Help me ID this (algae?) please

[rpogge]

Im getting this black/very dark grey algae, its stringy, but almost feathery lookign in some places, and it grows in almost a web-like structutre as it gets bigger. It got over 12 inches long in places, and a couple strings of it went almost the whole length of my tank.

Ive looked all over the net, and found all kinds of pictures of hair/beard/string algae, cyanobacteria and the likes but nothign realy looks like it to me, so I took some pictures hoping someone could help me:

It does kind of look liek Cyano on the sand right now, but its only a day old at this point, in a few days it will probably be like a foot long, if I havent gotten an answer by then ill post more pics then!

I had my tank establised for a while as just a marine tank with no LR. THis stuff took over, and I wanted to do a reef tank anyway so I started over, drained all my water, moved all creatures to a different tank, added some LiveRock and all new RO water and started cycling the new tank with just the LR. Its been about 2 weeks, and its going as expected, brown diatoms just starting to break out, which is fine, but yesterday I noticed this black feathery stuff starting to grow back again. Its driving me nuts, I need to know what it is and how to get rid of it.

*by the way the first time it broke out before I redid the whole tank my nitrate/nitrite/phosphate were undetectable levels near zero.
I normaly woudl not worry about it since the nitates are high, but it was liek this before when they were zero. 8O


My stats
55 gal, T5 HO 2x54W-Dual Daylight / 2x54W-Dual Actinic
skimmer, mech filter.
RO water + Instant Ocean salt
I have only added a tiny bit of buffer, and calcium so far.
PH is 8.2
SG 1.025
no phosphates
no amonia
nitrite and nitrate are skyhigh but thats expected - and am doing daily water changes around 20%.
temp is 78
DKH is a little high at the moment at 17 or 18, but that shoudl be down soon with a few more water changes, I just added a bit too much buffer when I did a water change one day. calcium is 300+. Im doing lights about 3 hours a day right now.


This stuff is driving me crazy. Help!

 

[Anonymous]

I think it's cyano. It eventually goes away with regular skimming, water changes, etc.


:welcome:

 

[dnorton1978]

I missed the part about your circulation. What are you using in the tank for flow? Perhaps that is part of why it is building up on the sand.

 

[trido]

Ditto on the Cyano.

 

[spanko]

Cyano, check phosphate, nitrates, flow, lighting schedule, feeding amount. All contribute to Cyano outbreak.

 

[radonfluxlabs]

I dont agree. Cyanobacteria is usually blue green and is photosynthetic. The black stringy stuff you are seeing SHOULD be very bubbly and fragile if Im right. Its the type of bacteria that forms on a recently dead coral. I had an SPS that died the other day and the bacteria bloom on it looked just like that. Its possible that something is dying in the tank.

 

[radonfluxlabs]

I just saw that your doing lights for 3 hours, I dont think a cyano would survive in that little lighting.

 

[Anonymous]

Cyanobacteria, aka blue green algae, is not necessary blue-green in color. They can survive on very little light, some can do pretty well in low light situation.

 

[rpogge]

I dont agree. Cyanobacteria is usually blue green and is photosynthetic. The black stringy stuff you are seeing SHOULD be very bubbly and fragile if Im right. Its the type of bacteria that forms on a recently dead coral. I had an SPS that died the other day and the bacteria bloom on it looked just like that. Its possible that something is dying in the tank.

yes now its starting to get lots of air bubbles, and it is very fragile, breaks when you touch it. smells HORRIBLE when you scoop it out with a net.
Its getting much worse now.

I do not have enough flow I found out. I have a maxi`1200 driving a skimme.r a penguin350 biowheel filter, and two (2) aquaclear 30 powerheads. 55 galon tank btw.

I just ordered an additional (2) Maxijet 1200's

Also . this tank was just cycled with live rock in it. the rock had alot of dieoff ... my nitrite just dropped to zero today , and the cyano or whatever it is is realy bad now. Im about to take some pics and test my water, ill post results. I upped the lighting to 5 hours now also, im gradualy increasing it ... though maybe I shoudlent for now....

to be continued.
Ryan

 

[rpogge]

OK
55 gallon
2 AQ30 powerheads, Maxijet1200 on a remora hang on skim, and a penguin 350 biowheel hang on.
Started cycling with live rock, agra-alive sand 2.5 weeks ago.
40 pounds of sand, 60 pounds of rock
just added 10 snails to try and get the brown stuff, they are not realy eatting it though, or else its just growing back too fast.


SG: 1.025
PH: 8.3
KH: 11
CA: 240 (dosing with reefchem ca) was at 150ish 4 days ago.
phosphate: 0
Amonia: 0
Nitrite: almost undetectable, way below 0.1
Nitrate: 0 ? test shows 0, I just did 50% H20 change yesterday so its possible.
Temp : 80 degrees


Pics:

see how feathery it looks???:

even my snail is suffering from it

 

[KevD1]

It could be those dreaded dinoflagellates. Check the library for more info.

 

[trido]

I dont agree. Cyanobacteria is usually blue green and is photosynthetic. The black stringy stuff you are seeing SHOULD be very bubbly and fragile if Im right. Its the type of bacteria that forms on a recently dead coral. I had an SPS that died the other day and the bacteria bloom on it looked just like that. Its possible that something is dying in the tank.

If the black/maroon algea that comes and goes in my tank periodically with no loss of life isnt cyano could you please tell me what it is? It tends to grow in areas of my tank where there is low flow and the detritous builds up. this happens usually when my skimmer is not finely uned and I feed heavy. It subsides at night then grows thicker and forms air bubbles in the day. I was under the impression that this is what most reefers call cyano.

 

[radonfluxlabs]

Hmm Ill have to do more research on this. I know there are specific types of bacteria blooms that look like cyano, but they are more aggressive and destroy water quality. It could be a result of dying worms, or other species of bacteria that have died.

 

[rpogge]

Well the better my water quality gets the worse this crap gets. It is on EVERY surface in my tank today.

Looks to be dino for sure, when I scoop it out its clear/brown snot consitency, full of bubbles.

I added some chemi-clean today if its cyano it shoudl clear up in 24-48 hours, my h20 is perfect, and lights are on blackout for 48 hours. No animals so no feeding either.

SO if that doesnt do it, im thinking of just tossing everythign and starting over. I dont have any animals in the tank yet, and I am not going to spend 3 months trying to fight dino to *maybee* get rid of it.

My question now I guess is how do i clean my tank/equiptement good enough to kill it all so I can start over.

Obviously Im tossing all the live rock, sand, filters, etc in the trash.

Is it safe to use bleach to klean the tank and filters/skimmers? or is there something a bit safer?

Ryan

 

[rpogge]

Dinoflagellates?

 

[Anonymous]

Increase flow, siphon detritus, get a good (not just adequate) skimmer, do water changes with RO/DI water.

It will also help to take your rocks out of the water, place them in a 5 g bucket with tank water, and blast that stuff off with a powerhead. Then replace the rocks. You'll be amazed how much crap comes off. Do this regularly and siphon off the bottom of the tank religiously. The goal is to remove as much detritus/cyano as possible from the system. Eventually you will win. Patience...

 

[pcardone]

don't throw anything away. work through it and you will become a advanced reefer.

 

[rpogge]

get a good (not just adequate) skimmer,

I have an Aqua-C Remora hang on skimmer. Is that considered "good" ?
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=ACRM

Thanks for the advice.
I got 2 more maxi1200's going now and my 2 AQ30's .. PLENTY of flow now. like 1000+ GPH in a 55 galon with no coral or anything, shoudl be more than enough. before I only had around 350-400.

 

[Anonymous]

get a good (not just adequate) skimmer,

I have an Aqua-C Remora hang on skimmer. Is that considered "good" ?
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=ACRM

Thanks for the advice.
I got 2 more maxi1200's going now and my 2 AQ30's .. PLENTY of flow now. like 1000+ GPH in a 55 galon with no coral or anything, shoudl be more than enough. before I only had around 350-400.

A remora is great for that size tank. I think the rock blasting (outside of the tank in buckets) would help immensely.

 

[reefman225gal]

looks like slime algae to me also known as blue green algae. its red to maroon,green or black the silver looking bubbles is trapped oxygen produced from photosynthesis. a good skimmer should take care of the problem along with your snails astrea snails are a good choice