JABlacher

Hey JABlacher, just wanted to tell you: if you have a bubble coral watch out if you do a three day lights out. When I did one my bubble coral totally died. When I turned the lights back on I was disappointed. Just a warning for ya.

i have a book i picked up that you need to read.

Can't wait to read it! I wan't to beat this once and for all.

I would remove the GFO since you are running biopellets. What is the PO4 level currently?

Why do you want to run lights out? Because the cyano bacteria is back? Can you siphon out most of it? Blow off the rocks and corals with a small powerhead or turkey baster to get it into suspension. If you have a filter sock, catch that stuff as the drainline pours into the sump. Keep your skimmer & neck clean so it can work optimally.

Get more snails. I would rely on chitons and limpets. They are too small to consume algae on a regular basis. I rarely see either actually near nuisance algae.

Testing the tank with a Hanna phosphate meter tested 0 ppm. I'm only assuming that the algae in the tank is consuming what phosphate is in the water throwing off the test.

Besides the small managable amount of cyano that recently started ( I'm assuming because of the bio pellets?), Im dealing with what I believe are branching diatoms. Small stringy brown algae that covers the rocks and some of the bases of my hard corals starting at the frag plugs. I'm only assuming thats what it is based on pictures I have seen. I've read that possibly cutting the lights might help but this is my first experience dealing with this.

Been siphoning this every few days as it appears but it just seems to come right back. Now my mixed salt water tested .07 ppm of phosphates. I'm draining the water from my 55 gallon mixing container to clean it. Going to mix some water and test it to see if the container might possibly be leaching phosphates. The source water from my RO system tested 0 so I just need to rule out the trashcan. Im figuring that with my weekly water changes adding a fresh batch of phosphate to the water column I'm simply making the problem worse with every batch.

It could be the salt too.

Double check if it matches dinoflagellates. I had some in my reef a few months ago, but I resolved it with hydrogen peroxide. I have a blog on that; use the Advanced Search to find that entry.

Going to check out the blog on dino as that was another one of my suspicions.

Have a hard time believing it could be the salt as I know others who are using it with great success. Not going to rule out a bad batch at all though. Been having good success prior with the red sea coral pro but i'll know a bit more after ruling out the trashcan as a source of the problem.

Just for reference melev, what salt have you been using?

Just finished reading through a 33 page post on reef2reef on the peroxide dosing as well as your blog on here and numerous other articles on dinoflagellates. My tanks algae has had all of the symptoms of Dino no matter how much I wanted to deny it.

Couple questions on the hydrogen peroxide dosing:

Did you use the 1ml per 10 gallons dosage?

Many also reported combining that with a lights out period but not sure if that was necessary. Did you do this and when during the day would you dose?

Did you have any I'll effects?

How many days did you dose?

Thanks for the help!!!!

I've used a few versions over the years (I.O. , Kent, Oceanic, & Red Sea), but with this tank I've been using Sybon Reef salt. Premium Aquatics carries it. If you didn't have that choice, it would be Kent or Red Sea.

Yes, I put in 30ml of peroxide in my system with a total true water volume of 300g. I dosed for 8 days. My lights were on as usual, and each day the dinos lessened in volume on my corals. By the final day, I didn't see any anywhere. None of my livestock seemed affected.

I dosed into the skimmer section of my sump to give it time to dissipate.