ID Please..brown stuff

[Aquaman99]

I returned home from work to find some brown algae type stuff had developed on my live rock and sand bed.

This is a 55 gallon FOWLR system that I bought and recently transferred to my house. I replaced the existing sand with new aragonite sand and put a small layer of existing sand over it.

Here's a pic of the brown gunk

http://s924.photobucket.com/albums/a...t=IMG_4479.jpg

Can anyone id that? Good / Bad...any corrective action need to be taken?

Ammonia = 0 ppm
Nitrite = 0 ppm
Nitrate = 5 - 10 ppm
pH = 8.4

 

[RYANLAWRENCE]

Yeah I have some of the same stuff in my tank. It appears to be algae but idk. My tank is cycling

 

[bavass]

If its a new tank it is part of the cycle and as long as you are not over feeding and doing proper maintance it should go away

 

[Sadielynn]

Just normal diatoms ... common in new tanks ... when our tanks are new they have many diffrent types of things happen with in the one major cycle ...there are many nutrients available ... you can siphion this stuff off and turn your lights out while cycling ...it is common and will burn out in short order (usually 3 months time )

 

[melosu58]

Moved to the SW ID forum.

 

[Aquaman99]

I sure hope it's a mini-cycle and won't cause any harm to the existing inhabitants.

This was a fully setup system I bought. It had been running for approx 3 years so I have a Blue Tang, Mandrin Goby, Angelfish, Pajama Cardinal, and damsel that came with it.

I transferred it to my house 4 days ago. I kept all the live rock submerged, but pitched the existing sandbed except for a small layer I put on top of the new sand.

 

[Sadielynn]

It should die off in short order by moving stuff around you stirred up some things ... when you added your new sand it did not have the bacteria in it so it will bloom to feed those ... it should burn out in short order just siphion it off , limit your nutrients IE feeding and lighting and they should be gone with in 3 months or less , should be much less than 3 months since the tank is older ....It will NOT hurt the fish ... I just had an outbreak of this stuff a few months ago and it was a tank that was up for 4 years ,, it burned out in about 3 weeks ... I just adjusted the lighting and the feeding (did not feed fish for 10 days ) and increased h20 changes to 30% weekly , as well as siphioning it off .... You may well see another out break as things settle down again ... it is normal and wont hurt the fish HTH

 

[David S]

definately diatoms ,they will dissapear as quickly as they came,just make sure you use ro/di water for your make up and PWC

 

[ShannonFaas]

I have been having the same problems...I have had it for months...on the sand bed, walls etc...where it comes back within a day of cleaining/siphoning. I have cut back to 4hrs on 4hrs off then 4 more hrs on lighting...I have 4 fish, coral and zoa's/paly's and a large star fish...I cut back feedings too. I feed once a day a very small ammount. I am at my wits end with this junk. My frogspawn has it on it too...a brown tinge. I just replaced my complete sand bed and still have it. like I said it has been going on for months in a tank that has been established for 3 years. If this is diatoms, why aren't they going away?

 

[Sadielynn]

I have been having the same problems...I have had it for months...on the sand bed, walls etc...where it comes back within a day of cleaining/siphoning. I have cut back to 4hrs on 4hrs off then 4 more hrs on lighting...I have 4 fish, coral and zoa's/paly's and a large star fish...I cut back feedings too. I feed once a day a very small ammount. I am at my wits end with this junk. My frogspawn has it on it too...a brown tinge. I just replaced my complete sand bed and still have it. like I said it has been going on for months in a tank that has been established for 3 years. If this is diatoms, why aren't they going away?

Research dinoflaagellates AKA dinos this stuff is hard to deal with and can cause you to rip your hair out ... I had this junk and believe me you have to be agressive ... keep your lights in tune (changed like clock work ) Increase H20 change , check your perameters check your kits to make sure they are with in useable time (about 6 months after opening them they will expire) check your water source , cut back feedings to 2 times a week and also what salts are you useing ? What are you feeding ... frozen or pelleted or combined ? Shorten your lighting to 6 hours a day not split schedule this will not help , Then slowly bring it to 8 to 10 hours ...I found mine fuled with IO but with RC not so much ... I did 2 x a week water changes at 30% each time , went to RO/DI h20 insted of distilled ,and dismantled the tank scrubbed and rinsed out the LR as well it took me nearly a year to conqure this crap but I did ... I still stay on top of stuff or I could get it back but I have not seen it in a few months whew !!
Diatoms and dinos look similar but the dinos will have bubbles and be stringy and seem to reappear in hours , dinos also will cover every thing in its path but diatoms not so much , rarely will it cover the rocks ..... give it time if it is diatoms something fuled it look for the source ... HTH sadie

 

[ShannonFaas]

Sadie,

My aqarium supplier, Blue Fish Aquarium, also said dino's and we have been treating it as such. I do a 14g water chage every 6-7 days on a 65g tank. I siphon every time. My parameters on the water are 15 for nirates, 0 on everything else, 1.022 on sg. I had an issue a long time ago before I started with this LFS on nitrates being over 160...we have been down to 10-15 now for almost a year. ( I used to have a UGF which harbored nitrates) I just bought the new lighting sytem about 6 months ago. It is a GLO system with T-5 for my coral.

I use RO/DI with instant ocean salt. I feed Thera-A pellets 5 days a week, only one time and nothing hits the bottom. I only feed a small pinch. I also do Krill for the star fish 2 days a week, and brine shrimp 2 days a week or the coral/zoa/palies that I have.

I also dismantled the tank to try to get rid of these things. I put a whole new sand base down. As you see in the picture, there is a brown rust tinge to my sand. I did a full water change 2 days ago. I don't see any bubbles or stringy stuff. I did see bubbles in the past but not since I changed the sand base. I have never seen stringy stuff either. I do have a green algae starting to grow and wish I had a tang in here. We tried mericil? spelling? a couple times too which is supposed to treat for dino's. Yep this stuff makes me want to pull my hair out.

I will cut to 6 hrs on the lights...I did leave the lights off for 2 days, then on for only a couple hrs, then back up to 10hrs...but it did not help.

arrrrggggg!!

 

[ShannonFaas]

I do have a sailfin tang...but he doesn't eat much of the algae.

 

[Sadielynn]

WOW you have alot going on there
It takes time and patients to defeat this stuff but it can be won ...
Cutting the nutrients down will help to starve it out ... so cut back to feedings to 2xs a week if you can ...
Increase water changes ...to an inital 50% one then every 2 -3 days do a 30% -40% then 50% one time a month there after with follow up 30% and back to the once 50% it seems like alot and it is but you are trying to starve this stuff out ... it may take up to 6 months or longer to do water changes this large but in the end it is worth it ... so it will look like this
50% water change 2-3 days later 30%-40% again every 2-3 days 30%-40% till you have gone a month then 1x a month do a 50% following up with the every 2 day 30% > till you see it slow and deminish , but dont be caught off guard as it can reoccure again and again if you do not follow through with the H20 changes to remove it and its spores ...

If you have a skimmer use it if not get one and use it ...
filter media change out on a daily or every other day ..
Darkening out for 3-4 days will help but will not cure it ... the corals should be fine in that period of time ... You will want to wrap the tank to darken it as much as possible with out "sealing" it off ... Ph I did not see that listed nor did I see your ALK listed increasing these is also thought to help .. siphion off the sand bed for now do not replace it you will be replacing your bio filtration something that is crutial to have intact with the large water changes as outlined above ... Lighting decrease time , to only a few hours a day then slowly bring them back up to your schedule of 8-10 hours ... Ours is on from 11 am till 8 pm with the acitnic on at 11 and whites on at noon etc
also you can bump up your salinity to 1.026 try Reef crystals I used IO and when I changed I am not sure that it did not help as they are for reefs so the trace elements are a bit higher ...
This can also be some after effect of the UGF one question tho how long ago did you do this tear down and replacement of sand ?

 

[ShannonFaas]

Sadie,

Thanks for all your adivise, I will be trying that. A lot of what I have read is to stop water changes completely, which is what my LFS has told me. They said only to do enough to siphon the bottom.

I am keeping the PH at 8.6-8.8 with a calcium powder. I have turned my timer down to 12-6. I did the major feed yesterday with the corals and starfish so I will only feed all on their days. I just feel bad like I am starving them. The fish I have are a sailfin tang, 2 clowns, and a yellow tail damsel.

I have a backpack protein skimmer that is on at all times. Since I did the major tank overhaul changing the sand bed I am getting less sedement in there. I also have a cannister filter that I change the filter pads are changed every month.

I have 2 power heads, which I am considering adding another, plus the outflow from the skimmer and cannister filter. I have pretty good flow already.

Another thing I have noticed is that this stuff doesn't grow in the shady areas. I really wish I had a microscope so I could look at this stuff to really determine what I am looking at. I might even call the highschool here and ask one of the science teachers to let me borrow one. I have researched dino's and diatoms and they look completely different under the scope.

 

[Sadielynn]

This is true they are very diffrent ...however I found by letting it go it got worse and started to encroch my corals and kill them ... I lost zoa colonies and some shrooms and nearly lost my candy cane coral ..which I have never seen another purple one like mine ... So I took an agressive aproach and found that it worked for me ... this stuff grew like mad , on every consivable surface . I took all equpment out every other day soaked in vinegar water rinsed and replaced to remove any spores ...and what works for me may not work for you or others but , I have seen others say the same thing agressivly attack this stuff or you will end up with a box of water with rocks I could literally brush the rocks off and with in hours this stuff was back ...I found the H20 changes removed the spores and limited the saturation of what was in the tank ... the one thing that made me go this route was the saying the solution to polution is dilution ! It made sense so I gave it a go ... removing every thing and starting over was an option but every thing that I wanted to keep coral wise was already exposed and had the spores so I opted to keep up on massive changes and choke this stuff out ... now I am not saying this is the cure all but it is worth a try
Also the fish (not to sure on the tang dont know beans about them persay ) but should be fine with out food for up to a week at a time

 

[ShannonFaas]

Sadie,

Was your outbreak in a small tank? I am jealous if it was. I have a 65g. and it is a pain in the butt because I make all my RoDi and it takes forever. I am going to do a major change today, but you meantioned not to do anything with the base. I just completely changed the sand bed to a new one a few weeks ago...should I wait to do a 50% until it is more settled? I will at least do the siphon today to get rid of the ugly crud...

I have a green frog spawn coral that is brown now. How do I get it to come off the coral. The frustrating thing is that I never had this issue until I bought the coral. I wonder if it came attached. I have 2 rocks that have some brown tinge but not bad. I am not a patient person, so I am frustrated as you can see.

I love your advise by the way because you really don't make people feel dumb. There are a few on here that chastise you for not knowing how to do something. You need to become a moderator!

 

[Sadielynn]

Yes mine is was in a nano / 10 gallon tank...
You can go ahead and remove some of the crud from the sand bed , But before warned you will eventually need to "top " it off and will get diatoms from that as it repopulates the bio layer .... you should be fine to start your changes as soon as you would like to ...
It is likely to have come in on a coral or piece of LR ...and thus the out break .. as for the removing it from the coral go ahead take it out and gently move it around some salt water to "dislodge " it from the coral ... you will likely need to do this several times to remove it ...
as for the making of RO/DI perhaps some one near you or a LFS can get you "bulked" up on it so that you are "ahead " of the making curve , just remember to test it to make sure it is "clean "
This stuff will try your paitents to the end ... I used a tooth brush to brush the rocks off while some one else siphioned ....removal of this stuff is tedious at best ... and even time consuming . All equipment was soaked in white vinegar and rinsed in hot tap water and air dried to prevent recontamination ... so I had 2 of while one was drying the other was in use ...
Over board perhaps but I did not have the patients to deal with this out break and loose money that I did not have ... or corals that in my opinion were irreplaceable for me ...

I love your advise by the way because you really don't make people feel dumb. There are a few on here that chastise you for not knowing how to do something. You need to become a moderator!

Thank you for your kind words I am not one to flame we all have issues at some point that some one else has had to deal with ... there is no reason to make any one feel dumb none of us are perfect and we all need to admit we are learning ... If I can share something that will help some one learn I am game ... it is what they do with the advice that makes it worth it ....I am a mod just not on this board and not even sure how they pick there mods here

 

[ShannonFaas]

Sadie,

I went to the LFS today, picked up a new power head, larger one to move the surface better, moved my surface one to the bottom in the opposite direction. Hopefully this will help too, keeping it from being able to sit. I also took some pictues in to show them. They said (and I agree) that this is a more orange color than what was getting. Could this be just diatoms now from switching out the sand bed? And what is the magic there? I have noticed more spots in the past few days on the glass also. I also thought I had a great colony of paly's, but low and behold they are actually a majano anenome. I took care of those as soon as I got home. They really were pretty. Emphasize the word were. Thanks for taking the time with me!!

Shannon

 

[Sadielynn]

Sure could be diatoms from the change over the only cure here is to limit nutrients and time ... They will burn out ... The earlier discriptions that you gave led me to the dinos ... The manjanos are really pretty some come in pinks , greens and some lavendars , but they can hit plagues quickly ... I had one that I loved but I havent seen him in a while , they dont get big enough to house a clown but some of the colors are spectacular !! Just keep an eye on this stuff and keep ahead of water to be sure that you have enough to do changes of the caliber I said should you not start to see them dwindle in size etc... .. I am glad I could be of some help to you .. keep me posted on how you are doing . If need be we will walk you through this ...

 

[ShannonFaas]

Sadie,

I am back! No great news to report. The brown stuff is still there. It is only on the sand bed. I did talk to another professional and he said that because I am siphoning the sand bed deeply everytime I am getting rid of beneficial bacteria. It is raging right now, and he said it was most likely diatoms....ok so everyone said it would go away in 2 or 3 months...my tank has been up for a long time...If I am still cycling...I hope it ends soon. The new guy said no siphoning of the sand for at least 3 weeks, then only very surface siphoning. In the meantime I am looking at this awefully agressive stuff. It is 90% gone in the morning then BAM the lights hit it and it spreads like wild fire. I am still doing a 25% change every week, cut feedings to 2 times a week. My sailfin tang has lost weight. (I think it was very well fed in the beginning. ) My params are all normal. <20 nitrates, 0 everything else, ph 8.2, temp 80 ( I only have the heater on 76), I had to give my frog spawn a fresh water dip, it got sooo brown. Looks better now but it was pretty ticked for a couple days. My zoa's are spreading nicely, so I am thinking the final diagnosis is diatoms. I just want them gone!!!!