Algae on frag plugs that won't go away. HELP

[Denisk]

I have been battling with algae for sometime in the separately plumbed frag tank. Originally started having a lot of algae growing in on the wave maker/wall/frag rack and ended up putting black out curtains as it was right in front of a window. That significantly helped with it not growing in the display. However afterwards it ended up just growing all over the rocks in the sump but it never bothered me. Then I noticed the glass would get a haze within a day.

I decided to scrub all the rock outside the sump and do a big water change which seemed to get rid of majority of the algae in the sump. I then noticed my frag plugs were all starting to grow some sort of fuzz like algae.

Now the Zoas are either not opening at all and for the ones that are, the Zoa polyps are significantly smaller. Not sure what to do to get rid of this algae once and for all and what caused my Zoas to go downhill.

Tank stats.
Volume: 30 gallons
20 pounds of rock in the sump
Salt 1.026/reef crystals
No protein skimmer
Small bag of carbon
Lights on for 6 hours
Fish chromis and sixline wrasse
Phosphate reading zero however it grows so fast it make me think that's the reason it shows zero.

 

[Ranjib]

Check for phosphate more rigorously , run gfo if need be.
What's your light setting ? Run blue only for some time

 

[Denisk]

Check for phosphate more rigorously , run gfo if need be.
What's your light setting ? Run blue only for some time

Thanks. I will keep checking phosphate. Do you think that could be the reason why the Zoas have shrunk so much?

Currently I have the lighting running for about 6 hours and fairly blue to begin with. I would run gfo, however I would have thought the 5 gallon water changes a week would be enough but it doesn't seem to slow it down at all.

The only reason the pictures are so white is because I turned the blues off to get a good enough picture of the algae/frag plugs.

 

[Apotack]

For the short term you could try dipping the fags. Coralrx always seems to kill any algae. Definitely not a fix but it will clean them off while you try to fix the problem.

 

[Denisk]

For the short term you could try dipping the fags. Coralrx always seems to kill any algae. Definitely not a fix but it will clean them off while you try to fix the problem.

Yeah I was thinking of doing peroxide bc I know that helps. However I'm also then stressing the Zoas from not opening. So I'm in the position where I'm trying to get rid of the algae but also figure out why the Zoas recently have shrunken.

 

[Apotack]

Zoas are always a pain for me. I'm having the same problem with a few of mine right now. I can't seem to find the right spot for them

 

[Denisk]

Zoas are always a pain for me. I'm having the same problem with a few of mine right now. I can't seem to find the right spot for them

Yeah the odd thing is. They never use to be a pain until they went into the frag tank with leds. I had them in my display that has t5's but I can't switch them until this algae thing is resolved.

However I also use to grow Zoas with leds very well. For whatever reason I just can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong in the frag tank.

 

[Apotack]

I have led as well, some zoas do very well for me others struggle. It's all part of fun

 

[Denisk]

If anyone has any other suggestions, that would be great!

 

[Denisk]

So I checked with another phosphate checker. It came back super high. However I did a 5 gallon water change and it did nothing even though it's a 30 gallon system.

What about phosphate Rx? Any thoughts on that? Gfo isn't one of those that I like using as I don't want a reactor running as it's another thing I need to manage.