Neptune Aquatics

Nitrates bottomed out..and massive cyano issue

I thought initially it was cyano -but that was under blue light-so it looked red. Doh.

I think that it was largely under control until my wrasse ate my entire CUC of snails. Hate to give that little SOB up but I don’t enough if I can support his escargot addiction.

Pretty much scraped the sides today. The rollermat doing its job today! And blackout period in effect. Will prob pick up some new CUC in a couple of days.
 
I would keep lights on but possibly lower PAR. I don’t see much coraline so maybe PAR is higher than needs be anyway. I’m concerned pH will get really low with all the algae, cyano/bacteria and fish respirating in the dark, causing a new issue? What PAR are you running your lights at?
 
@Chromis - Essentially for the main program -running the blue at 65% and running white at 20%

Actually just created a new program at 50% blue and 50% white -but a quick view thought it way too white so prob will reduce it down to 30.
Need to recalibrate ph probe as I know with the automatic calibration is off. But I agree that I am concerned a bit about PH. Most softies look ok. At least two acros are toast I think.
 
Chromis said:
I would keep lights on but possibly lower PAR. I don’t see much coraline so maybe PAR is higher than needs be anyway. I’m concerned pH will get really low with all the algae, cyano/bacteria and fish respirating in the dark, causing a new issue? What PAR are you running your lights at?
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I have plenty of red coralline growing at 400ish PAR.

IMG_3274.jpeg
 
Yea good point - now that I think about it, I’ve seen purple coralline in (others’) brightly-lit high-nitrate level tanks. There’s just something that tells me PAR might be high if there is a lot more green algae and not much purple, but I could be wrong. Can’t hurt to measure PAR though, and if there is room to lower it, lowering or reducing light cycle can help reduce green algae growth.
 
Getting off topic a bit, but I have not heard of high PAR being bad for coralline algae. I thought it was the opposite (or not tightly linked), within the ranges of PAR we have in our tanks.

I agree that lights-out can very seriously and negatively drop the pH. Enough to cause coral mortality in some cases. The higher the bio load in the tank the worse the problem.

The only way to know your PAR levels is with a PAR meter. But I doubt your PAR level is related to your current problems. I also doubt that reducing your lights without turning them off will help the cyano/algae problems since algae are very efficient and versatile at light use.
 
JVU said:
Getting off topic a bit, but I have not heard of high PAR being bad for coralline algae. I thought it was the opposite (or not tightly linked), within the ranges of PAR we have in our tanks.

I agree that lights-out can very seriously and negatively drop the pH. Enough to cause coral mortality in some cases. The higher the bio load in the tank the worse the problem.

The only way to know your PAR levels is with a PAR meter. But I doubt your PAR level is related to your current problems. I also doubt that reducing your lights without turning them off will help the cyano/algae problems since algae are very efficient and versatile at light use.
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I can’t speak to PAR but probably this issue got out of hand when the wrasse decided to start his escargot addiction and the snails disappeared. Also my previous tuxedo bit the bullet as well not too long ago.

With some massive scraping the other day, a lot of it is gone after two days of black out. I think I just need to go out at lunch and get a new swath of inverts and a couple of tuxedos and let them go to town.

I also need to get my hands on a couple of pitho crabs to contend with the bubble algae.

I think the acros are toast. The euphillias are hopefully ok with the other softies. Your yumas @JVU are freaking bulletproof!
 
So in conclusion the issue is algae and not cyano? How many hours a day are your lights on regularly? You did mention you increased your whites % plus loss of cucs which may have been a combined factor as well.
 
PjFish said:
So in conclusion the issue is algae and not cyano? How many hours a day are your lights on regularly? You did mention you increased your whites % plus loss of cucs which may have been a combined factor as well.
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The issue is algae and not cyano. It just looked red under the blue light.

Ramp up started at 7:30 to 8:30 and the blue got up to 65% before ramping down at 4:30 to 6 pm.

The white never got above 20% and looking at the program-it starting ramping down at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Plan now is to ramp down the blue to 50% and to keep white now at 15%?
 
Yeah as herbivores die, the algae shows up fast with no predation. Rich's talk has good details:

Also it may be time to get rid of the wrasse or find herbivores that it won't eat. Just work on manual removal while you can.

But borrow the PAR meter because changing lights a ton can really cause issues with your corals if you don't acclimate them.

Back to the coralline point, in my experience under low light I get a wider variety of coralline (light green, dark purple, softer consistency pink, very hard pink). But since I've raised my PAR over the last few months (from 200 to 400 on the top rocks), it's died back on the higher PAR areas and replaced with only one type (very hard pink). However still zero algae in the tank due to lots of trochus snails, tuxedo urchin, fighting conch, and blue leg hermits.
 
Darkxerox said:
Yeah as herbivores die, the algae shows up fast with no predation. Rich's talk has good details:

Also it may be time to get rid of the wrasse or find herbivores that it won't eat. Just work on manual removal while you can.

But borrow the PAR meter because changing lights a ton can really cause issues with your corals if you don't acclimate them.

Back to the coralline point, in my experience under low light I get a wider variety of coralline (light green, dark purple, softer consistency pink, very hard pink). But since I've raised my PAR over the last few months (from 200 to 400 on the top rocks), it's died back on the higher PAR areas and replaced with only one type (very hard pink). However still zero algae in the tank due to lots of trochus snails, tuxedo urchin, fighting conch, and blue leg hermits.
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I was there for that-and due to a couple of urchins-touched off a cascade of issues that included the epoxy/protein skimmer issue.

As to the wrasse-see if I can placate it -with some additional brine/mysis shrimp. If it wasn’t for this distraction -I’d be done with the “doserator” and hopefully have it in production.

I will get a couple new tuxedo urchins and hopefully a few inverts the fish won’t eat.

Whether it was clearing out some of the algae, water changes, or other factors- nitrates are back up to 4 -without dosing anything.

Zoas and my euphillia’s are looking happy. Lost some recently purchased acros and some of the sps not looking happy. See if they recover. In the meanwhile -see about righting the tank.
 
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