effects of high silicate

[CeeGee]

I have never tested for silicates. I have a very strange algae that I can't seem to get rid of. I tried carbon dosing and it didn't really help and I finally gave up and cooked my rock. Guess what ? It's back. Not too bad yet but it is there.

I am thinking that there is either some phosphate still bound up in the rock (which I find hard to believe as it was clean as clean can be after cooking) or I have something like silicates in my source water.

What are the effects one sees with high silicates? I don't know if I have them or not as I have never tested (never seemed like I needed to because I run a RO/DI and I stay on top of cartridge replacement) but I am grasping at straws as to what is causing this algae (it might not even be algae as far as I know). I am pulling my hair out and need to figure this out. I have lost enough coral to this junk.

[HighlandReefer]

A picture of your pest may help.

Silicates will cause diatom blooms which are easy to control. Diatoms appear like a brown film on your rock, sand and glass & can be easily removed.

Microalgae, dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria and bacteria are very tough to kill as they can develop a protective covering which will protect them from a lot of things. So this process of rock cooking is perhaps not the best way to eradicate them.

[APD] RE: Algae spores
http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plant.../msg00318.html

"It is a gross over-simplification to talk about algae spreading by spores in the air as if algae were all one biologically similar
life-form. They are not! Filament algae, the algae we need to concern ourselves with, live EXCLUSIVELY in the aquatic environment. Many kinds of aquatic algae can survive extended periods of desiccation (drying) by slowing down biological processes and encysting (so-called resting spores)."

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If it is green algae, it is unlikely (but not impossible) to be a diatom, which are the only pests that use silicate. FWIW, I dose silicate.

I discuss silicate here:

Silica in a Reef Tank
http://advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2003/feature.htm

[pjf]

I use a Kold Ster-il system so I do have 14 mg/L of silica in my water. When starting the aquarium, I did have yellow-brown diatom blooms that were noticeable on the glass surfaces. By getting other nutrients under control, the diatom blooms have not recurred.

I have not had a problem with algae until my skimmer broke a few months ago. I will need to address the algae problem after my skimmer is repaired but I do not think that silica is the issue.

[CeeGee]

The algae I have is ghost like in appearance. Looks like transparent hair algae. It is very difficult to remove as it is "gummy" and impossible to see when the rock is out of the water. In really thick areas it turns more of dingy yellow and is very think and dang near impossible to remove. Luckily it hasn't gotten that bad yet in the new tank.

I am going to try and get some pics tonight.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

OK, that's unlikely to be diatoms and silicate is not likely involved.

sounds possibly like dinoflagellates to me:

Problem Dinoflagellates and pH
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

[CeeGee]

I read your article Randy and I am not sure I understand it all but a couple of things stick out. This stuff is definitely snotty and slimy. However it doesn't get air bubbles unless some air bubbles get into from another source (pumps etc.). It doesn't appear to make it's own.

My snail population is much lower than it used to be but that is normal as they die over time and I have never added any since my first purchase nearly 4 years ago. That being said snails and hermits don't seem to really touch this stuff like they consumed the green hair algae that I had when I first started my tank.

My pH has always ran low from day 1. It has ranged from 7.8 - 8.1 usually hovering in the 7.9 range. I add two part it goes up for about 30 minutes and then back to normal. Never tried kalk as I don't understand how it is used.

Don't have my pH probe going at the moment I was going to hook it up last night but didn't have time. I will do it tonight.

The stuff I have doesn't really look anything like the two photos in the article. It is much "finer" and ghostly in appearance.

Thinking back this stuff seems to have reared it's head after adding some "base rock" from reeferrocks which I believe to be out of business now. I am wondering if this "rock" was really from the ocean or what it was that I put in my tank. I don't ever remember seeing this stuff before adding the rock to my tank.

I would think that my nutrients would be low. I cooked the crap out of this rock. I started the tank will new ro/di water none from the old tank. I only have one fish in the tank and I feed it sparingly. My filter socks do get a little dirty though every couple of days but my skimmer isn't pulling anything dark. No Nitrates according to my new LaMotte kit. Not sure about phosphate. I have run a good amount of GFO from day one though.

On my last tank I was doing a ULN system which improved things but not quite the way I thought it would hence the reason I cooked the rock. Do you think it would hurt anything to start that back up and keep running GFO for the time being as well? They say not to run GFO while running a ULN system but I don't think it would hurt anything to try and knock out all the phosphate that I can and then let the ULN handle it from then on out.

What do you think?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

With that ULN system, were you dosing a carbon source?

White or clear slimes are often bacterial globs driven to grow by the bacteria.

[CeeGee]

Yes I was dosing a carbon source and a bacteria culture.

The only clear slimes I saw would clump together with detritus on the bottom and I would vacuum them out. The "algae" that I speak of was there prior to starting the ULN system.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think we need a picture to really tell what it is.

[CeeGee]

Originally posted by Randy Holmes-Farley
I think we need a picture to really tell what it is.

ask and you shall receive. These pics make it show up much better than it actually does in the tank. On the live rock you have to look "just right" to see it until it attacks a coral that is.

1.

2.

[gdm42001]

this looks familiar, I could never get a picture to post.
sounds like what I have, it followed me from my old tank to my new tank somehow, must have been on the couple of rocks I transfered.
Does it have an odor when you clean the glass? If I pull the wet side of the magnet out on my magnavor, the smell resembles when you take pulsing xenia out of the water.

[CeeGee]

never smelled xenia but the bucket of water (where I scrubbed my rock the other night) has a very sour milk kinda smell. It is hard to explain.

[HighlandReefer]

No chlorophyll, bacteria or fungus. Bacteria usually will clean off reasonably easy. Fungus has hold fasts, which would make it harder to clean off, which this appears to have.


This picture is a fungus growing on a petri dish and it is not growing in water:

[CeeGee]

HighlandReefer,

I don't understand your post. Are you saying that what I posted is not chlorophyll, bacteria or fungus?

Does anyone have any idea what it is and how to eradicate it?

[HighlandReefer]

I see no color (lack of chlorophyll) in what you have, which would indicate either a bacteria or a fungus. Bacteria have no root like structures (hold-fasts) like fungi have. Bacteria will wipe off of whatever it is on fairly easily. Fungi will not wipe off as easily due to the hold-fasts. IMHO, I believe it may be a fungus.

In areas where this organism grows for a while, do you see any slightly darker areas (fruiting bodies), which would contain the spores?

After I re-read my first post, I have to admit that it did not make sense. Sorry, I'm brain-dead at times.

[CeeGee]

Originally posted by HighlandReefer
I areas where this organism grows for a while, do you see any dark areas (fruiting bodies), which contain the spores?

Let me get some more pics tonight and you tell me

[CeeGee]

sorry,

pics the other night didn't happen. I am a little under the weather so I have been dragging.

The darker "spots" seem to be some sort of Holdfast/fruiting body to me. Correct me if I am wrong.

If this is indeed a fungus how do you get rid of it and not kill your corals?








Here are a couple of pics of what this stuff looks like once it really gets a hold on the tank. These are from my last tank that I was hoping to eradicate this mess with the current one. Notice how in the high flow areas it turns a slight yellow?

Where did Randy go?

[HighlandReefer]

Looks like a fungus to me. In the lower picture, it looks like fruiting bodies have formed (little branches at the end).

I was only able to find one fungicide that has a label for reef tanks, API's Pimafix Fungicide. I do not know anything about this product myself.

http://www.acklenhousegifts.com/prod...penparent=2195

[tony varrell]

Man sorry for the hijack but I am going through the exact same thing and just ordered a silica test kit as a last resort.Maybe I can get some help here. Current reading Nitrate 8ppm and Phosphate 0.06. Dosing 2 ml of vodka running Rowaphos and carbon in a reactor and this is what I am dealing with. Again sorry for the hijack but your struggles are exactly like mine and your photo of the powerhead looks exactly like mine.

[CeeGee]

Do you have any idea how this would have gotten into my tank? I am definitely not the only one that has experienced this. I saw a thread where a bunch of people had what appeared to be the same thing and no one really knew what it was. I believe eric from frag farmer had this stuff.

Honestly, if this is a fungus I will feel very relieved even though my tank still looks bad. I have thought it to be a algae and have tried everything under the sun to remedy it. It has made me look like someone who neglects their tank a.k.a lazy a**.

The bottom line with this stuff is that it is gooey. It traps dirt and no matter how hard you try you can't get the dirt out of it and before you know it you are in much worse shape than you could ever imagine even though you are doing everything in the book to run a healthy tank.

Maybe if I can eradicate this crap my embarrassment can end. I am sick of seeing all the nice tanks on here and looking at my pathetic attempt when I know I am doing things right.

Originally posted by tony varrell
Man sorry for the hijack but I am going through the exact same thing and just ordered a silica test kit as a last resort.Maybe I can get some help here. Current reading Nitrate 8ppm and Phosphate 0.06. Dosing 2 ml of vodka running Rowaphos and carbon in a reactor and this is what I am dealing with. Again sorry for the hijack but your struggles are exactly like mine and your photo of the powerhead looks exactly like mine.

Sorry man that looks nothing like what I have. That is green hair algae that you have there. That can be dealt with. It looks to be very out of control and drastic measures will have to be taken but I think you can beat that. Vodka isn't going to do it it looks too far gone IMO. I would suggest cooking the rock. If you are unfamiliar with that find the thread by Sean T and read up on it. I may be wrong but from the looks of that pic that isn't what I have.

[HighlandReefer]

I am not sure how much is known about fungi and their control in marine environments. Most research would be found in controlling fungi on fish and plants. IMHO, most fungicides would control the spore stage and not the actively growing stage. Perhaps some of the microbiologists on this forum will chime in?

Removing items infested and soaking them in bleach would kill the actively growing stage of the fungi and probably any spores the bleach contacts. However in your reef system, the spores are free floating in the water column. So, to try to gain control of this fungi, you would IMHO, most likely be fighting a battle you can not win since it would be impossible to manually remove all the active growing infested areas. I personally would try any fungicide you can find that is labeled for the water environment, since the cost of the items is only around $25.00 and see what happens. You can also increase the concentration rates of the fungicides and see what happens. This may have adverse affects on your livestock, but what do you have to loose.

If you can not live with this fungus in your system, then you may have to resort to starting with a completely clean system. I would not share any of your inhabitants or other items in your system with fellow reefers. Anything you can soak in bleach will help to eradicate it.

[HighlandReefer]

Spores in reef water, infested areas on rock, sand, etc are the most likely way a fungus would be introduced into your system.

I have read as much as I could find on AlgaeFix Marine. I am not sure what the mode of action is for this product. I do know that the active ingredient in AlgaeFix Marine will kill bacteria, fungi & other organism at higher concentrations. Personally I would try the AlgaeFix at the recommend rate first and slowly increase the concentration of the dose and see what effect it would have. At higher doses, as found when used in swimming pools, it will certainly kill the fungus as well as other occupants in your system.

[CeeGee]

I just ordered some of the pimafix. I think I will set up a 10 gallon remove a rock with the "fungus" on it dose it up and see what happens. If it kills the stuff I will move a frag into the tank and see what effects that has before dumping it into my system.

Does that sound like a good plan?

[HighlandReefer]

It seems like the safest plan to me. I hope it works for you. Let us know either way.

If the Pimafix does not work, then I would do the same with AlgaeFix, which I believe is a broad spectrum product. I also believe that the concentration of AlgaeFix may have to be increased higher then the recommend levels to achieve control which is certainly something you want to use as a last resort.