newbie help please

[pegasus]

My Green Star Polyps are recovering nicely. Not sure what caused the die-off but they are growing back at a pretty good pace, and have nearly covered their rock again. This is what they look like in less than two months.

 

[cav414]

They look great, mine are recovering slowly the cyano has made it a little more difficult I could be wrong but it seems as if the polyps are either eating or pushing the cyano off the rocks. But it could just be me being crazy lol

 

[pegasus]

Thanks, Cav. Glad to hear yours are recovering, too. I think cyano doesn't grow very well on the GSP mat. It seems to like porous surfaces like rocks or sand bed. If you look closely at the picture above, you can see a little hair algae on the left side of the GSP rock. I've been fighting it for awhile by removing it with hemostats, and it seems to slowly be getting better. I recently changed 50% of the Miracle Mud in my refugium, and the fern Caulerpa and Chaeto are growing like crazy. My Nitrate levels have finally been cut in half (down to .5ppm), so that's helping slow down the growth of the hair algae. Doing a 25% water change this evening, so that will help, also. I installed my new SRO XP2000i skimmer yesterday, and it should help remove more nutrients before they break down into Nitrates. I may even go as far as carbon dosing to feed the bacteria that consumes Nitrates. Still doing research on that, so I'm not quite ready.

 

[cav414]

I'll try to upload pictures when I get home tomorrow, my tank looks horrible but better than it did 2 weeks ago. With my ro/di filter not usable and my last hob filter barely working it's been tough to maintain.I'm surprised I'm able to get rid of it all. I almost broke down when everything started breaking but I'm just using it a motivation too go ahead and start switching over to a reef tank with all new equipment and adding a sump tank

 

[cav414]

Also the algea that I am calling hair algae doesn't look like that in your picture. It's hairy but blue and a bit more slimy looking and mainly on my sand. Could I be wrong and it's not hair algae?

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by cav414 http:///t/396155/newbie-help-please/100#post_3535217
Also the algea that I am calling hair algae doesn't look like that in your picture. It's hairy but blue and a bit more slimy looking and mainly on my sand. Could I be wrong and it's not hair algae?

Is this stuff able to lift up like a carpet if you wave your hand over it and make a little wave motion? It's called cyanobacteria, which I say is red in color...it's actually kind of purplish red...

This picture is from the internet, it's red slime AKA: Cyanobacteria

 

[cav414]

That is exactly what it looks like. So do I have 2 different types of cyano? The other I was calling cyano it's on the rocks and looks the same but it dark red

 

[pegasus]

Micro-algae comes in many forms, so it's easier to classify it as "nuisance" algae. Cyano is a bacteria with an algae-like form. In addition to blue-green, cyanobacteria can be black or even red. It can be harder to get rid of than algae. It feeds mainly on Phosphates, so if you reduce Phosphates, you should be able to reduce or eliminate Cyano. Reduced lighting and feeding will help. There is a product called Chemi-Clean that will help get rid of it if you don't mind using chemicals in your tank, but you must follow the instructions exactly. If you're planning on rebuilding, I would just wash the infected pieces in fresh water before putting it in the new system. I just scrubbed a large rock in warm tap water to get rid of hair algae, rinsed it in some salt water, and put it back in the tank. Algae is gone, vermetid snails survived, and I lost no coralline algae.

If you get a sump, you'll want to get a decent skimmer. I finally got my new skimmer installed after running in a tub of saltwater for a month to break in the pump. It's pulling a ton of junk out of my system, which is exactly what it's supposed to do. It's an amazing skimmer, and I'm extremely glad I upgraded! But yeah... I suggest you get a skimmer instead of an HOB.

 

[cav414]

Okay for some reason my post didn't go through but that's exactly what it looks like. And I can't uploaded the pictures but they both look the same except one is blueish green and one is dark red. Looking at it now it looks as if about 50% of it has died off. All I've really done is changed to a different food and started using bottled water instead of my ro/di.

 

[pegasus]

A lot of fish food contains Phosphates, so changing food may have helped. Glad to hear it's going away instead of getting worse.

 

[cav414]

Thanks, hopefully I'll be starting a reef tank build thread soon im hopeing to start work on it in march.

 

[cav414]

Hey guys just wanted to up date y'all. I'm still fighting the cyano, and honestly can't tell if im wining or lossing. But my star polyp colony is flourishing, its never looked as good as it doese now

I know the color does not show up well in the picture but they have an awesome green glow.
On another note I've been researching for my new tank and I want to add a sump tank. I've seen a lot of diagrams that used ether a sponge filter with activated charcoal or a protein skimmer. My question is do you only use one or the other or can I use both?

 

[bang guy]

Both are fine as they perform different functions.

I am in the group that only uses GAC a couple days a month.