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Maybe Hair Algae too?

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    Posted: September 15 2011 at 7:06pm
Ok I probably should have piggy backed on the other hair algae thread, but I want to be sure this is what I have and I am doing what I need to.

Here is what I have:



My tank is a 180.  I did a 50 gallon water change this week including 20 last night that left very little of the algae left as I vacuumed the sand bed etc.

The picture above is from today.

I have had this issue for maybe a week now.  It really isnt on the glass, but its all over the sand, rocks, and floats to the top as well. 

I am feeding spectrum with garlic pellets a little in the am and a little around 6pm. 

Maybe my lights are on too long or bio load is too high?  Nitrate is at about 5ppm, but that doesnt mean the algae isnt absorbing it all either.

Help?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Aquaristnewbie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 7:10pm
Looks like cyano to me. How long has your tank been setup and what are your other parameters? Salinity, temp, ph, etc. And what kind of flow do you have in your tank?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tanuki Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 7:26pm
Tank has been up for 2 months but was mostly all transferred from my other tank. Flow is good as I can see this stuff waving around haha. Salinity is 1.025, I haven't actually checked salinity in the past week. Temp is 77 right now.

One other issue or factor is that the tank has been getting a lot of sun through the window.

I am open to anything. We are testing the water again tonight and I'll report back. :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Aquaristnewbie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 7:28pm
Ok but what specific flow do you have in there? Sometimes the cyano can flourish in poor flow areas but not always.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 7:32pm
Oh boy. More algae. I don't see any hair algae, yet.
That's definitely Cyanobacteria with some dinoflagellates thrown in. That's the stringy stuff stretching up with bubbles.
Added to the parameters that aquaristnewbie asked for, can you test the Alk and Ca too?

Do I see a Sand Sifting Star? If so, can you remove it immediately?
Are there any fish or coral? List please?
Can you stop all feeding for 5 days?
Can you stop all water changes?
Can you stop vacuuming the sand?

If you can do these things the tank will look much better and we can then move on the next steps; to keep it from coming back. Big smile


Edited by Mark Peterson - September 15 2011 at 8:06pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fishnfresh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 8:04pm
I would use chemiclean it works well just follow directions to the T.
I wouldnt stop feeding if you have fish, jcoulter did this after givin this advice and his tangs all killed each other.I also followed this and after 3 days my tangs attacked my others.Lucky I didnt lose fish. I sucked out as much as I could used a toothbrush on the rocks. Then used chemiclean and it worked great.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 8:32pm
Most people have trouble not feeding for 5 days. I say five days, actually expecting three. Yeah really Tongue
If the fish get too aggressive, there are other steps to take, if the hobbyist will stick with this MB and come back to get more help.

One of the small problems I've noticed over the years is if it doesn't work immediately, exactly according to the suggestions the hobbyist stops posting here. That kind of defeats the purpose of this MB for resolving problems, don't you think? I'm not picking on you, fishnfresh, but your post does bring up the problem. There is a ton of experience on this MB. I'm just a small part of it. There are many here that can help, but not as many that will speak up like me.Embarrassed

Chemiclean red slime remover certainly works, there's no doubt about that.

Not every problem has the same solution, but when trying to fix something, it is logical to try the simple easy stuff first, but when the easy solution is just temporary....
Shouldn't we try the most workable long term solution and then if that doesn't do it, come back to those with the experience to explain what happened and get their advise on what to do next? When the problem returns again and again for those using the simple easy fix, why not do something that addresses the root of the problem so it can be avoided for good?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fishnfresh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 8:47pm
suggestions are good I just think the pro's and con's should be givin with them. I know jcoulter was pretty upset he lost some nice tangs.
Just like with chemiclean it can go wrong if you dont follow directions very easy.specially since it is a chemical.Maybe say stop feeding but watch very close for aggresion in the tank. Find out what fish there are in the tank might help. If there isnt no fish prone to bein real aggresive it may help. If I remember right he has a trigger in there. That fish will tear some stuff up pretty bad I would belive lol.All IMO.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jcoulter17 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 9:50pm
5 days is a long time to go without feeding. If you are going that route slowly reduce feeding times and amounts before the fast?The fish will survive that long without being fed but they get more aggressive and will start fighting each other.
I search on here and was told to stop feeding too but my tangs got aggressive and all had spines sticking out looking like they were ready to fight and notices a small hole in the side of one of my tangs.
All of my tangs been in my tank for about 2 years so it wasn't new fish I just picked up for the LFS.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote russianrick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 10:45pm
My experience with cyanobacteria is that cleaning it out doesn't help AT ALL.  That stuff grows so fast that within 1-2 days it will look like you didn't do anything.  I did a research paper on cyanobacteria and that stuff is seriously amazing.  It is one of the most resilient life forms on this planet.  It will even eat itself when there is nothing else to eat and it grows incredibly fast.

The presence of cyanobacteria means that there is an imbalance in your water since cyanobacteria is the great natural balancer.  Almost everything we add to the tank can add nutrients that the cyanobacteria will feed on.  This is what makes those water changes a "no-no."  You may be removing a bunch of that stuff, but that also means that you are removing the competition for more of it to grow and the fact that you can still measure any levels of nitrates with that much cyano in your tank says to me that you have a lot of nutrients that need to be removed.  I had infestations like you are talking about without ever seeing a single ppm of nitrate in my water.

Let me just tell you what worked for me and you can take it for what it is worth along with what other people have said here.

1. I doubled the flow in my tank.  My internal circulation went from 10x/hr to over 20x/hr and that helped a fair amount.  This helps to slow the growth rate as it has a hard time taking hold anywhere.  You have probably noticed that it comes right off of any rockwork or sand without any work at all.  After this, I still had significant growth, just slowed down by about 7-10 times.
2. I bought a protein skimmer.  The fact of a protein skimmer is that it bypasses the process that allows the nitrates to form in the tank.  I can't say I really noticed any difference after this, but that doesn't mean that I am taking it back to the store.
3. This step may not be relevant to removing the cyanobacteria from my tank, but I will mention it anyways.  I moved and this included a compolete tear-down, cleanup, and rebuild of my tank.  I ditched all my sand, which was cheap playground sand and bought some nice aragonite sand for putting my tank back together.  I also used 100% RO water when filling the tank up the first time after moving it.  Sadly I couldn't continue to use my RO unit in my new house because it got fowled up after making 90+ gallons of water for filling up my aquariums.  This step saw the most long term results where it took a few weeks for the cyano to come back.  It came back though as soon as I started using conditioned tap water again.
4. I added more sand to my sand bed.  I was fortunate enough to inherit a 5 gallon bucket of live sand from one of my new neighbors who was taking down his tank.  The thing I love about the sand I got from him is that it is just CRAWLING with critters that eat waste and clean the water.  If I look closely in some places I can see all the zooplankton crawling on shells and stuff in the sand.
5. I moved my powerheads around to maximize useful currents that went along any pieces of porous rock and across the sand bed.  Mark Peterson gave me this idea and I used it because it made sense and I think it has a fair amount of merit.  The stuff growing in your sand and on your rocks are biological filters and they will clean the water better than any canister filter no matter how fancy the artificial filter media is.
6. I stopped feeding for 3-5 days.  Just like everyone on here has said, you will need to keep an eye on your fish, but don't worry about them being too hungry.  Fish are natural scavengers, and they will find little things to munch on without you having to add things to the tank.  The thing to look out for is aggression since some fish will start to get mean if they get a little bit hungry.  This was done leading up to my next step.
7. I removed the bio balls from my wet-dry trickle system and replaced them with a bunch of chaetomorpha and caulerpa macro algae.  I was talking to a guy at my LFS about this and he said something about bio balls that I hadn't thought of.  The bacteria that grows on the bio balls is in a very high oxygen environment on the bio balls and it doesn't propagate well onto the rock and sand in your tank.  It is also doing just part of the job, since it isn't removing the nitrates produced by the second stage of the nitrifying bacteria on the bio balls.  It was after I set up the refugium and had it on a reverse daylight schedule that things really got exciting.  The cyano slowly diminished little by little to the point where it is practically gone.

You are going to hear a lot of different things from different people here, but you have to take it all in and think about what is good for your tank.  I would say that if you can see the cyanobacteria waving in the current, your flow is too low.  It is well worth investing in a couple cheap powerheads to increase the flow.  You don't want them to blow your sand everywhere, but the cyano shouldn't be able to hold on to the sand very well in a proper current.  Once you get your circulation up, you will notice that it takes a lot longer for the cyanobacteria to come back if you clean it out.  I would also cut down on the water changes.  They are more work than they are worth when you are changing that much water.  The funny thing about cyanobacteria is that it does an excellent job at cleaning an aquarium and that is why it is there.  It turns out that cyanobacteria is the number 1 thing that converts water sources so that they are safe for larger forms of life, i.e. fish and invertebrates.

Once you get it to the point where it isn't growing so fast that it is choking out any corals you try to add, it is actually beneficial to the water quality.  At that point you can calm down a bit and plan out what you are going to do to compete with it, because it is performing a necessary function in your aquarium that is not being done otherwise.

Cyanobacteria is tough stuff, both in resilience and in the fact that it drives you CRAZY.  Don't give up
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tanuki Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 10:59pm
Thanks for all the tips.

Here is what I am going to do for now:

Famine for 3 days and see if the trigger eats the cleaner wrasse or not

Continue to try and capture and evict a small list of fish and sell them (yes I put too many in too quick because they were good deals). Kind of one of those eyes bigger than the stomach things.

I won't do a water change, but I will continue cleaning the skimmer daily and netting any loose algae in the water.

My flow should be good though I don't know the measurements aside from equipment ratings. Main pump is rated at 1080gph and I'm not sure on the koralias, but there are 3 of them.

I will report back on how these do.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote bur01014 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2011 at 11:18pm
I'd have to disagree with the above posts....the problem I think is the dinos....typically they develop soon after tank moves, transfers, etc...AND, as they populate they often lead to the development of secondary algae, in your case some cyano....take care of the dinos and your cyano will resolve in time...did you do all new sand in this new tank or just used the old sand?  Either way, lights off and blanket over the tank, no peeking for 2-3 days....skim wet, uncover then do 20% waterchange....dinos will be gone....cyan will resolve in this natural progression of the tank being rid of the dinos..

Just my opinion, but try anything out, something will work Wink


Edited by bur01014 - September 15 2011 at 11:20pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tanuki Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2011 at 8:27am
Ok so today is day 4 of no food.  NONE of the fish are more aggressive so far at all.  I even saw the trigger letting the cleaner wrasse clean him!

The algae has died down dramatically, though the sand bed still needs to be cleaned.  The algae has gone from red to like a dusty brown color and all appears to be dying.  It doesn't look slimy any more and isnt floating to the top or through the water.

Here is what I did:

Carbon sock
4 days of no feeding (including today)
Low lighting, two blue and one pink bulb going, none of the white

I think tonight I will feed just a little as well as clean the tank a little.  The normal lighting is going on today as my few corals seem to be hurting from light.  They looked really unhappy mid day yesterday so I turned the white lights on as well as the others and everything reacted very well to the added light.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote russianrick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2011 at 8:38am
It is always exciting to see this stuff dying away!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2011 at 12:20pm
It's very gratifying to see so much good knowledge and logical treatment of these algae problems.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the difference/disagreement stated by bur01014 seems more like a slight modification to deal with different circumstances than a real disagreement. Each tank is different and one set of suggestions may not answer the entire problem. Each of us has to use our heads and watch our tanks every day, making changes to the procedures as seem to best fit.
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Originally posted by russianrick russianrick wrote:

You are going to hear a lot of different things from different people here, but you have to take it all in and think about what is good for your tank.



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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tanuki Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 29 2011 at 9:10am
Mark (or anyone that knows),

Can you go over the reasons for stopping the constant water changes?  I guess it is good for removing nitrates, but aside from that are you just adding fuel to the fire with new water that has new unused elements in it? I did as you said and stopped the water changes, cut the light way down though no blanket, had the famine etc, and a week and a half later we were good, but I do think there is a certain value in less water changes. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote russianrick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 29 2011 at 9:47am
Mark would probably tell you what he told me, and that is that water changes don't remove that much.  If you have a nitrate level of 20ppm and you do a 10% water change, your nitrate level (at best) is now at 18ppm, because you are just diluting it.  The real solution to get rid of nitrates is to put something in your tank that eats them like chaetomorpha or caulerpa.  The other reason not to do frequent water changes is that there are potential nutrients you are adding into the tank with your water, which reduces the efficiency of the water change.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tanuki Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 29 2011 at 9:59am
Thanks rick!  Very helpful!
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