Brown Crap in my tank!!!

[dirtysaltwater]

I have a 29 gal biocube (reef). It was doing awesome til about 4 weeks ago. I now have this brown algae slime crap on the sand and rocks. I had the red cyano before but knocked it out with red slime remover. I am feeding my 3 fish every other day and corals once a week. I have carbon AND phosguard in the filter. Can't get rid of it!!!! Please help!! Could be diatoms, but unsure since I had them a few months ago.

 

[meowzer]

What do you have for a clean up crew?????
and can you tell us your test results?

 

[dirtysaltwater]

I have a large turbo, a few hitch hiker slugs, two blue leg hermits, four hermits. I have one percule, 6 line wrasse, and a firefish goby. Then corals: Green torch, xenia, zoas, mushrooms, dragon eyes, candy cane, frog spawn and brown montipora. Tests: Nitrite-0, Ph 8.2, Nitrate 10, ammonia-5. Temp-80, calcium-480. Can't figure it out

 

[dirtysaltwater]

Also, I only use Saltwater w/RO/DI and RO?DI for topoffs

 

[meowzer]

Ammonia

...that should be 0
and your clean up crew (CUC) is severly lacking,.....you need some nassarius snails (for sand) astrea and ceriths
You are not supposed to use SW for top-offs....only ro/di....how often do you do water changes? and how much do you change?

 

[dirtysaltwater]

Yes, I only use RO/DI for topoffs. Sorry for the confusion. My saltwater is made with the same RO/DI water. I change about a gallon per week. Ive recently added some lime rock from the gulf of mexico, well about 6 weeks ago. I believe this may be my problem. The rock was used to rebuild some reefs in the gulf, it should have stayed I think.

 

[meowzer]

Lime rock.....HMMMM....IDK...I think I would get it out.....
also, I would do bigger w/c's.....on my 29G, I change 4 1/2-5G's every other week.....if you are having an algae issue, you may want to do that weekly and see how that does for you

 

[dirtysaltwater]

I am gonna take out the limestone that came from the gulf, try another w/c, get more snails and see what happens. I noticed last night that my turbo isn't going anywhere near the brown stuff.

 

[ibew41]

what powerheads do you have and how many and can you post a pic?

 

[katsafados]

I had an outbreak of that same algae. Nothing kills it, I let it run its course and most of the corals died and a star fish. Everything else survived.

 

[novahobbies]

That actually sounds like it might be a dinoflagellate outbreak. Is it really loose and....well.....snotty?

 

[ibew41]

Quote:
Originally Posted by novahobbies http:///forum/thread/382498/brown-crap-in-my-tank#post_3338737
That actually sounds like it might be a dinoflagellate outbreak. Is it really loose and....well.....snotty?
+1 was waiting on a pic

 

[dirtysaltwater]

Yes indeed, brown snotty S##$! If I leave the lights off, it disappears, when the lights come on, BOOM! Its back. You can't suck it out, drag it out, scrape it out. Geez!!!!!

 

[dirtysaltwater]

I can post a pic tomorrow, the lights are off for the eve. Its a rusty, brown snotty crap.

 

[katsafados]

Yeah I was told it was dino also.. just none of the remidies for the dirfferent types worked. Its a pain in the a** to get rid of.. good luck!

 

[meowzer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsafados http:///forum/thread/382498/brown-crap-in-my-tank#post_3338811
Yeah I was told it was dino also.. just none of the remidies for the dirfferent types worked. Its a pain in the a** to get rid of.. good luck!
Hey KAT....did yours go away at night though????? I just don't remember you saying that

 

[novahobbies]

There are a few remedies I've read about online, but I'm thankful to say I've never run into this problem personally. If the limestone rock you got was indeed live rock from the gulf of mexico, there's a good chance that it came in on that rock. At this point removing the rock is probably moot....the dinoflagellates have a foothold in your tank either way. You may want to remove it just to make sure the point source is gone, however.
Do a quick google search on "dinoflagellates in reef tank" and you'll have plenty of reading material to go to sleep by.....or something to give you bad dreams, anyway. I wish you the best of luck..... I just wish I could be more help than that!

 

[katsafados]

It doesnt go away at night, it looks like it does because you cant see it with the lights out lol....
The best bet is, find the rock with the most rust looking colour on it and take that out of your tank and dry it out. Then do lots of waterchanges ect. and let it run its course. Theres tons of different dino that have different remedies, and unless your willing to sit there and play detective(which can be hard) I'd just let it run its course. You can do a test to rule out one type by putting a snail on the brown stuff and if the snail retracts and never comes out of its shell again, its a certain type, I forget which one though so youll have to look it up.

 

[katsafados]

My "brown stuff" wont call it dino since I dont really know what it was is the exact same stuff you had. You deffinatly cant suck it up or scrape it off the rock, tried many times, and if you are able to, it just regrows overnight. The only thing that helped with mine was tasking the rock with the most rust colour out of the tank and drying it out.

 

[dirtysaltwater]

Well, I visited my LFS 35 miles away and they tested my water, same reuslts as I have gotten. Everything is good. My salinity was a little high, only because he guy said the coral life hydrometers only work @ 60f degrees, hmmmmmm........ I put some phos gaurd in and lowered my salinity w/a w/c. SO! hopefully this will resolve my issue in a few weeks. They believe it is another form of cyano. We shall see. Oh, he said my snails were knocking off due to the high salinity @ 1.032 wow!!!!!!!!!