Tank is currently going through the uglies.. anything I can do?

[Dad2Wyatt]

Parameters using API test kits
Ph:8.2
Nitrate: 5-10 ppm
Alk: 11
Calc: 440 ppm
Phosphate: undetectable (api goes from 0- .25 so my goal is to keep it undetectable until I get better kits)

currently running carbon



my tank is currently going on month 4. Diatoms died out and I’ve been trying to naturally fight cyano and hair algae. But that’s not even my main concern. The film algae on the glass is getting unbearable. I’ve been cleaning daily but would like to come from work at least a couple times a week to being able to see my tank without cleaning the glass first.

okay so it’s not that bad but everything looks cloudy and definitely not appealing before I clean it. I’m getting a flipper for Christmas so I’m sure it’ll make my life a little easier but anything I can do other than that?

Also any tips for the cyano/brown algae(I don’t believe it’s diatoms bc those have cleared off of all rock by this point)??

 

[Billldg]

Unfortunately, you just need to allow your tank to go thru it. I would get a better P04 test kit and make sure your Phosphate is not at 0. If it is then I would use something to raise it. I use NeoPhos.

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

Unfortunately, you just need to allow your tank to go thru it. I I would get a better P04 test kit and make sure your Phosphate is not at 0. If it is then I would use something to raise it. I use NeoPhos.

Update: after I got done ranting I cleaned my glass and my water is actually a bit cloudy today(was clear before bed last night) could 0 phosphates have something to do with that? Also any phosphate tests you recommend?

 

[Billldg]

Update: after I got done ranting I cleaned my glass and my water is actually a bit cloudy today(was clear before bed last night) could 0 phosphates have something to do with that? Also any phosphate tests you recommend?

Algae takes up N03 and P04. Having raised N03 is a good thing, but, raised P04 is a plus to prevent Dinos from creeping in. For P04 testing, short of a Hanna ULR, I would go with Red Sea or Nyos.

I use a Hanna ULR. I used Red Sea and Nyos years back.

 

[brandon429]

Always an option, this never resets anyone’s cycle. It’s merely work that’s all, and not everyone is down for work, most want the zero work look which isn’t this:

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

it would take all new water and about four hours work for your tank to look like you want it to…that’s why the method isn’t popular. Not because the after pics aren’t what everyone wants for their reef, but because it takes work and can’t be dosed from a bottle. You could get away with re using half your current water plus half new, the benefit is the manual rock cleaning and sand cleaning. All done outside the tank, not in it/ work

 

[Bombschell]

Need some phosphate. Was having very similar issues till I pulled my skimmer, started feeding more often, added a couple jars of copepods, and started dosing phyto. It is clearing up quickly now.

 

[TnFishwater98]

Need some phosphate. Was having very similar issues till I pulled my skimmer, started feeding more often, added a couple jars of copepods, and started dosing phyto. It is clearing up quickly now.

Don’t clean the glass for a couple of days and let it do what it’s doing. Did you start with dry rock or man made LR purchased at your LFS? If so I’d order real LF fresh out of da gulf and it will make the uglies less ugly. It might even clear everything up.

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

Always an option, this never resets anyone’s cycle. It’s merely work that’s all, and not everyone is down for work, most want the zero work look which isn’t this:

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

it would take all new water and about four hours work for your tank to look like you want it to…that’s why the method isn’t popular. Not because the after pics aren’t what everyone wants for their reef, but because it takes work and can’t be dosed from a bottle. You could get away with re using half your current water plus half new, the benefit is the manual rock cleaning and sand cleaning. All done outside the tank, not in it/ work

So to make sure I have this correct, remove all rock and sand, place rock and corals in buckets(and I’m assuming fish as well?), scrub the rocks, remove all sand, tap rinse sand, replace everything?

If that is correct I do have a couple questions, will my sand hold tap water and could this be a problem after refilling my tank? Should I remove all algae off the rocks? The green algae on rocks isn’t a huge bother to me necessarily, but it’s the film on the glass, the dirty sand bed, and the cyano and Hair algae that is unappealing.

Is this something that I need to do often, or would one time be good for a good amount of time?

I’m trying to keep as many additives out of my water as possible(minus carbon only currently) so I don’t mind a lot of work, however if this was a monthly thing I could where chemicals can become very tempting

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

Need some phosphate. Was having very similar issues till I pulled my skimmer, started feeding more often, added a couple jars of copepods, and started dosing phyto. It is clearing up quickly now.

I haven’t added any copepods yet but I do I guess “dose” phyto once a week currently. I mainly broadcast it for my filter feeders and I’ll target/basically broadcast when I turn the powerheads back on mysis once a week currently

I do need to get a better test kit though like I said. My phosphates may not actually be 0 but I’ve heard .25 is too high so I’ve been keeping them down through water changes

 

[TnFishwater98]

So to make sure I have this correct, remove all rock and sand, place rock and corals in buckets(and I’m assuming fish as well?), scrub the rocks, remove all sand, tap rinse sand, replace everything?

If that is correct I do have a couple questions, will my sand hold tap water and could this be a problem after refilling my tank? Should I remove all algae off the rocks? The green algae on rocks isn’t a huge bother to me necessarily, but it’s the film on the glass, the dirty sand bed, and the cyano and Hair algae that is unappealing.

Is this something that I need to do often, or would one time be good for a good amount of time?

I’m trying to keep as many additives out of my water as possible(minus carbon only currently) so I don’t mind a lot of work, however if this was a monthly thing I could where chemicals can become very tempting

I wouldn’t do that, but I never use tap water to clean my main tools either. Can’t imagine rinsing my sand with it. But I’m no expert by any means.

 

[ying yang]

Always wondered why some tanks are worse than others,is it because not enough cuc,to much or not enough po4/n03,to many or to little fish ,to much light or not enough light or any other reason.i understand what algae needs to grow but I'm saying this because my ugly stage not that ugly tbh,and put coral frags in with algae on but my rocks got a tinge if green at most.maybe it's because added cuc when needed and added 2 tuxedo urchins early on along with conchs and other cuc members.then you see other tanks with hair algae 4 inch long lol

My tank 9 months olbtwd

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

Don’t clean the glass for a couple of days and let it do what it’s doing. Did you start with dry rock or man made LR purchased at your LFS? If so I’d order real LF fresh out of da gulf and it will make the uglies less ugly. It might even clear everything up.

Just out of curiosity, what will not cleaning the glass do? I don’t clean my back glass and only one side glass(hoping to get coralline coverage in these areas eventually)

i also had one piece of “live rock” and the rest was dry rock. Do you think a real piece of live rock would be okay in my system? I do have a clownfish and multiple corals and I’ve heard that I should cure actual lr before adding to an established system. Would this not defeat the purpose of actual ocean rock?

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

Always wondered why some tanks are worse than others,is it because not enough cuc,to much or not enough po4/n03,to many or to little fish ,to much light or not enough light or any other reason.i understand what algae needs to grow but I'm saying this because my ugly stage not that ugly tbh,and put coral frags in with algae on but my rocks got a tinge if green at most.maybe it's because added cuc when needed and added 2 tuxedo urchins early on along with conchs and other cuc members.then you see other tanks with hair algae 4 inch long lol

My tank 9 months olbtwd

My hair algae is awful just yet. But it is growing daily. I recently changed my light schedule. I run blues for 12 hours and cut my whites down to 5 hours a day currently. I think I could add some more CUC though. My margarita snails never leave this one rock and my astreas stay on the back glass. Have a couple nassarius and about 8 hermits but they just can’t keep up!

the tinge of green is how mine started out and I actually think it didn’t look too ugly. But now that the cyano and hair algae are starting to take over I’m needing to do something.

i haven’t looked into urchins but I’ve heard they will do quick work. Might need to look into them

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

I wouldn’t do that, but I never use tap water to clean my main tools either. Can’t imagine rinsing my sand with it. But I’m no expert by any means.

I always clean my equipment with tank water or salt water if I have a little left over so thats what I was curious on! I may have misread the post though so maybe just need a little clarification!

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

Here are some updates tank photos! I’m actually noticing the cyano is slowly fading. My water changes and siphoning might hve done the trick there? This brown algae is the new culprit invading everything.

also included in the hair algae. Like I said not awful, but way worse than a week ago.

For example, the live rock(being photobombed by my clown) was purple when I bought, and in the past couple days has turned brown

 

[ying yang]

My sand very clean tbh.i got a pistol shrimp and ywg and 2 conch snails plus I think 11 or 16 nassarious snails so sand always getting turned over and a " rolling stone gathers no moss " so maybe get some more snails that turn the sand over and a pistol shrimp always turning sand over making new entrances and just pottering away doing something ^_^

 

[brandon429]

I would not attempt any of that from a light cursory skim read it could kill your tank. But if you study twice over every post and follow up it won’t, from page one:

the single most important aspect of these five pages is the tap water sandbed rinse it has to be hours of rinsing, complete total cloudless rinse then with RO water at the end for sand that can be added back into the main reef as it’s being reassembled and nothing clouds.

side benefits of running the method now vs later:

you learn how to move the reef to a new place, or upgrade tanks and never have a cycle. These exact moves are what we do in tank transfer threads to move to new homes without loss. It’s not a harmful set of moves, it’s a tank saving set of moves if done right as the six examples did.


you learn a method of control that can fix your tank from powerful invasions, such as dinos, and you get to apply it in practice before five thousand in corals are in place. One day you may need to run it with five grand in place, you don’t want to start the practice run then, now is an ideal practice run


any form of dosing, medication or internal kill rots all the target and sinks it into the sand which already has lots of clouding, feeding the current issue. This is why folks sometimes choose bare bottom setups as it’s easier to clean without disassembly


you get to have the after pics we show there, perfect reefs result.



it never ever fails that we write ten times over the sand must be rinsed correctly, and then someone will do a half rinse and cloudy rebuild, I dont know how to address that condition, we wrote the steps as plain as day and folks still under rinse the sand. If they follow that thread all works perfectly


those six examples are the top rip cleans I’ve seen out of a thousand copy their works if you decide to force the tank to comply

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

I would not attempt any of that from a light cursory skim read it could kill your tank. But if you study twice over every post and follow up it won’t, from page one:

the single most important aspect of these five pages is the tap water sandbed rinse it has to be hours of rinsing, complete total cloudless rinse then with RO water at the end for sand that can be added back into the main reef as it’s being reassembled and nothing clouds.

side benefits of running the method now vs later:

you learn how to move the reef to a new place, or upgrade tanks and never have a cycle. These exact moves are what we do in tank transfer threads to move to new homes without loss. It’s not a harmful set of moves, it’s a tank saving set of moves if done right as the six examples did.


you learn a method of control that can fix your tank from powerful invasions, such as dinos, and you get to apply it in practice before five thousand in corals are in place. One day you may need to run it with five grand in place, you don’t want to start the practice run then, now is an ideal practice run


any form of dosing, medication or internal kill rots all the target and sinks it into the sand which already has lots of clouding, feeding the current issue. This is why folks sometimes choose bare bottom setups as it’s easier to clean without disassembly


you get to have the after pics we show there, perfect reefs result.



it never ever fails that we write ten times over the sand must be rinsed correctly, and then someone will do a half rinse and cloudy rebuild, I dont know how to address that condition, we wrote the steps as plain as day and folks still under rinse the sand. If they follow that thread all works perfectly


those six examples are the top rip cleans I’ve seen out of a thousand copy their works if you decide to force the tank to comply

Okay I definitely missed something! I will definitely need to spend a few hours reading up if I decide to go this route!

also on saving the cycle, the bacteria in the sand im sure dies off. Does the rock and filter media help save the cycle from restarting?

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

My sand very clean tbh.i got a pistol shrimp and ywg and 2 conch snails plus I think 11 or 16 nassarious snails so sand always getting turned over and a " rolling stone gathers no moss " so maybe get some more snails that turn the sand over and a pistol shrimp always turning sand over making new entrances and just pottering away doing something ^_^

I think I’m going to try this as my first method! Just gotta find some around me now

 

[brandon429]

Agreed. The bacteria in the sand can be removed in full at any time. In the sand rinse thread, we instantly remove the sand bed on countless tanks all at once, the rocks do carry the loading just fine and even the external cleaning we do doesn’t kill their bacteria. We didn’t touch tap water to the rocks above only saltwater and some peroxide for the extreme cases. The contact time was so low and so isolated even that doesnt harm rock bacteria we show.



the one way this becomes dangerous is fish jumping out of holding buckets, or under rinsed sand where the clouding of waste that sandbeds store up gets mixed around, that can kill. Totally removing that waste can’t kill it enhances the entire system to run clean and low waste.