HELP! Need to identify this algae bloom before it kills all my corals.

[crimper]

That's exactly what happened to my frag tank. Got smothered by Dinos, after dosing Component 123 for about 3 months. I think its the accumulation of trace. I tore it down after loosing most of my SPS colonies. I restarted with the same Reef Salt but only dosing Kalk this time. Its been 3 months now, so far so good. I might go back to dosing bulk chemicals when dosing Kalk isn't enough.

[DKoKoMan]

Originally Posted by crimper

That's exactly what happened to my frag tank. Got smothered by Dinos, after dosing Component 123 for about 3 months. I think its the accumulation of trace. I tore it down after loosing most of my SPS colonies. I restarted with the same Reef Salt but only dosing Kalk this time. Its been 3 months now, so far so good. I might go back to dosing bulk chemicals when dosing Kalk isn't enough.

What a pain in the @$$. Seeing what it did to my sps frags and some larger heads of lps that would not be pretty. What were your water parameters at when dino broke out?

[crimper]

My nitares shoot up to 50ppm then did lots of WC. Phosphate was ideal 0.03. then after i got it under control i think the bacteria kicked in and stripped my nuteients that caused stn on almost all my sps colonies. What's worse is it happened when i was away for 2 days. 😂

[DKoKoMan]

Ugh that's brutal. My nitrates go between 10-25ppm and phosphates are 0.03 (Hanna). I am carbon dosing right now to try and drive the nitrates down instead of WC. My guess is the large WC were encouraging the dino growth with the extra trace elements. What were you dosing for your carbon source?

[crimper]

Originally Posted by DKoKoMan

What were you dosing for your carbon source?

None at the moment, I remove most of my fish and transfered them on my fowlr. I only have one wrasse and a pair of clowns left on my frag tank. I have a pretty low nutrients at the moment. If I need to, I will try NOPOX or maybe biopellets.

[ReefMadness]

i'm at the point where i just want a positive ID on what exactly this is and why aquaforest salt/dosing components seem to have fueled it . it shares qualities of diatoms, dinoflagelletes and cyano which doesn't help either.
currently i'm just doing a weekly 15% water change, i've stopped dosing any carbon products and have opted out of using probiotic salt in favor of just normal reef salt. i turkey baste corals that are looking stressed from the algae but i try not to disturb it so as not to spread it any further.
hoping to create a slide this week to establish exactly what it is.

[DKoKoMan]

Originally Posted by ReefMadness

i'm at the point where i just want a positive ID on what exactly this is and why aquaforest salt/dosing components seem to have fueled it . it shares qualities of diatoms, dinoflagelletes and cyano which doesn't help either.
currently i'm just doing a weekly 15% water change, i've stopped dosing any carbon products and have opted out of using probiotic salt in favor of just normal reef salt. i turkey baste corals that are looking stressed from the algae but i try not to disturb it so as not to spread it any further.
hoping to create a slide this week to establish exactly what it is.

IMO... I would suggest biweekly water changes for a while. I found that this has really kicked back the bloom in addition the RedSea NOPO-X has seemed to help. I have noticed that the algae has receded and doesn't appear to be showing bubbles as much in the photo-period. I will keep you posted as things progress.

This is definitely a PITA!!! For the record I am still using AF Reef Salt, so if it continues to bloom I will be changing back to the IO or RC.