What is this muck?

[ebolarox]

Nice title eh?

Anyway.. bought another 25 lb of live rock yesterday.. Found one lonley aipstasia on it. Gotta get rid of that thing today..

The question is.. I have this muck growing on the back of my tank and now on a recently added powerhead.. Can anyone give me any insight of what it is and if it is bad? Its all over the back of the tank and starting on the bottom front in the corners.

Thanks, Tina

[ebolarox]

Heres another pic..

[ebolarox]

this has been in for oh.. a month now

[ebolarox]

sorry for the cutoffs of the pics.. had to reduce the size of it to post them

[musicsmaker]

Looks like cyanobacteria. It's a common part of starting a new tank. Things you can do to help get rid of it are:

~ Increased water flow
~ Water changes with RO/DI water
~ Decreased feedings
~ Run carbon (no more than 2 days - then exchange it for fresh if you want to run more)
~ Be patient :)

[ebolarox]

Eww.. is it detrimental to my fish or corals? It just recently started getting bad.. Been scraping the stuff off w/ the magnet.

Thanks :)

We do weekly water changes, but not w/ RO/DI water.. I put prime in the water when doing them.

Any local places that sell RO/DI water?

[MadTownMax]

Nothing to worry about, it's a normal part of starting a tank, and after a few weeks it usually is replaced with another form of algae, like a more compact green form. If your conditions are favorable for it, eventually it will be replaced by coralline algae.

If you have any snails they are probably enjoying it for now though :)

[ebolarox]

Even after 11 months? I have currently 2 snails that were hijacking from the LR I got yesterday. It is starting to turn green on my heater so I'll wait and see whats goin on. Ty :)

[musicsmaker]

I was assuming that your tank was newly setup. Can you give a basic rundown/history of it? How much flow, how longs the muck been there, what's in the tank, etc etc.

[ebolarox]

The muck just started about 2-3 months ago.. very little, only on the skimmer exit. It has since wildy grown.

I just lost a bunch of fish.. so right now all I have is a Scopas & a Blue tang. I have 2 bubble corals, toadstool leather, hammer coral, 3 feather dusters, and a red gorgonia a urchin and about 5 bristle worms that I found yesterday as well.

My parameters are..

80 deg.
1.019 sg
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 50
ammonia - 0
ph - 8.1
phosphate - somewhere between 2.0 & 5.0 (im thinking this is my prob)
copper - 0
calcium - 450
alkalinity - need a new test.. this one stinks and only gives me normal low and high readings

[MadTownMax]

I just upgraded my lighting and I'm experiencing an "algae bloom" of epic proportions. Any little change can cause this to happen. If you are experiencing this after 11 months there are a few solutions that you can look into. First of, is lowering your feeding amount, after doing this for a week or so, do a large water change (maybe 50 %) and see if there's a difference. If this water change causes a large algae bloom you can probably blame your source water (most contains at least a trace of phostphate which is enough to cause the amount of algae you're experienceing).

As music maker said, increased water flow can also help solve the problem. More snails always helps too, but if the nothing else seems to work and water changes only increase the problem, RO/DI water is probably the way to go, and it's benefits well outweigh the small cost (compared to many other things in this hobby) :).

-ps, didn't mean to intrude in your local reef board, just noticed that this was for Pittsburg, saw it originally on the "new posts" section and just started typing away.

good luck

-Nick

[ebolarox]

You are right.. I added PC lighting and now it seems to be getting worse and I did a huge water change last week. I tested our tap water last month and nothing extreme then.. but then again, I didnt test for phosphate.

[musicsmaker]

phosphate - somewhere between 2.0 & 5.0 (im thinking this is my prob) Bingo! Get that taken care of fast, and your tank will love you. You also need to raise your specific gravity. Keep that around 1.026, but raise it slowly.

MadTownMax, your help is appreciated no matter where your from. :)

[ebolarox]

k.. going to pick up some of those phosphate sponges. Ty all :) !

[MadTownMax]

phosphate sponges will help in the short term, but buying a RO/DI (cheap 100gpd units on e-bay are under $150 - that's what I have and am very glad I got mine) will be cheaper in the long-run, not to mention you won't have to worry about anything else in your water other than good ol' H2O (no other $$ spent on water treatments)

[ebolarox]

Think thats another on the agenda.. Thanks for the recommendation on ebay. Will go check that out as well.

Ty!

[Bill King]

While you are waiting for your new RO unit. Most Wal-mart super stores have RO water for sale.
good luck,
Bill