Algae solutions on mixed reef?

[Novicereefer]

Hey!

I'm having algae issues on my 40 breeder mixed reef tank. It started when I added another light. They both run from 7 a.m to 8 p.m (90 min ramp up and 60 min ramp down). I also spot feed reef roids 3x a week - not a lot but I do know it adds phosphate to the tank. I've cut back to only spot feeding half the corals and cut back the amount, I feed the fish 1 frozen square mysis shrimp a day. I have some possible answers but wanted to see if there are other answers that may work better. I don't want to do anything drastic because I just added my first few acro pieces and they are doing well. I was thinking to do 50% water change over the next 3 days, starting tomorrow run my lights from 11 a.m to 7 p.m and do it at 50% (currently at 100% blues and 10% white for most of the day), and changing coral food. Any suggestions?

Corals- torches, Frogspawn, hammer, Duncan, blastomussa, derasa clam, mushrooms, leptoseris, leptastrea, Cyphastrea, pavona, Gargonian, Monti digi, GSP, and 3 "easy Acros (that's what my LFS said). It's been 3 weeks and they're not dead so that's good ‍.

I really want to get this under control because I'm scraping algae off the glass every day.

Thanks in advance

 

[nuxx Verified Sponsor]

What are you water parameters?

What rock did you start with?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hey!

I'm having algae issues on my 40 breeder mixed reef tank. It started when I added another light. They both run from 7 a.m to 8 p.m (90 min ramp up and 60 min ramp down). I also spot feed reef roids 3x a week - not a lot but I do know it adds phosphate to the tank. I've cut back to only spot feeding half the corals and cut back the amount, I feed the fish 1 frozen square mysis shrimp a day. I have some possible answers but wanted to see if there are other answers that may work better. I don't want to do anything drastic because I just added my first few acro pieces and they are doing well. I was thinking to do 50% water change over the next 3 days, starting tomorrow run my lights from 11 a.m to 7 p.m and do it at 50% (currently at 100% blues and 10% white for most of the day), and changing coral food. Any suggestions?

Corals- torches, Frogspawn, hammer, Duncan, blastomussa, derasa clam, mushrooms, leptoseris, leptastrea, Cyphastrea, pavona, Gargonian, Monti digi, GSP, and 3 "easy Acros (that's what my LFS said). It's been 3 weeks and they're not dead so that's good ‍.

I really want to get this under control because I'm scraping algae off the glass every day.

Thanks in advance

You didn't mention Nitrate and Phosphate levels?

How many fish and what type.

 

[Seansea]

Get an algae scrubber maybe? I started my new tank 2 months ago and put the algae scrubber on it from day one and zero diatoms, cyano or hair algae. Almost about to do second cleaning of scrubber.

 

[Novicereefer]

What are you water parameters?

What rock did you start with?

The rocks I started with a yr ago. Dried rock I bought from my LFS a yr ago. I only had this problem in the beginning during the ugly and idk what I was doing phase. Since then, corals and have grown and been fragged and traded, so this surprised me but I'm sure it's something I did or over looked.

Nitrates- 25ppm
Phosphate - 2ppm (api test kit)
Cal- 430
Dkh- 9.0

 

[Novicereefer]

Get an algae scrubber maybe? I started my new tank 2 months ago and put the algae scrubber on it from day one and zero diatoms, cyano or hair algae. Almost about to do second cleaning of scrubber.

I don't have a sump. Do I need a sump for that?

 

[nuxx Verified Sponsor]

Had dry rock as well when I started my tank.

Put them in a very high acid to water mix to burn off as much phosphate as I could. Didn't really get the ugly algae until way down the line, was an overfeeding issue for me though...

 

[All_talk]

How long since you added the light? Could the algae be a temporary response to the new energy source and will balance out with time?

NO3 and PO4 might be part of the mix here.

 

[Novicereefer]

You didn't mention Nitrate and Phosphate levels?

How many fish and what type.

Nitrates 25 ppm
Phosphate 2ppm (api test kit)

2 clownfish, baby sailfin tang, Mandarin dragonette and camel shrimp (about 10 snails)

 

[Novicereefer]

How long since you added the light? Could the algae be a temporary response to the new energy source and will balance out with time?

NO3 and PO4 might be part of the mix here.

The light is about a month old. I can lower the nitrates and phosphorus but keeping them down and stable may be difficult without added help, I don't have a sump

 

[Novicereefer]

Had dry rock as well when I started my tank.

Put them in a very high acid to water mix to burn off as much phosphate as I could. Didn't really get the ugly algae until way down the line, was an overfeeding issue for me though...

See I thought about taking the rocks out and scrubbing them during a water change but feared that'll be too much change too soon. Is that true? Or am I over thinking?

 

[nuxx Verified Sponsor]

See I thought about taking the rocks out and scrubbing them during a water change but feared that'll be too much change too soon. Is that true? Or am I over thinking?

Should mostly correct itself with pristine water.

All RODI right?

Have you thought about adding some specialized CUC members?

 

[fish farmer]

Have those nitrate and phosphate numbers elevated over time? Those numbers were similar to mine when I was having GHA issues. My remedy was cut back feeding a bit, routine water changes and adding chaeto to my sump.

Do you have a picture of your tank?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Nitrates 25 ppm
Phosphate 2ppm (api test kit)

2 clownfish, baby sailfin tang, Mandarin dragonette and camel shrimp (about 10 snails)

Okay, first I'd suggest you get a decent test for Phosphate - it is pretty important for keeping SPS coral. The Hanna ULR test is easy to use.

You should try to keep PO4 under around 0.1ppm

Nitrate at 25 is a tiny bit high but okay.

Best way to get phosphate down would be phosguard or other similar aluminium based remover which can go into a bag in your filter.

Algae typically eats Ammonia in preference to Nitrate - reducing decomposing food would help slow the algae growth.

 

[Novicereefer]

Should mostly correct itself with pristine water.

All RODI right?

Have you thought about adding some specialized CUC members?

I get my RODI water and saltwater from my LFS. They use Fritz pro ‍. Since I don't have the space for a unit of my own I usually go to my LFS. Their corals are always out and growing so I think it may be something in doing wrong

Hmm I have hermit crabs and astrea snails. Any type you suggest?

 

[Novicereefer]

Okay, first I'd suggest you get a decent test for Phosphate - it is pretty important for keeping SPS coral. The Hanna ULR test is easy to use.

You should try to keep PO4 under around 0.1ppm

Nitrate at 25 is a tiny bit high but okay.

Best way to get phosphate down would be phosguard or other similar aluminium based remover which can go into a bag in your filter.

Algae typically eats Ammonia in preference to Nitrate - reducing decomposing food would help slow the algae growth.

Perfect! Thanks! Hanna ulr...got it. As for nitrates should I aim for between 10-15? I've seen that range thrown around on the YouTube channels.

In my finger in currently running Fluval clearmax for phosphate. Is that good? Enough? I didn't want to go all out for gfo because I heard it's VERY strong and can cause a drastic swing.

Would adding more flow get more of the uneaten food and detritus suspended and into the filter along with feeding less help? I have a bare bottom so adding flow won't be a problem (as long as I can move my torches to a spot they won't get blasted)

 

[Novicereefer]

Have those nitrate and phosphate numbers elevated over time? Those numbers were similar to mine when I was having GHA issues. My remedy was cut back feeding a bit, routine water changes and adding chaeto to my sump.

Do you have a picture of your tank?

Yea they crept up little by little and thought it'll get taken care of with weekly 25% water changes. It's how I've been doing things for a yr and rarely ran into problems even with heavy feeding.

I took that just now.

MAYBE since I've added more corals it increased how much reef roids I'm preparing which caused the phosphate to increase faster?

 

[fish farmer]

It looks like some of that algae is cyano, which you could increase flow and blast it with a turkey baster on wc day and suck it out.

I would get off the roids, maybe once a week. I was feeding it in the same frequency as you in my 29 gallon, shot my nitrates from almost zero to 25ppm in a month, phosphates didn't budge for me, I run chaeto and have a lot of coral though. Once I cut back on the roids I got my nutrients back down. I only use it maybe once a week and barely an 1/8 teaspoon for a sumped 29 gallon.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

i agree with fish farmer , chill out on the reef roids for a couple weeks,
i dump a tiny bit of those in my 300 reef once a week and it gets algae, can only imagine 3 feedings a week is fueling your issues.

 

[Novicereefer]

It looks like some of that algae is cyano, which you could increase flow and blast it with a turkey baster on wc day and suck it out.

I would get off the roids, maybe once a week. I was feeding it in the same frequency as you in my 29 gallon, shot my nitrates from almost zero to 25ppm in a month, phosphates didn't budge for me, I run chaeto and have a lot of coral though. Once I cut back on the roids I got my nutrients back down. I only use it maybe once a week and barely an 1/8 teaspoon for a sumped 29 gallon.

Seems like the general thing here is reef roids is high nutrients in a bag . What other coral food do you suggest?

I'll add a hang on back Refugium with some chaeto. Would you also suggest running uv temporarily?