Algae Indentification and Help Please

ScubaGirl · #1 03-23-2011, 01:12 AM

Sorry, this has to be quick. I'm heading out for a night shift. I'll be back on here tomorrow after I sleep.

My tank was mature with the previous owners (not sure exactly how long), then moved a block down to our house. It's been set up at our house for a year and 3 months at this point.

Yes, there are some areas with greyish/pale "fur" like areas with tiny bubbles attached. Not a lot though that I can see. We leave the back wall alone for the most part to try to encourage our urchin to eat that coraline algae rather than off the rocks.

The only thing new the tank recently is 1 fish and 9 corals. Tank is 75 gallons. Water was pristine 6 weeks ago.

CUC: astrea, turbo, and nassarius snails; sand sifting star fish; one conch; one tuxedo urchin; and one each cleaner shrimp and coral banded shrimp.

Again, thank you!!!

Navarchus · #2 03-23-2011, 03:13 AM

What is your system PH?

I think it is Dino as well but it is a syndrome of accumulation of organic materials that are decomposing in your system. Usually behind and between the rocks, duo to inefficient water circulation and water flow.
One of the symptoms of it is the suppression of PH.

Adding buffer and trying to raise PH with out solving the problem I described will not solve the problem. You have to get rid of the source of the problem!

naesco · #3 03-23-2011, 02:59 PM

Hot off the press.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog...sons-i-learned

skabooya · #4 03-23-2011, 03:41 PM

OMG I thought i had cyano.... I HAVE DINOS NOOOOOOOOO. This sucks.
This is great just flippin great. rant rant rant rant

Thanks for the info about them.

Im so sad

ScubaGirl · #5 03-23-2011, 03:51 PM

Sorry, pH was 8.

Yes, we just recently lost 6 snails and we are down to maybe 2 crabs left.

There was one "dead zone" where two rocks had fallen over and I left it be for about 3 weeks (just being lazy, I admit it). That could very well have been what started all of this. I've now taken those 2 rocks out and it's an open area now. Flow is moving through there now.

All my rock work is out away from the wall. I have two powerheads, one pointed up at the surface, one about mid tank level flowing in the opposite direction. The filter flow is pointed at the back of the tank to keep things stirred up back there.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...5&postcount=63

So...now I'm off to sleep. Back later...

I'll read all your posts again later with fresh eyes and after the night shift foggy brain has cleared, LOL. Thank you for the links too. I'll read those too.

ScubaGirl · #6 03-24-2011, 12:16 AM

Wow....sounds like I have my work cut out for me. I'm bummed....

I blacked out the tank but before I did, I took a good look around. I'd say that it has easily quadrupled in severity over night since I took the original pics yesterday. I am shocked at how bad this has gotten so fast.

Thank you all for your help, I'm so thankful to get on this quickly. I"ll keep you posted on progress.

ScubaGirl · #7 03-25-2011, 06:46 AM

Tank has been blacked out for about 18 hours now. I took the cover off tonight and turned on the light to do a bit of maintenance and feed the fish a small bit of food. The fish weren't too keen on eating at first but then after about 5 minutes they perked up and all ate.

Most of the red threads (flagella) have lost their color and are greyish or beige. I'd say about 2/3 of it is gone. Powerhead socks were totally full so I removed them and put brand new ones on. I cleaned the skimmer again. I took a turkey baster and blew off the rocks and stirred up the sand surface again too. I have water prepping tonight for a water change. When I do the change I'll put in new activated carbon in the filter and clean up the filter tubing.

My magnesium has dropped to 850, pH has dropped to 7.5 and ammonia has gone up to 1.0. All else are the same or better. Hopefully a water change will perk things up again.

Navarchus · #8 03-25-2011, 03:12 PM

Don’t tern on the light and keep it completely dark
Don’t worry some time in nature corals don’t have sun for several days (usually after storm) and fish don’t eat for days in a time…so keep it cool, everything will be fin if you go by the book.

Just remember that after the “dark age” you shouldn’t go straight back to the normal light regime. When I fought the dino I made a 4 day darkening and on the fifth day I just let the tank site in the surrounding natural light. The next day I started with few hours of actinic and only one hour of MH and littlie by little a raised the number of MH hours.

I do hope that you took all measures before darkening the tank, such as:
Wash all waist accumulated behind your rocks, siphoning out as much dino as you could, rising ph to 8.4 -8.5 and adding GAC and immproving your water flow.