Algae and phosphate?

cowboycove · Oct 31, 2015

I've read in the past that phosphates are Introduce to the tank and doesn't grow on its own. I've been having tons of different algae blooms. This last one is funky and is taking over. I syphoned out as much as possible yesterday and plan on doing 30 gallons more tomorrow. My phosphates were high. My rodi tested 0. So I'm not sure where its from. The only known phosphates i add is when I feed frozen cubes. And that's only once a day recently. Previously just pellets. Any ideas on what I can do? I do weekly %20 water changes. Syphoning only helped with the really long pieces. But its a little stubborn and is not sucking all the algae out. I may have to scoop out some of my sand bed to get it all out.

My flow is a little high but I can adjust it much. One of my return nozzle blows bubbles once in a while. So I think that's why the algae has bubbles. I am working on lowering the nozzle so it doesn't shoot bubbles.

mark.a.smith405 · Oct 31, 2015

What's your phosphate level at now? If you are not able to keep it down you could try GFO, a phosphate remover (phosphate-e) and dose it, or an all in one bio pellet. Have you tried keeping it down with weekly or bi monthly WCs?

watchguy123 · Oct 31, 2015

Depending on the brand of food, some frozen can be loaded with phosphates, either through specific ingredients and "juice". Some people rinse their frozen food unless you use something like LRS frozen food which seems to be very clean. All food introduced ultimately ends up as NO3 and PO4 whether eaten or not, so the amount of food you feed is always important.

cowboycove · Oct 31, 2015

watchguy123 said:

I thought people were just being overly picky by washing frozen food with rodi. But I guess I'll start. I'm using a wide variety of frozen foods. I recently added a huge harlequin tusk. So I went from feeding once every 3-4 days to once a day. I just thought my nitrates would go up. Didn't realize it affected phosphates too.

Anyone know what kind of algae that is and the best way to get rid of it? I assume I need to lower my phosphates first?

mark.a.smith405 said:

I was using an old salifert test. So maybe it's not accurate anymore. But my rodi was 0. My salt was over 0.3 which falls under coral growth retarded. Lol. I may have been higher then that based on color. Does the gfo really work? I'll try it. And I do weekly water changes of 20%.

ndrwater · Oct 31, 2015

Just an FYI, that's Dynoflagelates. Still Phosphate related, but a little more difficult to deal with than what I had in mind before looking at the pictures.

That said, Rowaphos works really well at dropping Phosphate levels.

A common source of Phosphate is live rock. Depending on how new the rock is, or as an example Pukani rock, can leach a ton of Phosphate. Frozen food another common culprit. I would skim wet if you don't already, siphon as much of the Dynos as possible, and consider a few days in the dark. All will help
Best of luck!!

joseserrano · Oct 31, 2015

ndrwater said:

Ben is right, its Dynos, look up ways to deal with dynos, they are generally just tough to get rid of, even if phosphates are low. Also pellets have phosphates as well. No free lunches.

Emac909 · Oct 31, 2015

Dynos are cause by silica. Silica is a type of phosphate.
But even tho your tds is coming out at 0 that doesn't mean the phosphates in your di water is at 0. You can still have phosphates in 0 tds water.
I can guaranty that's what your dealing with. Your ro/di system is not taking out the silica in your water and your dumping that into your system. U will need to use gfo to get the silica out of the tank and silica buster filters to get it out of your ro water

Smite · Oct 31, 2015

Yeah be careful with dinos. Syphon what you can and then do a total blackout for 3 days. During the blackout skim wet and run carbon. Some strains of dinos can be very toxic so the blackout early on is a good idea. I'd have some water prep'd before you blackout.

Dinos are tough, specially if Eric is right and your water changes are doing as much harm as good. I ran Seachem's sea gel during and after my blackout, and it went very well. Really just a mix of a few seachem filtration products that covers all basis.

Sonnus had a great reply to treating dinos a while back by increasing ph with kalkwasser. I'll try and find the thread.

cowboycove · Nov 1, 2015

I read a good lost last night. A guy tried raising ph but didn't work for his type of dyno. Then he raised nitrates. Supposedly high nitrates cause the dyno to explode and die off. Butni can't really do either one until I find a temp home for all my coral first. I'll do a black out. But even with a black out daylight will still light the tank. I'll start wet skimming as well.

Thank you everybody for their lost and ideas.

Smite · Nov 1, 2015

cowboycove said:

Yeah my 66 was near a window. I taped it off with. Black plastic trash bags. I didn't tape the stand off so the skimmer/sump still got fresh air. I've battle it early on with every tank I've owned, the full blackout worked everytime.

cowboycove · Nov 2, 2015

Smite said:

I'm going to do black out. Am I suppose to not feed at all for 3 days? I'm sure fish will be fine right? And light in sump OK? If anything algae should migrate to sump since the environment is better right?

Smite · Nov 2, 2015

cowboycove said:

Yeah the fish will be fine. Leaving the light on in the sump will attract them to the sump. I'd turn it off as well. They'll go to the fuge, and return to the display once lights go back on.

Smite · Nov 2, 2015

Dinos suck out a lot of nutrients from the water, once they are gone I usually get a bloom of another type of nuisance algae like cyanobacteria or GHA. As long as your corals don't look starved right now I'd keep running some GFO for awhile after they are gone.

adrianocampo · Nov 2, 2015

I have a little thing of rowaphos.. i think 250ml. never used it.. take it for cheap if you need it. let me know

cowboycove · Nov 2, 2015

adrianocampo said:

You're a bit far. Thank you though.

Smite said:

Id rather dela with cyano then this cr@p. First time I've had this and it sucks. It grows like wild fire. Cyano you can just siphone out and it usually stays away. If black out doesn't work I'll try raising ph with a small bomb. Lol

Smite · Nov 2, 2015

My thoughts exactly. I hate the stuff! Always bleaches my sps when it blooms.

cowboycove · Nov 8, 2015

So I hooked up a hose to the inlet of a small pump and started sucking whatever I could and pumping it into a filter sock so that I didn't have to do a big water change. I took out all the big rock infested with the algae. Seems dyno loves to stick to any jagged surface. My sand wasn't affected but I had a thin layer of crushed coral since my return blows all my sand away. And of course all the crushed coral was covered. I oicked up all my frags off the bed and stuck it on my ghetto floating temp frag rack. Scooped out as much crushed coral as possible. Then started the black out process. I decided to leave the pump on with the sock inside so it could filter out as much floating dyno as possible. I also took the drain plug off my skimmer and raised the sump height a little so it could wet skim. And that too is draining back into a filter sock. I'll give it 3 days and see how it goes. I'm really worried about my coral. Crossing my fingers. I'll post pictures in 3 days.

cowboycove · Nov 10, 2015

Smite said:

I'm uncovering my tank tonight after 3 full days. Any special instructions for after care? Water change? Less light then usual? Etc?

BeanMachine · Nov 10, 2015

cowboycove said:

Check your parameters and adjust accordingly. Less light for a few days wouldnt hurt.

cowboycove · Nov 10, 2015

Wow. Corals are all fine except some sps looks a little bleached from no light. Should recover. Sand is super white. All my rock looks like its new. Can't believe how well the black out did. Now I can say I'm pretty much no longer scare of any type of algae. My tank is algae free for now.

The filter sock and lump was pretty much useless. Since all the algae died off and disappeared. The sock was semi full before the black out. Now it was clean like I just put the sock in.

Algae and phosphate?

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