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Advice? String algae?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Chief Reef, Aug 23, 2016.

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  1. Aug 23, 2016 #1
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    I've been experiencing this weird algae for about a month now and cant seem to get rid of it. It grows on the glass, corals, and substrate. I take it off of everything and by the next day its back and worse. Its getting to the point where corals are starting to die. I do a 50% about twice a week, total water volume is 12 gallons roughly. Ill try to include some pictures but what do you guys think i should do?
     

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  2. Aug 24, 2016 #2
    jeffmr4 Cedar Rapids, IA

    jeffmr4

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    I have something similar in my tank. I'm trying an algae scrubber but it may be a while before I see any results if at all.
     
  3. Aug 24, 2016 #3
    SteveV Illinois

    SteveV

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    Looks like it could be a phosphate issue. Have you checked your water Levels?
     
  4. Aug 24, 2016 #4
    Dave Des Moines Area

    Dave Experienced Reefkeeper GIRS Member

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    It looks like it might be dinos - I hope I'm wrong but that is what it looks like to me. I have never dealt with them personally but I believe they are challenging to eradicate if it is them.

    Google "dinoflagellates" or "how to get rid of dinoflagellates" and you'll find a ton of info.
     
  5. Aug 25, 2016 #5
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    All my parameters check out and they always do. I was getting fantastic growth on almost everything and all of a sudden things started dieing because it looked like they were getting strangled.

    I did some research and I seriously hope your wrong but I think you are right. It's almost like cyano and ditosis put together using Crack and steroids to get by. They also develop bubbles on the tips which is also a good signal of Dino. There is a few things I can try but want to know more about:

    First thing I'll do is a 72 hour blackout, but do I need to feed anything during this time? And how often should I feed if at all? My biggest concern is taking all the cardboard off to find every last living life dorm deceased, like a murder scene.

    If that doesn't work then they say hydrogen peroxide can be dosed but I'm pretty skeptical on that and want to know more about it.

    Raising PH to 8.6 is something others have tried but it'll be hard for me to stress stuff out more than it already is.

    If all else fails I either have to deal with it for the rest of the tanks life or you guys need to get space in your tanks for some dirt cheap corals :(

    The odds are never in my favor
     
  6. Aug 25, 2016 #6
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    Multiple sources also say that doing a water change is steroids for the dinoflagellets because of most likely un pure ro/di water. As I recall this did start happening about a week after I started getting my water from Pets Playhouse. Since then I have set up an ro/di plus unit in my house that reads 0 tds.
    Sorry for the long replies I'm just trying to stay optimistic here
     
  7. Aug 25, 2016 #7
    Dave Des Moines Area

    Dave Experienced Reefkeeper GIRS Member

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    72 hour blackout will not harm your livestock without feeding.

    Personally, if it was me I would strongly consider hitting the reset button. You have a small tank so can you either find some one with a good QT setup or do you have one? Do a 50/50 peroxide dip on all your corals that are still living and QT your fish and corals while you restart your tank. Mght sound extreme but might be faster than battling dinos for potentially months. Just a thought..good luck with whatever course you take!
     
  8. Aug 25, 2016 #8
    Bud West Des Moines, IA

    Bud Loves Bacon Website Team Board of Directors Leadership Team GIRS Member Vendor

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  9. Aug 25, 2016 #9
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    It's a little over 6 months old. In terms of the article I did rush stocking the tank. So is the article saying this could just be a climax of Dino since it has the most nutrients to grow and will be succeeded eventually or did I not understand the article fully?
     
  10. Aug 25, 2016 #10
    Bud West Des Moines, IA

    Bud Loves Bacon Website Team Board of Directors Leadership Team GIRS Member Vendor

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    Well what it basically is getting at is that there is the Nitrogen cycle, which we are all aware of and generally familiar with, and then there is a maturing phase/cycle where bacterial colonies are thriving and dying off until a balance is reached. While this is occurring, you can have a plethora of side effects, and most of these revolve around algae outbreaks or dino outbreaks or cyano blooms. I feel that what most people do is react to these by taking measure like scrubbing and flipping rocks, both of which will mess with the bacterial colonies and partially start that process over, or doing the blackout which is less invasive but doesn't really necessarily solve the root issue, which is simply a matter of time.

    In those pics, that looks like dinos to me and my opinion on this is that it's a cycle that you have to just let pass, and mitigate it as best you can during that time to keep it at bay. If you look online enough, everyone has a solution that "worked for them" but in reality all of those solutions seem to work in about 2 weeks, which is about the amount of time that the cycle seems to last (with mitigation).

    Without mitigation, it might take longer.

    My method has been a bit unorthodox, but "it worked for me" and that was to:

    1) restrict feeding to a minimum
    2) feed only at night, maybe 10-15 minutes before lights-out
    3) burn it out - run the DT lights at a high intensity for longer than you normally would (this is the unorthodox technique). The idea here is that you will most likely temporarily make it worse, but eventually you will starve it out (and your corals, if you have any, will use up nutrients if you keep the dinos at bay by siphoning)
    4) manually siphon multiple times per day. Take a section of airline hose for your siphon and connect it to a hard section of airline tubing (like what is used for a undergravel filter in the tower pipe) and go over the entire tank and suck the dinos out. If you pinch off the tubing inbetween suction points, you can go through all the rock in a 120g tank and only remove about 1 gallon of water. Do this maybe 2x per day, 1x per day is probably good though
    5) After that, blow off your rocks with a powerhead, then use a brine shrimp net to net anything that you can
    6) run a filter sock for a few hours afterwards, then clean it out and bleach soak it for an hour, rinse well with hot hot water, let fully dry (use more than one sock and rotate)
    7) run carbon, a small amount, and change it often (like 1/4 cup changed every other day)
    8) optionally run GFO but a small amount as well
    9) skimmer doesn't hurt
    10) don't do water changes beyond just replacing what you siphon out
    11) make sure your RODI is 0 TDS

    I'm probably forgetting something...but you can skip #3 and do the blackout and then follow all the other steps if you're more comfortable with that, most any coral can survive a 3 day blackout
     
  11. Aug 25, 2016 #11
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    This seems quite straight forward. I will start working on these steps immediately and yes I think I will choose to do a blackout instead of intense lighting. Hopefully I will have the tank covered and cleaned tonight. Thanks you for your help
     
  12. Sep 1, 2016 #12
    StormyMoe Waukee

    StormyMoe

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    @Chief Reef@Chief Reef have you had any luck getting your algae under control with Turbo's suggestions? My tank is looking worse than ever, not because I think there is anything wrong with Turbo's suggestions but just in general, so just curious if you're having any luck.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2016
  13. Sep 1, 2016 #13
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    Not much luck yet but I'm still trying. I brought feeding down to half a cube every other day which the fish don't seem to mind too much. I did a 72 hour blackout which helped a little but it still came back. Changing the carbon regularly. The corals are opening up much better now. I've been removing the algae aggressively when I see it. Last night I added my first dose of Dino X which seems like it crippled them. They are back again tonight, however. I'm going to do one more round of this treatment tonight and we will see. This is not something I would want to chronically endure.

    Sent from my SM-G935R4 via App
     
  14. Sep 1, 2016 #14
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    @StormyMoe@StormyMoe I've been dealing with this for about a month now. How long ago did yours start popping up?

    Sent from my SM-G935R4 via App
     
  15. Sep 1, 2016 #15
    StormyMoe Waukee

    StormyMoe

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    @Chief Reef@Chief Reef I started noticing small patches about a month ago as well. They were small though and weren't too bad, but it's really exploded over the last week or so (pic attached). It doesn't appear I'm dealing with the same algae as you, think mine is cyano, but we share the same sentiment that it'd be nice if it'd go away! What started on just my sand has now moved to the rocks; probably because I tried removing it and didn't fish all the little pieces out I guess. I suppose on the plus side my wife doesn't mind having it in the tank because she likes the way it sways with the current.o_O:)
     

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    Last edited: Sep 1, 2016
  16. Sep 1, 2016 #16
    Buku Ankeny, IA

    Buku Well-Known ReefKeeper

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    I had it in a biocube that I keep all my zoas in. I used DinoX to knock them down quite a bit then I did a 3 day black out. When you do the black out you need to wrap the tank in a blanket so absolutely no light will hit it.
     
  17. Sep 1, 2016 #17
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    You are right, I used cardboard and it took about 20 minutes to tear it off the tank because I used so much tape..but it worked. The sand bed was pure white and the glass was spotless. No dinos to be found until the next morning. I am itching to do a water change so bad but ik it might erase all the work so far :/ I just hit the tank with another round so my fingers are crossed.

    Sent from my SM-G935R4 via App
     
  18. Sep 2, 2016 #18
    Buku Ankeny, IA

    Buku Well-Known ReefKeeper

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    Another option that I read about is dosing Peroxide. I didnt need to go that route so I'm not for sure the process, but I know people have used it with success in the past.
     
  19. Sep 2, 2016 #19
    Buku Ankeny, IA

    Buku Well-Known ReefKeeper

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    After looking at the photos it could be cyano. When its bad does it have bubbles at the tips?
     
  20. Sep 2, 2016 #20
    Chief Reef Cedar Rapids

    Chief Reef Well-Known ReefKeeper GIRS Member

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    It does have bubbles on the tips sometimes but not always. This stuff loves growing in high flow areas but not as much on the substrate, mainly on corals and the glass so i kind of ruled out cyano but its still a possibility. Do any of you guys know what the steps to removing Dino X from the tank are? I don't want to do a water change right after medication but if that's the only route then I guess I'll have to try my chances

    Sent from my SM-G935R4 via App
     
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