Algae sucks, what would you do?

[caseytatum44]

Sorry for the long post! You guys have been great with my questions so far.

I have about a 6 month old tank and am battling some algae(turf?). I've been researching and researching but things are slowly getting worse and my concerns are that I'm lacking some needed equipment or livestock. Anyone's expert advice would be great!

Setup: 65 gallon with about 10-15 gallon sump. I have a Reef Radiance light and an ATO.

Livestock: 2 osc clowns
1 orange spotted goby
1 firefish
1 green chromis
1 emerald crab, 5-6 blue/red hermits, 3 cerinth snails and 2 nassarius

Concerns: I have a very simple sump setup, the overflow drains into the sump, I have a reef ocotopus 110NWB protein skimmer and a return pump all sitting with no baffles/ refugium. Should one of my next moves be a refugium? I dont have a very easy way of adding baffles so I was thinking about just rigging an external refugium with some chaeto and pumping it through.

Feeding: I've been feeding New life spectrum sinking .5 pellets because my clowns are very small. The fish do a good job of eating most of it but I assume a lot of the tiny particles make it in the sand. I've switched to larger pellets now. I also put some shrimp pellets and mysis in as the goby is shy.

Live Rock: I probably only have about 45-50 lbs of live rock as I removed some that contained aiptasia. I have about a 2 inch sand bed.

1) using RO/DI water coming out at 0 TDS
2) I'm upping the water changes
3) Trying to lower water changes and I've lowered the lighting schedule.
4) Ammonia/Nitrates/etc. all perfect

Here is the algae I'm dealing with, I think its turf? No livestock will touch it, the other picture is the tank prior to the major algae problems, I dont have a recent pic. Will this require manual removal no matter what? Thanks all so much for the help!

 

[ReefMadScientist]

I am assuming your tank is still fairly new?

I think you may have a phosphate issue but seems like your corals are doing ok... pretty weird your parameters are good but have an algae problem.

Please list ALL of your current parameters.

I would use carbon in a filter sock, add a refugium and filter sock. Also, use MicroBacter7.

 

[Munch]

Get a turbo snail.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Get a turbo snail.

I forgot to add my initial thought!!!

Before you do all of the stuff I mentioned, get a better CuC.

 

[caseytatum44]

Will the turbo touch that algae? Its fairly long at this point. Any specific turbo?

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Will the turbo touch that algae? Its fairly long at this point. Any specific turbo?

Turbo snails would love it. Get like 3 monsters and place them on it. They will probably move away but will find it.

 

[caseytatum44]

I'll give those a shot as that's probably the quickest possible fix! Thanks!

 

[SkySoldier173]

Sea hares are great too. But they will die if you don't feed them after they've eaten all the algae off your rocks

 

[TriggerThis]

I think you've answered all your own questions.
1 use RODI water for your changes
2 wow only 5 hermits and 5 snails in a 65!?!? Your clean up crew is 1 tenth the size it needs to be
3 maybe get a GFO reactor and it will stomp out what's left

 

[caseytatum44]

Is there any problem with using the same container for mixing salt and creating straight RO/DI? the water coming straight from the RO/DI tube is still reading 0, but when I test the water in the container It's in the 5-10 range, I'm assuming just residue from salt mix/pump/thermometer

Yea I know the cleanup crew is small, i've been trying to get some but haven't had a chance to make it to the good fish store near me, my local one barely has any snails. Thanks for the advice!

 

[TriggerThis]

I was noticing algae problems in my 100gal. Started counting and I only had 11 algae eating snails in there. Went and bought 10 more Astraea snails and in one day it was all gone lol

And I'm still way under the recommended amount

 

[SantaMonica]

Looks exactly like phosphate coming out of the rocks:

Phosphate flow out of rocks

Many people, when they get their nutrients low for the first time, get worried when more (not less) algae starts to grow on their rocks. It seems really strange, especially when nitrate and phosphate have gone lower than before. What is happening is that phosphate is coming out of the rocks. Remember, phosphate is invisible, so you can only see the effects of it, and it always "flows" from higher concentrations to lower concentrations (just like heat does).

Example: If your room is warm, and you put a cold object on the floor, heat from the air in the room will "flow" into the object until the object and the air are the same temperature. Example 2: If you put a hot object on the floor, heat will "flow" out of the object and go into the air in the room, again, until the air and the object are the same temperature. Now suppose you open your windows (in the winter). The warm air in your room will go out the windows, and it will get colder in the room. The object on the floor is now warmer than the air, so heat will flow out of the object and into the air, and then out the window.

Think of phosphate as the heat, and your rocks as the object, and your windows as the scrubber. As the scrubber pulls phosphate out of the water, the phosphate level in the water drops. Now, since the phosphate level in the water is lower than the phosphate level in the rocks, phosphate flows from the rocks into the water, and then from the water into the scrubber. This continues until the phosphate levels in the rocks and water are level again. And remember, you can't see this invisible flow.

This flow causes an interesting thing to happen. As the phosphate comes out of the rocks, it then becomes available to feed algae as soon as the phosphate reaches the surface of the rocks where there is light. So, since the surface of the rocks is rough and has light, it starts growing MORE algae there (not less) as the phosphate comes out of the rocks. This is a pretty amazing thing to see for the first time, because if you did not know what was happening you would probably think that the algae was mysteriously being added to your tank. Here are the signs of phosphate coming out of the rocks:

1. The rocks are older, and have slowly developed algae problems in the past year.

2. Your filters have recently started to work well, or you made them stronger.

3. Nitrate and phosphate measurements in the water are low, usually the lowest they have been in a long time.

4. Green hair algae (not brown) on the rocks has increased in certain spots, usually on corners and protrusions at the top.

5. The glass has not needed cleaning as much.


Many people have never seen the effects of large amounts of phosphate coming out of the rocks quickly. But sure enough it does if you keep nutrients low enough in the water. How long does it continue? For 2 months to a year, depending on how much phosphate is in the rocks, how much feeding you do, and how strong your filters are. But one day you will see patches of white rock that were covered in green hair the day before; this is a sure sign that the algae are losing their phosphate supply from the rocks and can no longer hold on. Now it's just a matter of days before the rocks are clear.

 

[caseytatum44]

So I believe this is actually "Maidens hair" algae. Someone pointed me towards that and it sounds exactly what I'm having. Its starting to spread pretty bad, really making me nervous. Apparently Maidens hair has a toxin which deters animals from eating it. Anyone had it?

I'm about to set up a refugium with some chaeto and hoping I can starve it out... any other ideas? It's starting to creep on some of my coral.

 

[ritter6788]

Manually remove as much as you can and the clean up crew can take care of it easier. Seems like when it gets long they don't touch it but if you rip out as much as you can the hermits and snails will work on the rest.

 

[caseytatum44]

Thanks Ritter, unfortunately even when it was really short nothing touched it.

 

[ritter6788]

Did you try an emerald crab? The ones from reefcleaners helped with mine.

 

[caseytatum44]

I do have one, I plopped him right on it and he didn't touch it. There really isnt any other algae in the tank so I figure he would have gone for it by now.

 

[EW_Fish]

Looks exactly like phosphate coming out of the rocks:

Phosphate flow out of rocks

Many people, when they get their nutrients low for the first time, get worried when more (not less) algae starts to grow on their rocks. It seems really strange, especially when nitrate and phosphate have gone lower than before. What is happening is that phosphate is coming out of the rocks. Remember, phosphate is invisible, so you can only see the effects of it, and it always "flows" from higher concentrations to lower concentrations (just like heat does).

Example: If your room is warm, and you put a cold object on the floor, heat from the air in the room will "flow" into the object until the object and the air are the same temperature. Example 2: If you put a hot object on the floor, heat will "flow" out of the object and go into the air in the room, again, until the air and the object are the same temperature. Now suppose you open your windows (in the winter). The warm air in your room will go out the windows, and it will get colder in the room. The object on the floor is now warmer than the air, so heat will flow out of the object and into the air, and then out the window.

Think of phosphate as the heat, and your rocks as the object, and your windows as the scrubber. As the scrubber pulls phosphate out of the water, the phosphate level in the water drops. Now, since the phosphate level in the water is lower than the phosphate level in the rocks, phosphate flows from the rocks into the water, and then from the water into the scrubber. This continues until the phosphate levels in the rocks and water are level again. And remember, you can't see this invisible flow.

This flow causes an interesting thing to happen. As the phosphate comes out of the rocks, it then becomes available to feed algae as soon as the phosphate reaches the surface of the rocks where there is light. So, since the surface of the rocks is rough and has light, it starts growing MORE algae there (not less) as the phosphate comes out of the rocks. This is a pretty amazing thing to see for the first time, because if you did not know what was happening you would probably think that the algae was mysteriously being added to your tank. Here are the signs of phosphate coming out of the rocks:

1. The rocks are older, and have slowly developed algae problems in the past year.

2. Your filters have recently started to work well, or you made them stronger.

3. Nitrate and phosphate measurements in the water are low, usually the lowest they have been in a long time.

4. Green hair algae (not brown) on the rocks has increased in certain spots, usually on corners and protrusions at the top.

5. The glass has not needed cleaning as much.


Many people have never seen the effects of large amounts of phosphate coming out of the rocks quickly. But sure enough it does if you keep nutrients low enough in the water. How long does it continue? For 2 months to a year, depending on how much phosphate is in the rocks, how much feeding you do, and how strong your filters are. But one day you will see patches of white rock that were covered in green hair the day before; this is a sure sign that the algae are losing their phosphate supply from the rocks and can no longer hold on. Now it's just a matter of days before the rocks are clear.

Wow great info thanks alot.

 

[basile]

Photoperiods

Of some interest, i've changed my photoperiod from 7h of white light 8h blue to 8 h of white and 9h of blue so one more hour , and micro algae has started to grow on my sand. Thats in my Reef tank.In my refugium i've increase even more from 7 to 10 hours of lights for my macroalgaes and some cyanos started to appear on the sand. I've not change my other parameters or habits. So the photoperiod does play a lot on the growth of bad algaes. I will revert to my 7h photoperiod where i had no issues at all with bad algaes and my corals still grew fine. Just a note in my log that i'm sharing with you this morning. I've done that change only 3 days ago by the way.

I have a system of display refugium feeding my main reef tank with pods and amphiopods with 27 different macro-algaes species.

I leave one side of my refugium unclean for my pods to feed on so they leave my macro-algae alone. They also feed on microalgae. Photoperiods are very important as well.
My white lights are from 11;00 to 18;00
My blues are from 11;00 to 21;00

Intensity depends on what you have in the tank, but most of the time more than 6-7 hours of lights you'll have algae problem under that no cyano or green algaes should take hold.

Nutrients, if you have a good CUC thats very important, to have one that shouldn't be a problem. If you stir up your sand constanly you release nutrient and you get algae bloom also. DON'T TOUCH YOU SAND ...... At a conference we where told cleaning maniacs release nutience all the time and then blame the CUC, beside getting rid of and cleaning the sand you get dead sand no life left in it.

My sand is so alive that nothing stays at the top of it for very long its eaten , by worms and critters, so no algeas and no cyano. don't disturb it.

If you get different macro alge in your fuge they help with nitrates and other polutant , such as phosphate, nitrates

Ulva is the perfect phosphate exporter, like Chaeto is to nitrate.

Hi calcium content discourage cyano and other form of microalgae formation as well as oppose to Macro-algae who like high calcium content for their bigger size and growth.

Conch will eat cyanos bacterias not always but they do.


my thread is here; https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/me...vity-my-150g-starfire-reef-tank-build-up.html




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[Kworker]

Manual removal, some snails, water changes and a GFO/Carbon Reactor will do the trick.

The tank is also 6 months old, it may just be going through a stage. A system will go through many stages after the initial cycle. Just tough through it, you will be clear of it before you know it.

I am against using a "fuge". Best to actually manually remove what is causing the algae.