Cyano and Hair Algae

[danjen10]

I've been having some issues with algae growth and wanted to see if anyone had any advise. My tank has been up for over a year and I have been very lucky as the algae growth has been limited to the macro algae in the refugium. I use RO water from the same source as in the past and have tested for phosphates and silicates (Salifert) and both test at zero. My nitrates have been and continue to be 2.5 - 5.0.

The only things that I can thing are leading to my issues are:

1) Feeding - this is hard to believe as I am feeling so little that i'm starting to worry that the animals are not getting enough.
2) My switch (about 2 months ago) to a home made 2 part CA / Alk solution. This is according to methods described by several sources.
3) My water supplier has changed?? But my testing has not indicated this is a problem but I know that some levels are undetectable with mainstream tests. (Note: I am running a Phosban unit in an effort to help)
4) Small liverock addition. I traded some coral for a small amount of tonga live rock (maybe 5lbs) about 6 weeks ago. I thought this was cured but perhaps it wasn't fully cured??? I currently have over 200 lbs rock.

The algae I have seems to have a lot of bubbles and is a little stringy. It's not terrible and I want to keep it that way. Also, it's mostly near that rock that I added. I was summizing that the new rock is curing and the areas that are close by are suffering too.

Please share your thoughts and what you think my next actions should be.

Thanks.

P.S. the pics do not really do justice to how ugly I believe the algae is but it's the best I have now.

Dan

[dobejazz]

It's hard to tell from the pics is the algae red?

[superwizbang]

Hi Kelli!

Dan, if you have over 200lbs of LR and only added about 5-10lbs, I would suspect that the addition was not enough to be a problem. Your current natural critter filtration should be able to handle the load quite easily. I might add that even small additions of nutrients will increase algae growth as it seems to multiply more readily than many beneficial organisms...or at least we see them more easily. Ha!

What form of lighting do you use, how long are your photo periods and how old are your bulbs. It is pretty standard to change your bulbs once a year and RO/DI materials about once each 8 months depending on your load. As bulbs get older, their light spectrums change and could become more suited for algal growth. RO unit media is obvious.

Have you introduced any more species (corals/organisms) recently? Many people do not think that corals produce byproducts but actually they do. Increasing the number of corals will increase your bioload as well. Introduction of other organisms not normally associated with byproducts can cause problems too. Just because snails eat algae does not mean that the nutrients in the grazed algae goes away. It just gets broken down into simpler form. Only skimming and water changes will actually remove nutrients from a closed system.

In short, if you are having an algal bloom, it is because the nutrients were there or that they have been introduced. It is not a bad idea to take a powerhead once a month and blow off your corals/rock in small sections (not all at once). Let the skimmer skim out the now-suspended nutrients or suck them out in a water change. Cyano comes in many different colors. It is characteristic for it to form in mats and for you to see trapped gasses in the mat as it goes through gas exchange like many of your other organisms. As has been said many times over, even though your tank has params near zero for phosphates and nitrates, it does not necessarily mean they are there. You may have removed one element in the delicate balance cycle your tank has established. Fewer organisms to fix nitrates would mean more nitrates allowed to freely circlulate in the tank. By removing a source of nitrate fixation (corals/organisms), you have allowed more nutrients to become free for the algae to consume. There are thousands of possibilities.

Hope that helps and we can get you back to good soon enough.

-Ken

[tdwyatt]

http://thereeftank.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99841

[superwizbang]

Good call Tom. I sorta lumped cyano in with algae in my post...and they are different organisms. That said, they both thrive from increased nutrient levels and I tend to treat/think of them as the same anyhow. We all have a little cyano from time-to-time. It normally corresponds with a fluctuation of some form.

-Ken

[Geoff]

the lights are not the problem.

i am betting your sand bed is getting full. have you been siphoning out detritus that is behind your aquascaping? since it is the LR's on the bottom on the sand that are showing the most "algae" this is a clue that your LR is starting to wick phosphates up into the LR.

how often do you cull the refugium? a refugium is only usefull if the algae is culled out on a regular basis. it is also only good if you do not try and feed the algae to the fish in the tank. you are trying to export the nutrients not put them back into the system.

describe you fuge. if it has sand in it. get rid of it and start over with new sand. not live sand, but regular dry sand. this will you time while you decide what to do with the display to fix its nutrient problem.

G~

[danjen10]

I do try to clean the sand in the main tank but don't touch the sand in the fuge ... ever. I prune the chaeto and calulerpa in the fuge and toss it. It's never fed to the fish. I usually have to prune it 2x per month. I definitely have some cyano in the fuge (even with my powerhead for surface agitation). Usually, it's worst as the chaeto grows toward the surface. As long as it's underwater, it's pretty good.

The interesting thing about the algae in the main tank is it's somewhat localized to about 1/3 of the tank. Other parts of the tank look as good as ever and show not "bad" growth. 2 other things that recently came to mind was the fact that a power head came loose on that side and pretty much stirred the sand bed up and I also did a lot of LR blasting on that side with a turkey baster. These things were both weeks ago but may be causing this local effect???

I will try to post some other pics later ...

[Geoff]

if the fuge is over year it is prolly time to completely replace the sand that is in it. if you are having to cull the algae that much than the sand bed is prolly full already and fueling the algae.

rule #1 with algae/cyano- it grows as close to its food source as possible, regardless of where you want it to grow. the reason why it grows so well in the fuge is that the fuge is a cess pool it traps all of the uneaten food and fish poo. which is a good thing as long as you know to replace it every so often before it fills up and starts leaking nutrients into the rest of the system.

G~

[danjen10]

Why go with non live sand for the replacement? If I go with the live sand is there a downside? Are there any special precautions I should take when replacing the sand? I was thinking just stop the main pump, drain most of the water in the fuge, remove the sand, put the new sand in and let is settle for a time then put the fuge back online.

Also, you can see my setup from the pics. The tank is a room divider and this pic is from my office. One thing you can probably make out from the pic of the fuge is all the "rock" that I have in the inlet side of the fuge. That rock is a product made by Seachem called "Matrix". It's just an extremely porus material. I think that it's helped keep the nitrates down to about 2.5 but I don't know this for a fact. After the sandbed and before the main pump and skimmer, I have a sponge. It's hard to see inthe pic but it's stuffed in the overflow to the main pump. I have to clean that regularly. It's just to keep the "big stuff" from making it to the main tank.

i've seen a lot of posts about taking the main tank to a BB (or minimal sand) and the fuge to zero sand. I will keep reading the pros and cons in other posts but from where I am currently, would you just keep the 1" bed in the main and replace the 4" bed in the fuge or go to another setup? From your experience what is the best option.

Last question for now.... is it possible the my supplements are causing my algae issues? Basically i'm using the receipe from twopartsolutions.com. I also read somewhere that is the mag is low, algae can perk up. Do you have that experience and if so, at what levels would you begin to see this happen.

For reference: My tank is about 50-70% stony corals and the rest are zoa's and a softies. Lighting is MH XM's 150's with actinic in a 72" fixture. Flow is about 30x total water volume and total water volume is probably about 130gal (tank is 125, fuge is about 30)

[tdwyatt]

Nice system setup.

Using live sand has a drawback in that it is most likely already at least partially saturated with phosphates in its new state (if not completely and will act as a big import of nitrates as well... ). You are looking to provide a surface that has little biofilm development, yet still capable of acting as a phosphate receptor and a good benthic substrate for marine bacteria (the biocoenosis that forms of mixed bacteria, funji, algae, etc makes up the biofilm that forms on benthic marine sands). Aragonite fits the bill the best, but I suppose that silicate sand could do the job as well, though it will not have the chenmical affinity for phosphate that Calcium carbonate would.

Lots to consider when using sand as a substrate filter, as it definitely will have an expiration date in time.


HTH

[tdwyatt]

btw, on the use of supplements, especially microsupplements (i.e., other than calcium alkalinity, and minor adjustments in Mg levels), the use of supplements (outside changes of water at ~ 10-20% q week to 2 weeks) acts much like the volume knob on a radio: phosphates are the on-off switch, nitrates and light supply the power to run the radio, but the trace elemental supplements will determine just how loud your radio will play (how heavy or quickly your algal growth will occur). Credit for this analogy has to go to Julian Sprung, though I like to steal it on a regular basis...

[danjen10]

Thanks for the feedback.

If I go with no or very little sand in the fuge (i.e. just pull what I have out) would there be any downsides that you can think of? Up till now this setup has been great with no problems to speak of. Replacing the sand is not a big deal, I just want to get a picture in my mind of what to expect.

Also, I really don't dose anything other than the CA, Alk and Mg supplements. Do your comments in the last post apply to those or to supplements other than those? I guess I didn't understand the analogy completely.

Thanks

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by danjen10

If I go with no or very little sand in the fuge (i.e. just pull what I have out) would there be any downsides that you can think of? Up till now this setup has been great with no problems to speak of. Replacing the sand is not a big deal, I just want to get a picture in my mind of what to expect.

The biggest negative will be your loss of a sink for phosphate, and that you will now have to change your husbandry protocol to account for this. Removal of calcareous sands means that you will no longer have the safety net afforded by the presence of calcium carbonate to both chemically react with and to adsorb phosphates. Bacteria that form the biofilms on sand granules also act to convert ammonia to nitrate, regardless of depth, so removal of the sand bed may require some transition time while the populations of bacteria in your live rock change to meet the dynamics of your nitrogen cycle in your water column. If your sand was at least 10-12 cm deep, then there is also the loss of your denitrification bed to consider, as well as whatever planktonic life your sand bed was producing as the benthic creatures produce gametes and juvies for self-sustaining populations of these creatures (this may range from insignificant to marginally important depending on how large, how old, how well seeded with diversity, and how well maintained your sand bed was). Sandbeds act as refuges for some species of creatures for the main tank if you keep fishes in the display that eat them, but this may be considered a disadvantage as well if these creatures are pests. HOWEVER, removing the sand now also removes the settling tank aspect of the sandbed, a settling tank that you cannot remove the settled detritus from...

By removing the sand, a change to husbandry concentrating on a high efficiency skimmer and high-flow sump where the water is channelled under the rock (if present) and into corners, etc. to keep detrital material suspended will allow for aggressive skimming that will remove the detrital remains of the main tank's biological activity from the water column. Adding a phosphate reactor utilizing Ferrous Hydroxide granules will more than make up for the use of the sandbed as a phosphate sink, and the reactor media (GFH) is MUCH easier to remove than a sandbed is, and much more efficient (just be careful and don't overdose). It may still require that you siphon the sump if eddies of detritus settle out on the bottom, but for the most part, a good sump setup with good current from the main tank's overflows will allow you to use the sump as an export mechanism rather than a net producer of biological materials that may be nutritional sources for algae in the main tank. This is not to say that you still could not use a separate refugium for a sandbed if you should desire, but if you already have a DSB in the display, that a clean bottom in your sump will help you manage exports more efficiently and with less labor input should you decide to run your sump bare.

Originally Posted by danjen10

I really don't dose anything other than the CA, Alk and Mg supplements. Do your comments in the last post apply to those or to supplements other than those?

I was referring specifically to the many aftermarket trace elements and additives sold as "coral boosters" and "Super fix-alls" that seem to fill the shelves of the majority of LFS and mail order product lines. Your really good LFS's will promote the use of water changes to do your trace element supplementations, as the addition of all the other substances found in seawater is unnecessary at the rate they are removed when 10% waterchange schedules are followed, this is why they are trace elements (non-growth limiting for corals). If supplemented to excess (as when using most trace element supplements and additives), they often accumulate in the water column and act as in the above analogy to encourage heavy algal growths once they are triggerred...


HTH

[danjen10]

Thank you for the feedback. This was extremely helpful ... No I just need to decide what's next for me...

Dan