguy00]

i messed with the powerheads last night and the flow is pretty intense. And I'm working on doing a massive water change… AGAIN. hope it helps. but so far nothing seems to.

[reefwars]

Could be dinos hard to diagnose though


H202 will help if done correctly

[asylumdown]

do they get tiny bubbles in them by the end of the day? If they're brown and stringy to me it sounds like dinoflagellates but you'd need to confirm that with a microscope.

There's a bajillion different kinds of dinos, some are horrific, toxic, poisonous and just generally awful - think red tides and shellfish not suitable for human consumption, and some are just unsightly and darn persistent but otherwise seemingly harmless. Hard to know which one you've got, but if all of a sudden all your slime eating snails like Astreas suddenly kack it en mass there's a good chance you've got one of the less friendly kinds.

I also wouldn't be so quick to link it to the lights. They can happen regardless of your lighting system and are known to occur in tanks lit by pretty much every kind of technology in the trade.

ETA just re-red your initial post and you said they do in fact get bubbles. That to me sounds like dinos. The most obvious time to look for them is on your rocks at the end of the day right before lights out. If you look at an oblique angle you might see a fine layer of microbubbles covering your rocks. Classic symptom of dinos

[Slyguy00]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

do they get tiny bubbles in them by the end of the day? If they're brown and stringy to me it sounds like dinoflagellates but you'd need to confirm that with a microscope.

There's a bajillion different kinds of dinos, some are horrific, toxic, poisonous and just generally awful - think red tides and shellfish not suitable for human consumption, and some are just unsightly and darn persistent but otherwise seemingly harmless. Hard to know which one you've got, but if all of a sudden all your slime eating snails like Astreas suddenly kack it en mass there's a good chance you've got one of the less friendly kinds.

I also wouldn't be so quick to link it to the lights. They can happen regardless of your lighting system and are known to occur in tanks lit by pretty much every kind of technology in the trade.

ETA just re-red your initial post and you said they do in fact get bubbles. That to me sounds like dinos. The most obvious time to look for them is on your rocks at the end of the day right before lights out. If you look at an oblique angle you might see a fine layer of microbubbles covering your rocks. Classic symptom of dinos

Well it deffinately sounds like dinos because you just desribed it exactly. I just finished doing about 50-60% water change so well see if that helps. What would you reccomend i do? Because its driving me crazy. Thank you for your reply. Very helpful!