red cyano

[Jarrett]

i have been noticing little spots here and their of this stuff appearing on my rocks as of right now its no where near a problem but i want to prevent it from becoming one my stats are.

45 gallon tank
1- neon dottyback
1- scooter blenny
1- wrasse (not sure kind)
1- toby puffer fish

Corals
1- frog spawn
1- duncan
1- favia

i am running a EHEIM 2217 cannister filter and i have alot of live rock in their not sure the lbs and i do weekly water changes with RO water. i dont have a phosphate test kit but i figured i was doing everything correctly is it normal for it to appear in some spots? or is this a bad sign for things to come

 

[carey]

Do you have photos of the stuff? Is it coralline algae or something else?

 

[Jarrett]

no i unfortunately don't have a camera but its deff not Coraline algae because i can scrape it off pretty easily. and its only little spots on a few rocks i am just noticing a lot more smaller portions of it appearing on my rocks so i am starting to get concerned but idk if i should be.

 

[the_fish_man]

How old is your tank? And does it have bubbles?

 

[Jarrett]

its about 6 months old and in some spots theirs some bubbles but i use to have more and those went away now theirs like only one little spot that has some bubbles on it and i have never scrubbed it off because i know if i do it grows back more so i have always left it alone and it has never become a problem but i have noticed more little spots turning up

 

[SHARPiE]

Can you post your parameters?
In particular I'm interested in the phosphates.

Ammonia -
Nitrite -
Nitrate -
pH -
Salinity -
Temp -
Phosphate -

Also are you using RO/RODI Water?

 

[Jarrett]

i dont have a phosphate kit im going to the LFS to get that tested today but my other parameters are.

ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 0
ph - 8.0
salinity- 1024
temp - 80

and the tank has had nothing but RO water in it from the beginning

 

[Jarrett]

im starting to look at some of the spots tho and they look like their red coraline algea possibly it doesnt look fuzzy or anything like cyno

 

[bavass]

it is normal to have a cyano cycle on a new tank. The canister filter with or without live rock can cause an outbreak. The nutrients will build up on the live rock and in the bottom of it and cause nitrates to rise unless you are cleaning it out often.

 

[Jarrett]

well i have 0 nitrates its always been 0 since i started the tank

 

[bavass]

If you have algae you have nitrates. The cyano is eating it up thats why you are reading 0. Thats why people use Macro algaes because they will out battle the micro for the nutrients and then help stop the bad algaes in your tank.

 

[Jarrett]

yea i would need a sump to do that wouldnt i

 

[bavass]

you can buy hang on the back ones you dont have to have a sump. i have some in my display and have mangroves hanging along the back of my tank. I wouldn't worry about it since you have a new set up. Like i was saying cyano is part of the cycle. Keep using RO/DI water and besure to clean out the canister filter where the live rock is so you dont get a build up and you should be fine

 

[Jarrett]

So what would be something I could put into my display tank that could help compete with The cyno I'm kind of low on money so I don't know if I would be able to do the HOB like ur talking about