Getting rid of brown/diatom algae

[Bifferwine]

I'd say 3 or 4 days would be a good start. Then take a look at it and make a decision if you think it needs more.

 

[ltkenbo]

Well I didn't cover the tank completely, since there is only 1 window in my room I just put a towel on the side of the tank so sunlight in the morning will not come in, so the only light in the tank is the light from the room which is just 2 incandescent bulbs on the ceiling, not anywhere enough to encourage algae growth, but just enough so the fish can probably still see a little tiny bit.

 

[ltkenbo]

Alright so this stuff got my pH back to 8.4 (after 2 days of dosing) even when the lights are off and the alkalinity is like 11. My question is should I shoot for 8.8 pH since I'm trying to get rid of the dino's but I'm just worried about using more of the stuff because isn't too high of alkalinity bad, it's at 11 right now.

 

[ltkenbo]

?......

 

[Bifferwine]

I wouldn't go any higher than 8.6. 8.6 should be sufficient to kill them off.

 

[ltkenbo]

But is there a harm in adding more of this reef buffer due to high alkalinity? Or will the alkalinity top out?

 

[Bifferwine]

I don't know. I'll ask ccCapt to chime in. He's much better with this stuff than I am :D

 

[ccCapt]

I wouldn't add anymore of that stuff. It might be loaded with boron. Your pH is already on the high side and so is alk. Some corals do not like alk that high. There is only anectodal evidence that high alk affects dino's, and only rasing alk and not making any other water quality improvements probably won't be too successful in the long run.

Boron in a Reef Tank
"Some brands of alkalinity supplements or “buffers” are claimed to contain added boron (such as Marine Aquarium Buffer, Pro●Buffer dKH, and Superbuffer dKH made by Kent), while others do not (such as Reef Builder, Reef Buffer, and Reef Carbonate made by Seachem). Unfortunately, those that contain boron do not indicate how much, either on the bottle, or when the manufacturer is directly asked. The only statement made is that it is an “important contribution.” Consequently, it is not apparent, without lab testing, whether the amounts of boron present are large enough to be useful. It is also not apparent whether the amounts present might be high enough to invoke some of the undesirable effects of boron that are described below."

"One additional complication that comes from substantially elevated borate is the confounding of the interpretation of alkalinity tests. When reef aquarists are concerned about alkalinity, they are almost invariably concerned with the alkalinity that comes from bicarbonate and carbonate, and it is largely used as a surrogate measure of bicarbonate, which is necessary for calcification. Nearly all hobby test kits measure alkalinity with a single titration that provides total alkalinity, which is the sum of bicarbonate, carbonate, and borate alkalinity. When the levels of boron are similar to natural levels, then the contribution of borate to that test is minimal, and is generally safely ignored in guidelines for alkalinity (for example, keeping a reef tank at 2.5-4 meq/L total alkalinity).
However, if the boron level is substantially above natural levels, as it is in the Seachem salt mix with 12x normal levels, borate can actually begin to dominate such tests, and makes knowing the real bicarbonate and carbonate alkalinity much more difficult. Seachem sells a special borate alkalinity test kit to try to disentangle these effects, but that is only really necessary with tank water that contains greatly elevated boron levels."

 

[ltkenbo]

Lol alright sweet, I'm just glad my alkalinity is at least up, before I used the stuff it was around 6 dkH.

 

[ltkenbo]

Alright so I am still having trouble with the dyno's, they stayed in check for about a week after the blackout but now have returned. I am wondering if the sand is leeching out nutriets from them cause I have the same sand that I had when I cycled the tank and went through all kinds of hair algae stages. Besides, it never seems clean, it's got greyness all inside it like it's really dirty. So I was planning on ordering some new sand online (different grain size and color) and siphoning out the old stuff and replacing it all with new. What do you think?

 

[AHill40]

What kind of sand or substrate are you useing and where did you get it at?

 

[ltkenbo]

"Nature's Ocean" sand from petco, none of that live sand crap, it was just dry aragonite based reef sand. I hate the crap though, because it's so fine, like sugar grain size (that's all they had and I thought it looked good at the time). However much of it is all chunky now, it's so grey and full of junk, I have tons of nasserius snails (the sand is definately live now) and worms and all kinds of stuff, but I think it just go loaded up too fast before introduced the nass snails and stuff. It also drives me nuts because the sand flies everywhere so easily, and if I try to blow it off the rocks, it just gets suspended in the water column and lands on rocks and corals again. This is what I'm thinking about getting instead:

It's larger particle size, more like the size I see with most people's reef tanks. I also love the color.

This is what I have now, it's so boring too:

 

[Bifferwine]

Maybe you didn't do the blackout for long enough. I tried turning my lights back on after 5 days of blackout, bubbles still formed a few hours later.

 

[andysgirl8800]

I did a 12-day blackout.

 

[ltkenbo]

Wow yeah I saw your thread that's pretty long, I'm still going to remove the sand cause I would like to replace it, I just hope that will help as well.

 

[ltkenbo]

Dinoflagellates!!!

Alright so I have removed much of my sand, but I have come to a conclusion through extensive reading and research. Well what really led me to this was user andysgirl statement in the "great algae genocide war" thread:

I would like to share an observation I've made recently regarding my tank. If you've been reading along, you'll know that my VHO lighting was offline for a little bit while I waited for the IceCap ballast to be repaired. In the meantime, I was using only my MHs on a 4hr lighting schedule.

Once my ballast returned to me in working order, I reinstalled it and resumed my normal lighting schedule of VHOs on at 10am through 7pm and MHs on at noon through 3pm. A quick note...my VHO lighting consists of 1 72" 160 watt actinic blue and 1 72" 160 watt bright white. Both bulbs were replaced during my 12 days of lights out and repainting the fixture.

After two days of my regular lighting, I began to notice the dinos slowly returning. WTF?? 12 days of blackout and the dinos are STILL present?? I don't get it! Hubby suggested that maybe it was the VHO lighting. I disagreed, but humored him and turned off the VHOs again. Lo and behold...three days later, no dinos visible. It seems that the VHOs are definately contributing to my dino outbreak. I've since decided to rely on MH lighting only, for about 6-7 hours per day. I don't know if this information is helpful to other folks out there also fighting dino outbreaks, but there ya have it.

https://www.livingreefs.com/great-algae-genocide-war-2010-a-t24202p12.html


My conclusion here is that short lighting blackout periods (and by short I mean anything less than a month or two) will not kill the algae. The reason is this, sourced from 2 different articles, one wikipedia and another article on a website:

However, when conditions become unfavourable, usually when nutrients become depleted or there is insufficient light, some dinoflagellate species alter their life cycle dramatically. Two vegetative cells will fuse together forming a planozygote. Next, is a stage not much different from hibernation called hypnozygote when the organism takes in excess fat and oil. At the same time its shape is getting fatter and the shell gets harder. Sometimes even spikes are formed. When the weather allows it, these dinoflagellates break out of their shell and are in a temporary stage, planomeiocyte, when they quickly reform their individual thecae and return to the dinoflagellates at the beginning of the process.
[]Error

In dinoflagellates, sexuality and subsequent encystment play a key role in bloom dynamics [5]. Encystment allows dinoflagellates to survive unfavorable environmental conditions in the form of resistant cysts, which remain dormant for a mandatory period of several months and then germinate when conditions become favorable. The exponential proliferation of germinated cells results in blooms, which terminate through induction of encystment. Cysts can also be geographically dispersed, giving rise to blooms in regions with no previous history of that species

[]PLoS ONE: Transcriptome Profiling of a Toxic Dinoflagellate Reveals a Gene-Rich Protist and a Potential Impact on Gene Expression Due to Bacterial Presence

These 3 different statements are where I draw my conclusion that lighting alone is not enough to kills these things. In andysgirl's case, the different spectrum of light was not favorable to the dino's so they went away (or went dormant). The same that I see, is that when I had my very underpowered original lights, there were now that I remember little bits of brown algae (dino's) on the sand, but they were held in check by the unfavorable light conditions, most of them remaining dormant. However, once I got my new lights, they started blooming and this makes sense because the bloom coincides with the upgrade to my Nova extreme fixture (Actually if you look at the thread date, I started this thread a week after the upgrade).


Here is where I had my underpowered lights and complained about slight algae problems on the sand:
https://www.livingreefs.com/unrealistic-expectations-sand-substrate-t23820.html


And here is when I got the lights
https://www.livingreefs.com/current-extreme-nova-pro-vs-tek-t23747p3.html

And for this thread when I started experiencing problems, almost a week later:
https://www.livingreefs.com/getting-rid-brown-diatom-algae-t24127.html


So what am I saying the solution is, well I don't know exactly, I think that active methods such as raising pH will be more effective because I noticed a decline when the pH was higher. I also have concluded that the variety of dino's I have are non toxic, and some people may argue, but there are many varieties of dinoflagellates and they are not all toxic, in fact some are easier to get rid of then others. My angelfish always picks off the rocks, so do all my snails and hermit crabs and the only demise have been snails due to my giant hermit crab eating them.

To further support my hypothesis of light not being a sufficient weapon or the lack thereof, I have read a thread another forum where a guy started his tank all over again, then, months later, he put the same live rock back in that had been in darkness for months, and BOOM dino's came back (because they were dormant in the rocks).

Anyways, let me know what you think, any advice would be great.

 

[ltkenbo]

So anyone have any comments on my hypothesis?

 

[Bifferwine]

I will say that going through a dark period wasn't enough to kill the dinos in my tank. It certainly reduced them. But I agree that you probably have to do that in conjunction with raising pH to kill them.

 

[ltkenbo]

Yeah, I think I might do a 2 day blackout just to keep them in check. How's the pH method working?

 

[andysgirl8800]

I did the blackout and the raised pH. I also switched out my actinics from 50/50 white and blue to blues only. I haven't "noticed" any dinos yet (knock on wood). I would also agree that the dinos are probably present in any tank with live rock or live sand and lay dormant unitl conditions become favorable. That may also explain some of the recent outbreaks among many aquarists lately. Just my 2c.