pulling my hair out!!!

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Ahh your sand is fine, dont worry about that. You do have some knd of snot algae though. Do you have any measurable N or P?? and what kind of salt to you use??


Mike
 
No measurable n or p and I only use Oceanpure... Have been using it for atleast a year or 2 now without issues...

James
 
How about the Phosphate media how long have you been using that?? What the flow like on top of the water James?? Are you getting a good ripple up thier??

Mike
 
There is quite the ripple at the top of the tank...

As for the phos Remover I added about 100g last sunday and then added about another 200g a couple days ago... Total about 300g in the tank... I am not a person who likes phos remover as I have killed quite a few corals with it but I figured what did I have to loose now... I am already loosing 1 birdsnest from this algae and my pink cap thingy is taking a hit as well from the algae as you can see as well as I am haivng issues with my blue digi..

James
 
So you added it after the algae was already thier?? I have seen this type of algae before in folks tanks that dosed iron or used MM in a refugium, that is why I asked. Anything you can tie timing wise to the event?? Additives, food types ??? possible a bad batch of salt??


Mike
 
Yeah the algae was already there when I added the Phos Remover...

As for the Additives nothing has been added except the Occasional dose of Sr which I have done for some time now... Food types have been the same except back in Dec I used some DTs and phyto feast Live that I won at the Xmas party...

As for the Salt for the last 5 months I have been using all my salt from the same batch...

Other than that the only other thing that Changed was in Jan I switched back to Xm bulbs from Krystal Stars which both look pretty much the same.. Nothing else that I can think of Unless this Phyto Feast stuff caused it or the DTs did... I wasnt using very much and not that Often... Actually I was also using some DTs oyster eggs for a while as well... That was pretty much the only thing the tank was being Fed with the Exception of Cyclopeze every 4 or 5 days or so... I have been pretty much starving the tank to Rid the tank of the Aweful hair algae that I have been battling... I did have a mandrin disappear sometime as I havent seen him lately but who knows when the last time I saw him was.. In a tank this big fish go missing for days..

would using something like Chemi clean possibly work or would it do more harm than good? I was thinking that maybe some sort of Bacteria entered the tank some how and that is where it all came from... When looking in the sump (low light at best) it looks liek there is some in the sump as well...

James
 
Well those foods are concintrated but it sounds like you were feeding very much. I dont know anything about chemi clean so I can help you thier buddy.


Mike
 
I am just stumped Myself.. I would have thought that doing 3x 50g water changes over the past week and a half would have gotten rid of most anything in the water... And on Top of that all the Phos Remover and carbon that was added... I mean there really shouldnt be anything left in the water... Should I go for Larger Water Changes? I could do a 100g change but I really dont think that would help too much... I am just at a loss here as I have pretty much done everything... Kickin the crud out of it with water changes hasnt showed any signs of helping anything... Ran O3 for a week and didnt notice and Difference... Added Phoslock and Carbon and didnt notice any difference...

As a last Resort I pulled 2 of the Corals My birdsnest and Blue digi and Soaked them in Seachems reefdip for a while and moved them to a different location...

Any other Suggestions as to how I can kick this stuff to the Curb?

James
 
James I would say try to change something. Like switch to another salt lke IO for a few WC's and see if that does anything, stop the phos for a month and see what that does. Just change a ouple of thing that you do normally, as in the bigger things like Salt, food additives. Dont stop them all on the same day but apart from each other so you cansee which one it might be.
I had a cyano outbreak a year or so ago, and went through the same thing as you. It was a biggie where the cyano was forming strands and covering everything. It turned out to be the salt mix?? go figure??


Mike
 
I'm still thinking it's a dino issue but on the off chance, do you have any vermetids or similar in the tank?

Cheers
Steve
 
that looks exactly like what i had a few years back, im pretty sure it's a dino, (which means probably a bacteria of some sort)
i ran the whole gambit of;
increasing kalkwasser until my p.h. was 8.5,
cutting my lighting way back, mostly just left the actinics on with a couple hours of daylight,
daily physical removal of the algae, turkey basing the crap off my corals morning and evening,
i bought a u.v. sterilizer,
increased my alkalinity.

obviously most of these things you want to do slowly, but i was desperate at the time and willing to try just about anything.
fortunately i didnt kill any of my corals, and the slime monster finally crept back into it's cave after 2 weeks of hell. im pretty sure i used chemi clean to no effect, but it probably wouldnt hurt, all it is is an oxidizer that will lower oxygen levels enough to hopefully starve out your algae, just watch your p.h. and follow the directions and do a wc after 48 hours of dosing the product. i think you can repeat after the wc if i remember correctly.

honestly im not which thing i did (or combination) killed the dino, but that was my little experience with it, for what it 's worth
 
How about TDS in water used in water changes? Mike do you think this could could contribute to algae outbreak?
 
My TDS has always been 0 since the Filters are brand new... There is no TDS in the water...

I will look into switching to IO for a water change or 2 and see what happens... For now since I think it might be some for of Dinos I have killed the Mh lights to see if I can kill it that way..

James
 
Well It definetly isnt something to do with the Lights... I went and checked out 2 of the affected corals and they were worse than they have been since things started.. :( Both were almost completely covered in this crud..

As for Vermitids nope.. Everyone that I have seen I have Physically removed as I hated them spitting all the junk everywhere..

Dinos are Light Driven so If My lights were killed wouldnt the algae not be there and not come back with a big ole Superchaged Explosion of this stuff on these 2 corals.. Only thing that was running were my Vhos... Which Are a bit old but who knows... Icecap claims 2yrs no probs on their ballasts... Not even close to that mark... I have another set that is maybe 6 months so I will swap those around and see if it might be the Vhos causing the issue..

James
 
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Thanks for the link.. I read over the Article...

As for Swapping my Vhos around I decided to take the more Direct appraoch and just kill them all together... I tell ya one thing this stuff is frustrating... I thought the Hair algae was bad but atleast that stuff wasnt killing my corals... The birdsnest Is easy to replace however the Blue digi isnt so easy... Neither is my cap that is affected... So whatever It is I hope things just go away..

James
 
I decided to take the Approach of pulling down a few rocks and Rinsing them Extremely well when I moved a Few and noticed quite a bit of Detris even though I blow off all the rocks every couple of days.. I figure If Its built up Detris within the Rocks Rinsing them should clear that up.. Worse case scenario I end up rinsing all the crud off and Rebuilding the AquaScape... I WILL get this figured out... I figure Its possible that the rock was shedding quite a bit and Eventually got to the point of Causing whatever this algae is that Is taking over my corals... I have some Fresh Water Making up right now so that I can Rinse as many rocks as possible and possibly even Vacumm behind the Rockwork while I am At it... Who knows I might find my Decaying Mandarin while I am at it..

James
 
Illusion said:
I decided to take the Approach of pulling down a few rocks and Rinsing them Extremely well when I moved a Few and noticed quite a bit of Detris even though I blow off all the rocks every couple of days.. I figure If Its built up Detris within the Rocks Rinsing them should clear that up.. Worse case scenario I end up rinsing all the crud off and Rebuilding the AquaScape... I WILL get this figured out... I figure Its possible that the rock was shedding quite a bit and Eventually got to the point of Causing whatever this algae is that Is taking over my corals... I have some Fresh Water Making up right now so that I can Rinse as many rocks as possible and possibly even Vacumm behind the Rockwork while I am At it... Who knows I might find my Decaying Mandarin while I am at it..

James

James,
Sometimes a aquascape does wonders creating more water movement. I hope this is your solution. I am confused as you or even more.
good luck,
Ed:)
 
I know that there are a some large caliber experts working on this problem for you and they are the ones to listen. I just can't stop wondering why the two corals seem to be so afflicted by this. Could the corals that are affectted have contracted some bug or disease that is causing them to produse this brown slime. Maybe I missed it somewhere, but is the slime on anything else but these two corals??
 
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