After 6 Months, I'm Getting Discouraged

[The Flying Turkey]

My tank is 6 months old, and It's basically an algae farm.

Mostly green hair algae and a few patches of a purple hair like algae. Also some cyano on the sand bed.

Everything started out great. 50 lbs of dry rock from Reefcleaners.org and 10 lbs of live rock from Gulfliverock.com 40 lbs dry sand from Marcorocks.com and 40 lbs of Fiji Pink live sand all in my 50 gallon rimless cube. I'm using Red Sea Coral Pro salt. The cycle was textbook, and I had the brown diatoms, then a little green hair algae. The diatoms have been gone for months, but the hair algae just keeps growing. I've pulled the rocks out and scrubbed them, only to have it return. Water changes don't help.

My parameters:

Temp: 78
PH: 8.1
Salinity: 1.025
Ca: 440
Kh: 8.4 dkh
Mg: 1400
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0

Lighting:

Reef Radiance Lumentek Pro 120 on a 12 hour cycle that starts at low intensity sunrise, gradual increase every 10 minutes to full intesinty of 65% blue and 60% white, then gradual decrease every 10 minutes to sunset. 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Then moonlight till 12:00 Am, then dark till 9:00 AM.

Water flow:

Jebao WP25 and about 250 GPH flow through the sump, SC Aquariums 301 protein skimmer, filter sock, about 10 lbs dry rock in the fuge but no macros. I am running Kent Marine Power-Phos in a bag in a Kent Phos Reactor hanging on the side of my sump. I am using RO/DI water and an ATO in the sump.

Livestock:

2 Ocellaris Clowns
3 Blue/Green Chromis
1 Emerald Crab
50 assorted snails from reefcleaners.org
1 Candy Cane coral frag
1 small Chalice
1 Zoa frag

I feed the fish New Life Spectrum sinking pellets. I have to crush some up for the chromis because they are so small, but the clowns eat the pellets whole.

So there is so much hair algae on the tops and some sides of my rock that wont go away and is just getting worse.

Any suggestions?

 

[Noob]

i would get some hermit crabs. snails aren't going to get all the algae, well at least not in my experience. get the red or white legged ones. they blue ones are good, but the problem is, all my blue ones ended up eating snails and other hermits.

how long are your lights on? also, have you checked the TDS of your RO/DI water? if you get some chaeto and it starts taking off, you have Nitrates.

 

[clownfitch]

Keep up good maintenance, get you a sea hare and some macro. Stick with good husbandry and it will clear up.

 

[StikHedRon]

I bet your rocks are leaching phosphates....

 

[mike007]

Nuisance algae are caused by excess nutrients. That can come from your source water, over feeding, etc. Even though your test results are showing zero that doesn't mean that you do not have nutrients . Algae survives off phosphates and nutrients and will often give you inaccurate test results. I would recommend feeding less,test your source water and continue doing your water changes. When you feed make sure all food is eaten in 1-2 minutes and never let it hit the bottom of tank.

 

[fishroomlady]

I would definitely cut the lighting period as a start down to about 8 hours total. I'm afraid I don't understand LED's so hopefully someone can give some input into the types to run when. I'm not familiar with the kent phosphate product. Perhaps it needs replenished more frequently? I would add some more hair algae eaters to your CUC (I read where different sea hares or nudis can be helpful). You could also consider an algae blenny - need to be cautious that you add in greens once your tank is clearing up of algae to keep it fed. As stated above check your source water also. I know some filters can need replacing after about 6 months if the water going through is very high in TDS.

Hang in there! it sounds like you are doing many things right and that will pay off in the long haul.

 

[tinctorus]

What supplements are you song to the tank?
I personally only use 2 things, B-ionic 2 part and vinegar as a carbon source... I dose both of those every day and have ZERO algae growth in my tank
Also I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND dropping your light schedule down from 12 hours to no more than 8 or 9 hours tops
There is really no need to keep them on for that long, all it is doing is causing the algae to flourish

Also MAKE SURE that you are doing at least monthly but preferably bi weekly water changes in the tank
And DO NOT use tap water in your tank for evaporation, make sure you are using high quality R/O DI water