Battling brown cyano

[josh88]

How do I clean the rock my button polyps are on.

HTC EVO

 

[josh88]

I guess my ? Is what do I do with the coral that hitch hicked, and my cuc I have two mini brittle starfish that live in one of the rocks.

HTC EVO

 

[jezzeaepi]

You don't have to bother those. You can probably get by just taking a 5g bucket, filling it with some water from your tank, and swishing each rock vigorously in the bucket so that all of the detritus comes off the rock, and stays in the water. Do this with all your rocks and then dump the bucket of nasty water. Can double check the bottom of the bucket when you are done to make sure you haven't lost any of your brittles.

 

[dnjan]

Edit to add that you also may want to replace your lightbulbs if they are old. Spectrally shifted old bulbs may also contribute.

Spectrums don't shift. Some of the wavelengths can decrease in intensity, giving the impression of an overall colour-shift, but individual wavelengths cannot change.

So, that means that nothing in an old bulb can increase to cause nuisance growth. It is possible for a decrease in intensity at a particular wavelength to result in one form of algae to grow less (and therefore consume fewer nutrients, leaving the nutrients available for another nuisance that thrives in the wavelengths that did not decrease in intensity), which could favour another type of nuisance growth. But wavelengths cannot shift, and I do not believe it is possible for the intensity at a given wavelength to increase either (once a bulb has been "burned in").

 

[jezzeaepi]

Spectrums don't shift. Some of the wavelengths can decrease in intensity, giving the impression of an overall colour-shift, but individual wavelengths cannot change.

While you are correct that a bulb will always produce spectral peaks in the same exact areas, it is the size of the peaks that shifts(i.e. intensity), and these shifts in peak height doesn't happen evenly across the spectrum. This will make it so, relatively, you are putting less blue light in to your tank, and more yellow light. Thus, the type of light that your tank is getting shifts from a balanced blue to a heavily weighted yellow. This gives the corals less light to grow, and, relatively, gives the algae more light, which causes the algae to out compete the coral for energy and nutrients, and makes your algae grow faster.

 

[dnjan]

No, the algae do not get more light. They get a higher percentage of the decreased total amount of light, but the actual amount of yellow (or whatever wavelength of light) will decrease.
As for corals specifically being out-competed for nutrients, that suggests that the corals are after the exact same nutrients. I thought the corals were primarily filter-feeders (hence the polyps), while algae consumed disolved nutrients.
Nuisance algae is a nutrient problem, not an "old bulbs" problem.

 

[jezzeaepi]

No, the algae do not get more light. They get a higher percentage of the decreased total amount of light, but the actual amount of yellow (or whatever wavelength of light) will decrease.

This is what I said. The overall light decreases(shift in peak intensity), but RELATIVELY, there is more light from the yellow spectrum then the blue, which exacerbates the problem of the already weak bulb. Corals can't grow under weak light, but algae can. Therefore old bulbs create an environment that is more friendly to algae then it is coral.

As for corals specifically being out-competed for nutrients, that suggests that the corals are after the exact same nutrients. I thought the corals were primarily filter-feeders (hence the polyps), while algae consumed disolved nutrients.

Corals are after the same nutrients, just in much much lower concentrations. However, if the corals aren't getting enough light to grow, then their already limited uptake of nitrogen and phosphates will drop, and as the nitrates and phosphates in the water builds up, you will get algae. This isn't an issue for most, but if you have a heavily dominated SPS tank with a lot of growth, then this decrease in nitrate and phosphate uptake(from the lack of growth caused by the lack of light) will be noticeable over time.

Nuisance algae is a nutrient problem, not an "old bulbs" problem.

While it is true that algae cant grow without excess nutrients, old bulbs can certainly contribute to the problem for reasons stated above. It may or may not be the reason in every case, but it will be for some.

 

[josh88]

Who didn't expect all that, but all of your post makes sense. So I'm guessing my want for the pheniox 150w 14,000k is more of need. If I'm understanding everything correctly, the reason the dinoflagellate started growing was due to extra nutrients in my water, the bulbs was getting old. So add good conditions for it to grow, and it explains why my button polyps seemed to be doing poorly, they weren't getting the nutrients they needed due to the dinoflagellate out competing them for food. And the light they needed may not have been strong enough to give them what they wanted but low enough to allow the dinoflagellate to take stronger hold. But I feel I've beaten it for now. Updated pics now

Right side

Left side

Button polyps all opened again

Pink finger out again

Sponge is growing like crazy, and on the sand.
HTC EVO

 

[jezzeaepi]

Looking much better! Looks like your sponges and polyps made it through just fine.

If I'm understanding everything correctly, the reason the dinoflagellate started growing was due to extra nutrients in my water, the bulbs was getting old. So add good conditions for it to grow, and it explains why my button polyps seemed to be doing poorly, they weren't getting the nutrients they needed due to the dinoflagellate out competing them for food.

Yes first and foremost, it is the nutrients in the water that cause the dino's to grow. There can be many reasons why nutrients build up like over feeding, insufficient rock curing, insufficient flow, insufficient quantity of live rock given the bio load, and ultimately, nutrient export. In order to export this extra nutrient, there are only two possible things you can do. 1. Water changes. Dilution is the solution to your pollution. 2. Grow organisms. By growing living things in our tank, we are using up nitrates and phosphates. The most popular way that this is done in the aquarium is to have a refugium in order to grow macro algae that can be removed(thus completing the export of the nutrient from the water). The other way to export nutrients via organism growth is by growing corals in our tank. If you have thriving corals, they should out compete the algae GIVEN that your levels of nutrients in the water are already very low, your alk/calc/mag is balanced, and your light is sufficient.