In-cycle algea questions

[promotheus2070]

Hi reefers .

A Short bit of information first .
Started since 12 march with my first reef , coming off a 15 year fresh water story .
Tech as followed .

- red sea reefer 300 v2
- 2 red sea 90's ( 11 hours at 60blue/10white but still in acclimation atm )
- jebao DCP 3500 ( running at 75% )
- octo classic 152 S ( pump renewal needed due to heavy sound / ati co2 scrubber )
- Superfish 350 watt heater ( keeping 24 degrees celsius )
- 2x sicce voyager 3 4500liter/hour ( on controller interval 2 mins )
- jebao auto top off ( 15 - 20 liter bin )
- jebao wifi doser

Internal decoration as followed

- 1 full bag of AF bio sand
- 40 - 50 kg of death reef stone's ( attached with AF glue )

Filtering route as followed

- included filter fleece ( will change to a reefmat later )
- media basket ( filled with ceramic rings )
- approx 4 liter of seachem matrix / ceramic ring's
- rowa carbon ( removed after 4 weeks )

Dosing DSR method

- kh buffer ( started dosing today since a big kh drop no idea from what cause )
- Calcium bottle ( not yet using since stable parameters )
- magnesium bottle ( not yet using since stable parameters )
- carbon no3/po4 remover ( not yet using but considering starting up the dosing )

Water parameters at the moment

- PH 8.3 - 8.6
- KH 5.7 ( bumping up to 9dkh in 2 days period )
- sallinety 1.026
- Calcium 450
-magnesium 1350
- No3 3 ppm ( week ago measured 15ppm)
- Po4 0.07
- No2 0.05 ( gradualy coming down from above 2 ppm )
- Nh4 not measureable

Short timeline of tank since start .
12 march started with microbelift bacteries 250 ml added at once
2 weeks without any light or change in water parameters . After week 3 i started dosing food en reading nh4 spike's , shortly followed with No2 spikes , came along with the green dust algea starting with 1 coin spot and in a 12 hour period to full coverage of all stone's .
Manual removal done with toothbrush and stopped feeding food .
15 ppm no3 showing in test and very high no2 .
NO water changes did watsoever . Skimmer on and skimming about 1 glass of brownish water weekly .
Algea coming back but with 10% off the power that it had first time .

Some questions al followed

- comparing to fresh water i expected diatoms or brown algea before the greens , did i skip the brown's since it started with dus algea here or can i excpect some diatoms later in cicle ?

- is manual removal sufficient for this kind of algea ?

- whats the identification of the algea ?

- any idea on why the KH dropped without even having fish/corals in the system ?

- can the No3 dissapear from itself since i measured lower value's than 7 day's before or could it have been skimmed out ? Maybe due to halting the feeding of the tank ?

That's about it i guess , im hoping to read 0 No2 next week then ill start with adding snails or clown's .

Hope this information is sufficient enough .

BTW stand cable mannagement not yet completed XD

Thanks in advance .

 

[promotheus2070]

BTW magnesium bottle is fault , should be trace elements including magnesium ...

 

[brandon429]

your cycle is done completely, meaning no more testing for ammonia or nitrite is ever needed on this reef tank from today onward.

nitrite does not factor any longer in marine tank cycles, only freshwater cycles, that's why you're done. The tell that you were done is two details: 1. the timeframe, this is beyond how long cycles take to seat in and 2. visual benthic rule of updated cycling science: anytime a tank has been setup long enough to grow any new visual growths like algae, diatoms etc, the ability to carry ammonia was already in place.

there's no time a picture like that above can be from an uncycled tank.


regarding removal: you really would benefit from case reading/help threads in the nuisance algae forum to see what new dry start tanks often go through, so many ways to work with them we can't type that part here.

the part I'm sure of is: you don't have to test for ammonia or nitrite ever again on this reef tank.

 

[brandon429]

the impact to you is this:

the reef tank is ready to be stocked, your cycle isn't a consideration. if you added 4 clownfish, they'd live, some corals etc. the cycle is done it doesn't need ramping up/more wait, it's done.

but-
the order you stock a reef tank matters for disease control.

you're into disease control choices now, to make use of that ready tank by adding fish right up front before corals and CUC means you're opting out of disease controls, quarantine and fallow.

to see how that pans out, read help forum posts in the fish disease forum. there are patterns in those threads you need to see, in order to make predictions in your own reef. from reading help threads in the nuisance algae forum you'll see all kinds of additives people dump in the tank to try and remove that new algae, and you can see what happens to the tank after that action.

starting with dry rock and bright lights has a price of algae management involved, so your search is in the nuisance algae forum threads + threads from the fish disease forum, the stickies that cover order of stocking rates to reduce disease losses in these new dry start reefs.

 

[brandon429]

what I would do

reduce lighting by 50% power, running only blues, no whites.

keep it there until there's quite a few corals needing more light. lift out each rock, clean them off with peroxide and a rag and get out all that growth, use a knife to scrape what you can in the crevices, rinse off those sections in saltwater and get the green off those rocks.

that cleaning does not uncycle them. cycled rocks don't get uncycled by cleaning them outside the tank. do all the rocks back to new

then clean the sand so all that mess is gone, then set the rocks back in the tank and continue now at half as much lighting. manually clean the rocks until you don't have to

if you refuse to do that step, take note: that's what everyone is doing in the nuisance algae forum too, refusing to manually clean the rocks until they don't have to. you are seeing a lot of wrecked reefs that's for sure.

 

[Doctorgori]

I did my doctorate on this,
here is the entire paper:

algae cycle: Brown —-> Red——> Green ——> Purple

this sequence never fails

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Start with corals and cleanup crew. Corals will use some of the nitrate the algae is using and the cleanup crew will get to work cleaning. Adding fish right now will just add more waste to the tank. Some fish can help with algae but better leaving it for cuc at the moment.

 

[promotheus2070]

I did my doctorate on this,
here is the entire paper:

algae cycle: Brown —-> Red——> Green ——> Purple

this sequence never fails

Brown and red i did have seen xd

 

[promotheus2070]

Thanks all for the well explained deep information , this is a big help
Lets start the never ending compare to natural reef's balance

 

[brandon429]

just to cover one detail about the need for future testing

the reason we aren't testing nitrite is because it's excluded from measure now just for reef tanks, doesn't matter the age of the tank we don't need to know it for display reefs.

the reason we aren't testing for ammonia is because when the tank is running with electricity, flow and heat the filter bacteria aren't going to die for any reason if they stay wet. there's no need to test that which we already know to be true from thousands of prior tests logged in work threads.

but a tank of dead fish that keeled over from disease, or a hardware issue, coincidentally when you were on vacation did not happen because ammonia rose first; high ammonia when you got home was after the fish death event

never before

cycled reef tanks don't lose ammonia control ability unless they're not running or dead fish that can easily be removed litter the tank. at no time would anyone require an ammonia test to know if there's dead fish that need to be removed. that's why we don't fret over ammonia any more, don't even run the kit on this tank it will allow you to trust in cycling and now worry about disease vectoring

if you have a post cycle reef display, and you have no rotting fish in the tank, you can't have an ammonia control issue if the tank is simply running.

 

[Doctorgori]

Start with corals and cleanup crew. Corals will use some of the nitrate the algae is using and the cleanup crew will get to work cleaning. Adding fish right now will just add more waste to the tank. Some fish can help with algae but better leaving it for cuc at the moment.

I dunno, I’m doing it backwards .. this tanks full of fish and spotless……few/no corals

 

[Dan_P]

Hi reefers .

A Short bit of information first .
Started since 12 march with my first reef , coming off a 15 year fresh water story .
Tech as followed .

- red sea reefer 300 v2
- 2 red sea 90's ( 11 hours at 60blue/10white but still in acclimation atm )
- jebao DCP 3500 ( running at 75% )
- octo classic 152 S ( pump renewal needed due to heavy sound / ati co2 scrubber )
- Superfish 350 watt heater ( keeping 24 degrees celsius )
- 2x sicce voyager 3 4500liter/hour ( on controller interval 2 mins )
- jebao auto top off ( 15 - 20 liter bin )
- jebao wifi doser

Internal decoration as followed

- 1 full bag of AF bio sand
- 40 - 50 kg of death reef stone's ( attached with AF glue )

Filtering route as followed

- included filter fleece ( will change to a reefmat later )
- media basket ( filled with ceramic rings )
- approx 4 liter of seachem matrix / ceramic ring's
- rowa carbon ( removed after 4 weeks )

Dosing DSR method

- kh buffer ( started dosing today since a big kh drop no idea from what cause )
- Calcium bottle ( not yet using since stable parameters )
- magnesium bottle ( not yet using since stable parameters )
- carbon no3/po4 remover ( not yet using but considering starting up the dosing )

Water parameters at the moment

- PH 8.3 - 8.6
- KH 5.7 ( bumping up to 9dkh in 2 days period )
- sallinety 1.026
- Calcium 450
-magnesium 1350
- No3 3 ppm ( week ago measured 15ppm)
- Po4 0.07
- No2 0.05 ( gradualy coming down from above 2 ppm )
- Nh4 not measureable

Short timeline of tank since start .
12 march started with microbelift bacteries 250 ml added at once
2 weeks without any light or change in water parameters . After week 3 i started dosing food en reading nh4 spike's , shortly followed with No2 spikes , came along with the green dust algea starting with 1 coin spot and in a 12 hour period to full coverage of all stone's .
Manual removal done with toothbrush and stopped feeding food .
15 ppm no3 showing in test and very high no2 .
NO water changes did watsoever . Skimmer on and skimming about 1 glass of brownish water weekly .
Algea coming back but with 10% off the power that it had first time .

Some questions al followed

- comparing to fresh water i expected diatoms or brown algea before the greens , did i skip the brown's since it started with dus algea here or can i excpect some diatoms later in cicle ?

- is manual removal sufficient for this kind of algea ?

- whats the identification of the algea ?

- any idea on why the KH dropped without even having fish/corals in the system ?

- can the No3 dissapear from itself since i measured lower value's than 7 day's before or could it have been skimmed out ? Maybe due to halting the feeding of the tank ?

That's about it i guess , im hoping to read 0 No2 next week then ill start with adding snails or clown's .

Hope this information is sufficient enough .

BTW stand cable mannagement not yet completed XD

Thanks in advance .

Your situation seems out of the ordinary in several ways. The green algae first is unusual. The heavy growth within one month of starting the aquarium is unusual. The skimmer making colored skimmate within the first month is unusual.

I think what happened is that adding so much fish food to generate the ammonia spike created conditions that are perfect for a cyanobacteria bloom. The system might not have skipped diatoms. They might be embedded in the green slime.

 

[promotheus2070]

Your situation seems out of the ordinary in several ways. The green algae first is unusual. The heavy growth within one month of starting the aquarium is unusual. The skimmer making colored skimmate within the first month is unusual.

I think what happened is that adding so much fish food to generate the ammonia spike created conditions that are perfect for a cyanobacteria bloom. The system might not have skipped diatoms. They might be embedded in the green slime.

the skim is mostly the green algea that i clean manualy , towards the food i did add 1 to 2 eggwhite protein tablets a day .

 

[promotheus2070]

the skim is mostly the green algea that i clean manualy , towards the food i did add 1 to 2 eggwhite protein tablets a day .

Also the algea is photosynthetic as i see oxygen bubble's rise , maybe this add some information .

 

[Dan_P]

Also the algea is photosynthetic as i see oxygen bubble's rise , maybe this add some information .

The bubbles might be coming from the green organism or diatoms growing in the green slime. Either way, it is a sign of vigorous photosynthesis.

 

[brandon429]

Egg whites I've never heard of before that's so cool. Neat idea.