Algae and water chemistry issues

[Keaton3100]

Hi everyone,
I am reaching out for a couple different issues I have in my aquarium. I am still pretty new to the hobby as I’ve been keeping saltwater aquariums for about a year and a half. I am also a college student so expenses are always aimed towards keeping minimal. However I love my aquarium and have no plans of getting out of the hobby. I just often find that solving problems and learning the science behind this stuff is often very difficult and frustrating. I also often find it difficult that everyone seems to have different opinions on things.
Anyway, a little tank background, I have 9 fish, a juvenile snowflake eel, and about 9 corals with the biggest being a red monti that is about 6 inches wide. It’s a 90 gallon with a 40 gallon sump. I run 165 w viparspectra’s at 50% blues 1% whites for 12 hours a day
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0 (likely being consumed by algae)
Phosphate: 0.025
Alk: 9.5 roughly
Cal: 475
Mag: 1350
Ph: 8.0
With that being said I am currently trying to focus on my water stability, because I have a torch coral that is not doing very good. I’ve been setting up an auto dosing pump, using BRS 2 part, along with calculating daily dosage for the past week by allowing the tank to deplete for 5 days. I came up with 19 ml of alk daily which seams reasonable. But the calculations gave me 86 ml daily of calcium which I almost certainly feel is incorrect since I have such low demand in corals right now. After talking to my local reef store they recommended not doing anything at all right now (because I have so few corals) and just doing 10 gallon water changes every 5 days. Should I go with the reef stores opinion, or should I keep going with my plan to daily dose? If I should daily dose, how would I take those wack numbers I got and figure out what the tank actually needs daily?
Separate issue here, but the two problems may somehow be related. I have a good amount of long and short green hair algae, growing all over the back glass and many of my rocks. Scrape the glass and it comes back in a week. Scrub the rocks and very little comes off. My local reef store recommended a blackout to solve this problem followed my manually removing all possible algae. But something tells me that may do more harm than good, especially to the torch coral that is receding. I’ve been running phosban in a carbon reactor to try to help rid the tank of algae.
I’ve included a couple of pictures of the algae and tank. Any help at all with either of these issues is much appreciated, if anyone wants to help but feels like it’s too much information to type, I’m open to phone support. I just need some guidance from people who are much more experienced and successful than I!
Thanks in advance!

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

I agree the wcs will suffice.
The small amount of carbon between wcs will help as well. Remember the nutrients u will be taking away from ur beatuful coral.as well so take it slow and easy. Careful. Lol.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

That + the toothbrush scrubbings and net job prior to the wcs.
D

 

[ZoWhat]

You're going through the "uglies" (chrysophytes)

You should research and read about the "uglies" and/or "chrysophytes"

.;Bookworm;Bookworm;Bookworm

 

[Jekyl]

Algae is a normal part of new tanks. As said above use a toothbrush and your gravel vacuum during water changes to remove it. Bolster your CuC. I'd recommend going to reefcleaners.org and getting the package for half your tank size

 

[Keaton3100]

That + the toothbrush scrubbings and net job prior to the wcs.
D

Ok thanks so much for the advice on the water changes. That seems to be the consensus I’m getting from most people at this point. I’ve tried the toothbrush on the rocks before, and always get so little of the patch itself that I figured my efforts were doing nothing, but I will get back to it if everyone thinks it’s a good idea. I just have a hard time getting any good amount of it to actually let go of the rocks.

 

[Keaton3100]

You're going through the "uglies" (chrysophytes)

You should research and read about the "uglies" and/or "chrysophytes"

.;Bookworm;Bookworm;Bookworm

I have heard many people reference this before, I’ll have to do some research on it. You think the uglies is the case even though the system is about a year and a half old? Been moved one time about 6 months ago. If that is the case, is it something you pretty much just have to ride to the end? I occasionally see some diatoms on the sand bed as well, which research has led me to believe that is the sign of the end of a “mini cycle” or something like that.

 

[Keaton3100]

Algae is a normal part of new tanks. As said above use a toothbrush and your gravel vacuum during water changes to remove it. Bolster your CuC. I'd recommend going to reefcleaners.org and getting the package for half your tank size

I’ve been trying to get my hands on some trochus snails from the local reef store for about a month now! They’ve never got them in stock. I did not know about that site though so I’ll have to check them out and just order a whole package. Could possibly help my issues ALOT. As far as CuC goes I currently only have a cleaner shrimp, about 10-12 nassarius, 1 trochus, and 2-3 turbo snails