Brown algae bloom over night. Need advise on what to do.

[stanleo]

I have a brown algae in my tank. Under blue/white it looks brown and in two weeks on the back wall it looks like GHA but brushes right off with a soft brush I use for my rocks. Under all white light it has a slight green tint but dark green almost brown. Sorry I can't provide a pic right now, having connectivity issues with light and can't lower the blue ATM. Nothing too bad, I just clean it off the glass every couple days or so and clean the tank of it at every two week water change and it has been getting better. I also brush off the rocks on the left side of the tank at water changes. I know it has been getting better cause the rocks on the left side of the tank have been clear of it for about 3 weeks now and it doesn't grow as thick on the back wall. This morning though when I got up there was a spot on the front glass covered in it and I cleaned the front glass yesterday. And my purple whip gorg had some on it. I cleaned the glass and brushed the gorg. Everything looks fine now. It's not on the rocks that I can see.

I have made a few changes. Last week I stupidly got a yellow finger gorgonian that requires regular feeding so a couple days ago I got reef roids and reef chili. The first day I did the reef chili and then yesterday I fed the reef roids. I target fed the gorg and the new coco worm and broadcast fed the rest of it over the tank. I also fed the gorg for 3 nights in a row at midnight with phyto plankton in a bottle. I also got a wave maker and installed it on Monday along with a new powerhead. So now both power heads are Hydor 2450 gph facing towards eachother set to alternating off/on every fifteen. I had both of the power heads slightly pointed to the surface but since the gorg had the algae on it I pointed one straighter so the gorg would get more flow. Before, I had a hydor 2450 pgh on the right set on a randomized Alexa timer. The powerhead on left was a old Fluval 265 gph set to run continuously. They were facing eachother at the top front of the tank.

Tank is standard 120 gallon set up for 11 months. Haven't had any other unusual algae problems. Sump, skimmer and fuge with a light schedule same as DT, chaeto grows like crazy. DT LIght is 2 Red Sea Reef LED 90s set to start ramp up at 8am for one hour to 100% white/blue. Ramp down starts at 6pm.

Yesterday was weekly water test day and these are the results.

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.1 API
Alkalinity 9 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 420 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1440 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate .03 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

These are line graphs I use to chart the tests. So you can see these results are pretty standard.

Should I stop feeding one of the things I fed the last couple days? Should I go back to the original flow pattern? Should I just target feed the gorg and coco worm and not broadcast feed the whole tank with this stuff? Should I let it ride for a while and see how it goes? TIA

 

[bjc451]

I have it too the same algae but my tank is only two months old. I got in there the last few days with a tooth brush. It does seem to come back a bit but I’m knocking it down. The advice I was given is less photo period and ipsf.com. Add biodiversity

 

[stanleo]

I got my connectivity fixed and this is what it looks like in regular running lights and with white only.

 

[stanleo]

I have it too the same algae but my tank is only two months old. I got in there the last few days with a tooth brush. It does seem to come back a bit but I’m knocking it down. The advice I was given is less photo period and ipsf.com. Add biodiversity

See that's what I don't get. This seems like a new tank issue but mine is almost a year old. I would have thought that I would be past this kind of issue in a stable tank. And I have biodiversity, my fuge is teaming with all kinds of pods and mysis shrimp and other things and I have a diverse CUC in the DT. Thank you for the response.

 

[bjc451]

What is your water source

 

[stanleo]

What is your water source

I make my own RO/DI water and it tests 0 TDS. Use Instant Ocean Reef Crystals. Temp matched over night before it goes in the tank.

 

[bjc451]

Only thing I can think of is are you heavily stocked? What about filtration. I think most people run reverse cycle on on the chateo. When I used reef roids in the past. I noticed phosphate increase. I went down to once a week and way less then they say.