Help! Cyano and/or Algae Problems

[Jmetteer]

I have been battling this hair algae and possible cyano. It’s growing on my live rock, back of my glass, and substrate. The substrate doesn’t have the hair issues, just a brownish reddish color, i sucked it off the top of my substrate and it hasn’t started coming back yet. My parameters are off as well and I’m not sure where to go from here.

46bf
1.025 sg
7.3 alk
360 ca
0 phosphate (I’m told it’s because it’s being consumed)
5-6 ppm nitrates
0 ammonia
0 nitrites
7.8 ph

Any help!!

[Jmetteer]

Forgot to post pics.

[cprdnick]

How long has your aquarium been up and running?

[Jmetteer]

Right over a year

[bertoni]

Those numbers all are fine. I agree that the cyanobacteria might be consuming the phosphate as it's released. I'd look into cutting back on the feeding, and sometimes better skimming helps. Also, I can't tell what kind of substrate the tank might have, but the coarser the substrate, the more debris it will collect. I had to pitch my crushed coral for that reason. Generally, I found that the finest grade of sand worked best for me, but the flow in my tanks was low enough for it to stay in place.

[Jmetteer]

Thank you. I have pretty fine agaronite, but I’m thinking maybe aiming one of my power heads lower to stir up?

[bertoni]

Adding more flow might help, but that's not always the case. I'd make sure that the flow was slow enough that the sand didn't move. Uncovering buried sand might dump a lot of hydrogen sulfide into the water column. It's easy to try, so it's worth a shot, in my opinion.

[Jmetteer]

Ty, it’s pretty much my first go around with his and it’s so frustrating


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[bertoni]

Microbial blooms are very common. Problems like this sometimes are hard to solve, but often not.

[Dan_P]

0 phosphate (I’m told it’s because it’s being consumed)


“0” really means “below the detection limit” of your test. Hobby kits start to have trouble detecting phosphate below 0.03 ppm which is at or above what macro algae need to achieve maximum growth rate. I would assume phosphate is present in your system.

Phosphorous is a small component of biomass and given that algae is around 80% water, you would need a lot of algae growth to sop up a phosphate import problem. Your photographic evidence does not indicate much biomass.

[nycjwi]

What type of salt are you using? Also are you mixing with ROI water? that is a must. I would use red sea or tropic marin salt. I would try and do a nearly full water change suck up as much as possible. then every week do 50 % water change until it corrects itself. Cut back on feeding, make sure skimmer is working, change out / clean filter floss every 2 days and that should get this problem under control. You could also get some Phosphate remover (like phosguard) to help with phosphates. Hanna Phosphorus URL checker is most reliable. also could add in some Dr Tim's Waste away to help with Nutrients. IF that doesn't solve it then maybe your sand or rock are leaching phosphates.