Algae Issue/Looking for advice!

[YHSublime]

Hey WAMAS! So a bit of a story, and advice requested:

 

My gigantica decided to walk into an MP40 a few weeks back. I was home, it was a Saturday, and I caught it within the first 10 minutes or so of doing it. The anemone is fine, but there is a bit of a chunk taken out. The aquarium was a mess, and I did a 100% water change. I replaced all the filter socks, floss, added some carbon, emptied the skimmer cup and set it to aggressively skim. Looked like I was out of the woods, no harm, no foul.

 

Now I have this super aggressive cotton candy/dino looking algae, coupled with hair algae all over the tank. Within 24 hours of removing it, it's back again. I'm continuing to do frequent water changes, but it's to the point in which a lot of the zoos or palys wont even open, or cant open. Am I just doing a small water change every day and siphoning it out? Is there something I can do, like get a large CUC, reduce my photo period, fluconazole? All of the above?  

[YHSublime]

[davjbeas]

I am a big fan of adding a creature that eats the problem.

Mexican Turbo snails for hair algae

Pitho crabs if you have bubble algae

The above may or may not help.

I had a tank with the same problem years ago.

I ended up giving away the coral and took down the tank.

My current tank has 3 turbo snails and 3 pitho crabs.

It might be worth trying adding 10 turbo snails some type of mithrax crab

I have have had good luck with reefcleaners.org. They have a minimum order of around $50 and shipping is $49 overnight delivery

Some other options are an urchin and some crabs although I don't have experience with those. 

[DaJMasta]

Flucanozole works for a lot of algaes, but I don't know if it works with dinos and by a look, I would say it's likely dinos or maybe some kind of cyano.  I don't have much experience treating them, but I have heard that treatments can be pretty specific to the strain of dinos it is, so getting a sample under some magnification and asking in a dino ID forum is probably a good next step.

 

Could the nutrient levels be out of whack?  I've heard that particularly low nutrient levels can cause blooms and correcting that may be a starting treatment option.

[YHSublime]

1 hour ago, DaJMasta said:

Flucanozole works for a lot of algaes, but I don't know if it works with dinos and by a look, I would say it's likely dinos or maybe some kind of cyano.  I don't have much experience treating them, but I have heard that treatments can be pretty specific to the strain of dinos it is, so getting a sample under some magnification and asking in a dino ID forum is probably a good next step.

 

Could the nutrient levels be out of whack?  I've heard that particularly low nutrient levels can cause blooms and correcting that may be a starting treatment option.

nutrient levels could be out of wack. I’m feeding much less, and y filtration is much more efficient. 

[Algae]

Have you considered turning the light off for 3 days to control the algae/cyno growth as the tank stabilizes?

[YHSublime]

20 minutes ago, Algae said:

Have you considered turning the light off for 3 days to control the algae/cyno growth as the tank stabilizes?

no, I have a 9” clam, do you think that would effect it?

[Algae]

I have mainly LPS, anemone and soft corals, I am not sure about the clam or SPS. But turning the light off for 3-4 days was the most effective way for

me, without using chemicals, to control Cyno. I have done it few times without losing any corals.

Foxface and 2 bar fish and 4 tuxedo urchins eliminated the bubble and hair algae 

A good person to reach out to is Richard Ross, last year speaker, who encouraged me to use the light method.

[Squishie89]

47 minutes ago, Algae said:

I have mainly LPS, anemone and soft corals, I am not sure about the clam or SPS. But turning the light off for 3-4 days was the most effective way for

me, without using chemicals, to control Cyno. I have done it few times without losing any corals.

Foxface and 2 bar fish and 4 tuxedo urchins eliminated the bubble and hair algae 

A good person to reach out to is Richard Ross, last year speaker, who encouraged me to use the light method.

Your name on here being Algae makes the title funny lol

[Algae]

8 hours ago, Squishie89 said:

Your name on here being Algae makes the title funny lol

No one knows algae better than algae! lol 

Edited Monday at 11:47 AM by Algae

[ReefdUp]

Let's get to the root of the issue...

 

What are your nitrate and phosphate levels? High phosphate is a good indicator that it's in the cyano family, while high nitrate is a good indicator that it's in the algae family.

 

If both are low, there's a good chance it's dinoflagellates.

 

Next, if you don't have access to a microscope (but if you do, see what it is!), do the coffee filter test to see if it's dinoflagellates. If you don't know how to do this test, I can walk you through it.

 

Note... if it's dinos, then water changes are one of the worst things you can do. 

 

Knowing what problem you're fighting will help you know how to fight it. Yes, many of the above solutions can help various things in different ways, but they are not broadly effective.

[YHSublime]

On 5/26/2025 at 9:26 AM, ReefdUp said:

Let's get to the root of the issue...

 

What are your nitrate and phosphate levels? High phosphate is a good indicator that it's in the cyano family, while high nitrate is a good indicator that it's in the algae family.

 

If both are low, there's a good chance it's dinoflagellates.

 

Next, if you don't have access to a microscope (but if you do, see what it is!), do the coffee filter test to see if it's dinoflagellates. If you don't know how to do this test, I can walk you through it.

 

Note... if it's dinos, then water changes are one of the worst things you can do. 

 

Knowing what problem you're fighting will help you know how to fight it. Yes, many of the above solutions can help various things in different ways, but they are not broadly effective.

good point.

 

phosphate is between .025 and .05

 

nitrate is 10

 

I’m not familiar with the coffee filter test, and I don't have a microscope. I might have a neighbor that does, I'm looking into that now. 

[ReefdUp]

This is a really quick version of the coffee filter Dinoflagellate test...

 

Pull a sample of the offending grossness, and put it into a container of water with a tight lid.

 

Shake the container of grossness really well, until it is soup-like.

 

Setup another container with a funnel and coffee filter, so that you can filter the contents of the first container into the second.

 

Strain the liquefied grossness through the coffee filter. The second container should fill with clear-ish liquid. 

 

Place the second container in high light for about an hour. (Throw out the first container's contents, if any remain).

 

If the second container develops a blob-snot-like mass, then, I'm sorry, you probably have dinos. They clump together in high light.

 

If it doesn't, then you may still have dinos, but not the super miserable ones (there are lots of types).

 

Hope that helps.

[YHSublime]

Based on how that works, I can already tell you it’s Dino’s, bit I’ll do the test anyways. 
 

I just siphoned this morning from my DT into the sump, and all the pieces I siphoned are covered again already. And were covered in like 2 hours again.

[ReefdUp]

Good news is that your nutrients haven't hit rock bottom, so you have a fighting chance against dinos. Don't let them drop.

[miggs76]

a UV sterilizer knocked out dinos forever in my tank

[ReefdUp]

57 minutes ago, miggs76 said:

a UV sterilizer knocked out dinos forever in my tank

 

Yes, that's what I decided to use this year after removing my sand bed and crashing my nutrients. I was able to manage all previous outbreaks by managing nutrients, temperature, and pH carefully. 

 

Unfortunately a UV sterilizer will only work on dinoflagellates that are open-water swimmers (thankfully the most toxic types normally), but it won't do much for ones that are found in the sandbed or on rocks.

[YHSublime]

14 hours ago, ReefdUp said:

Good news is that your nutrients haven't hit rock bottom, so you have a fighting chance against dinos. Don't let them drop.

 

It's definitely dinos after doing the coffee filter test. I'm going to head over to my friends house tonight and get a photo under a microscope so I can figure what what type. No sense in guessing, but I am doing a little pre-emptive strike here. Yesterday early evening I cut my lights off, and I'm going to do an at least 24 hour "black out." I put that in quotes, because I'm not covering up the sides, etc, so some light is penetrating. 

 

I've been worried about overfeeding such a small tank (I downgraded from a 100 gallon tank volume to a 35 gallon tank volume, and only moved 3 fish over. I'm now no longer worried about feeding the fish. Good news is I only feed frozen (LRS) and everything goes in the tank (I thaw in a shot glass in tank water and then broadcast feed, so I don't think I'll have issues bottoming out nutrients. 

 

I've taken my skimmer cup off. 

 

I've slowly bumped my tank temperature up to 81, and 82 by the end of today. 

 

I'm going to shout out to some buddies and see about getting some LR or scoop of sand to add to my display. I'm also going to grab some pods, a CUC, and some phyto, if I can find it. 

 

I know I'm just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, but I'd rather start chipping away than being idle. Whatever kind it is, it's very aggressive. I've already lost several valuable pieces. 

 

1 hour ago, miggs76 said:

a UV sterilizer knocked out dinos forever in my tank

 

32 minutes ago, ReefdUp said:

 

Yes, that's what I decided to use this year after removing my sand bed and crashing my nutrients. I was able to manage all previous outbreaks by managing nutrients, temperature, and pH carefully. 

 

Unfortunately a UV sterilizer will only work on dinoflagellates that are open-water swimmers (thankfully the most toxic types normally), but it won't do much for ones that are found in the sandbed or on rocks.

 

So I'm barebottom, and most of this seems to be growing on the corals/frag rack. To be fair, I don't have a lot of exposed rock, as most of it is covered with corals. If it's open water dino's, then I'll get a UV, but I'll hold off until I have a proper diagnosis. 

 

For what it's worth, the 12 hour lights off seems to have quelled a lot of the growth I normally see by now. 

[ReefdUp]

Ugh, that's unfortunate.

 

If things seem to improve with lights-out, then... unfortunately, that's worse news. It's probably Ostreopsis, which migrate into the water column during lights-out and coagulate (for lack of a better term) on surfaces when the lights come on. Lights-out doesn't kill them or stunt their growth. It can buy your corals time, though, and it can get them moving into a UV sterilizer. 

[YHSublime]

17 minutes ago, ReefdUp said:

Ugh, that's unfortunate.

 

If things seem to improve with lights-out, then... unfortunately, that's worse news. It's probably Ostreopsis, which migrate into the water column during lights-out and coagulate (for lack of a better term) on surfaces when the lights come on. Lights-out doesn't kill them or stunt their growth. It can buy your corals time, though, and it can get them moving into a UV sterilizer. 

cool. Cool cool cool.
 

Will get a confirmation ID and go from there. 

[YHSublime]

Wasn’t able to get to a microscope last night, but, a little past 24 hours and it seems to be almost completely gone. 
 

Who knows what the story is once the lights come back on, but for now it’s nice to see everything thriving in the dark…