Red Slim Algae and diatoms

#1
I can't seem to get rid of them. and my SPS's are not doing well.
so let's start at water parameters.
Salinity - 35ppm
nitrates -0
alk - 11.0dKH
PO4 4 PPB - billion
Calcium 600

50gallon with sump,skimmer and 24/7 refugium with Chateo

Recent changes:
added corals the weekend of reef stock.
added a leopard wrasse a few weeks ago though red slime was present prior to this by a few weeks.
have been feeding it a lot of mysis to make sure it feels at home. alternating with Cobalt Marine Omni with Selcon to get it to eat flakes. side note it's eating flakes soaked with Selcon.
as such I've been changing my water more often.

There was a PO4 spike to 11 but the nitates stayed at 0.
so cleaned the sponge in the over flow, added more ceramics to the sump as well as added carbon and GFO in a bag in the sump.

this week I changed 5G on sunday, monday and tonight. I also left the light off all day tuesday and the diatoms died back but are still there.

What are my next steps to get rid of them?

I want to syphon up the red slim I just don't do that since i have fine sand.

any comments are appreciated.

6
 

Irishman

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
A video I saw on BRS said a small pinch dried food adds a lot more nutrients to your tank than a whole cube of frozen would. Maybe cut back on the dried foot. I'm actually in the same boat as you. My husbandry has been slacking really bad due to work but I was able to do a 15% water change and up the flow in my tank


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jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
BTW - dried foods have the same amount of phophates as frozen food once you remove all of the water in the frozen food. That BRS said is misleading and dangerous since most of what is eaten in frozen and live food is water. You can feed less pellets and get more bang since they are just nutrients.
 

Octopi

Cleaner Shrimp
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
One other thought is you might want to get an ICP test to see what is in your water. Triton Labs does them but takes a couple weeks to get results. You can also bring a bottle of tank water to Stone Aquatics and get ICP results back in couple days. One of the things I would find in these tests is I get a build up of heavy metals that can contribute to various issues like algae. In the end, the answer will be, "Do more water changes" so you can probably skip all that and just stay vigilant with the water changes. At least the ICP gives you some more insight into what might be the reason.
 

Bdk1786

Butterfly Fish
#9
Microbater7 along with Coral Snow, sucking the algae out and more frequent water changes helped my situation. I was dealing with a sudden outbreak of diatoms and cyano when i was in the process of removing all the annoying grape macro from my sump. Was an ulgy 2 weeks for the DT but its back to 110%.
 
#11
if the nutrients are not high what causes the outbreak?

I have a sponge (in lieu of a sock) in my sump to catch the curd from the tank. I think i need to change this more often. How often do you clean the sump?
 

Balz3352

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#13
6check;670359 said:
if the nutrients are not high what causes the outbreak?

I have a sponge (in lieu of a sock) in my sump to catch the curd from the tank. I think i need to change this more often. How often do you clean the sump?
So this is fairly easy to mistake. Nutrients in your test are low because the algae is using them. If there was no algae to use the nutrients they would be high. Make sense?
 

Dr.DiSilicate

Great White Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
ex-officio
#15
Also double check the condition and age of your to membrane and other filters. Good husbandry over the long haul will kick the crud out.


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#16
Use that Cyno clear or whatever its called. It makes your skimmer go nuts for a while but that and doing what others have suggested, lowering feeding, a little more flow and a couple 5-10 gallon water changes (you are using RODI right?)will make all the difference.

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Balz3352

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
timnem70;670480 said:
Use that Cyno clear or whatever its called. It makes your skimmer go nuts for a while but that and doing what others have suggested, lowering feeding, a little more flow and a couple 5-10 gallon water changes (you are using RODI right?)will make all the difference.

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Chemiclean
 

neil82

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#18
Chemiclean is pretty effective on cyano from my experience. A round of treatment and then increase flow in tank and some water changes. You can cut back your lighting too. In the long term, you want to find a way to export more nutrients and limit the source of nutrients going in to keep the cyano from coming back.
 

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#19
How old is your tank. If it is less than a year old, then you are just going to have to wait. I can take up to a year for a tank to be ready to be fully functional - it can take quite a bit longer if you used dry/dead rock or impeded the cycle with GFO or organic carbon along the way.
 
#20
jda123;n670499 said:
How old is your tank. If it is less than a year old, then you are just going to have to wait. I can take up to a year for a tank to be ready to be fully functional - it can take quite a bit longer if you used dry/dead rock or impeded the cycle with GFO or organic carbon along the way.
JDA, it's going on 2 years the end of this summer. Just started gfo recently. I started with dry pukani rock.
I did reduce the flow in the tank about a month ago, the sugar sand was being blown around. I increased it last week, the sand is staying in place thankfully. I'm getting a Lifereef skimmer, sump and refugium soon, hopefully this will help too.
 
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