Can't shake that algae...

aras · Apr 12, 2017

Hi all, I am having an ongoing issue with hair algae that keeps growing on gravel and rocks. To prevent it from overrunning the tank completely I have to do major cleaning using toothbrush and removing most of the rocks every 4-5 weeks. In a month or so rocks get covered in GHA again so it’s not a long term solution. Pictures below were taken before my routine monthly clean-up.

The tank is 350l Red Sea 12 month old setup, mainly soft corals with few SPS frags. 1 x Yellow Tang, 2 Common Clown, 1 x Cardinal, 1 x Royal Gramma, 1 x Watchman Goby, 6 x Green Chromis. There are some turbo snails, few emerald crabs, tuxedo urchin, but they don’t make any noticeable difference and nobody touches algae when it's over around 0.5cm long...

Most corals grow OK, but could be better. I never had issues with very high Nitrates or Phosphates in this tank and for about 9 months both have been undetectable with Salifert kits. Water parameters are: KH 8.6, PH 8, PO4 0, NO3 0, Ca 420, Ma >1500, Salt 1.025.

Lighting - 2 x Kessil A360WE running for 8 hours at 70%. Sump has a refugium with chaeto on reverse lighting cycle. Grows OK, but not as good as algae in the main tank... Skimmer runs 24/7. Tunse auto top-up setup with Kalkwasser. Carbon and Rowa Phos media in socks changed monthly. Fish fed with frozen food once per day, corals once or twice per week with coral food or reef snow. Weekly water changes 10-15% siphoning gravel. I use RO-DI water and D&D salt.

Any ideas what I’m doing wrong and how to get rid of this algae? I want to keep softies and Xenia so don’t want to go ultra low nutrient. A bit of algae here and there is not an issue for me, but current situation is very annoying…

nascar02 · Apr 12, 2017

Go to YouTube and look up the addition of Fluconzole. For GTA it takes the full 21 days with very minimal impact on corals. I did it my tank and my SPS didn't extend it's polyps of a few days, but after a couple water changes everything is fine. There was zero impact on the fish, the rest of the coral and invertebrates.

BlueCursor · Apr 12, 2017

Are you dosing carbon, or using biopellets? You need to get nitrates higher. Amazing enough, that will help reduce algae. It always does in my tank at least. Something about being nitrate limited spells algae issues.

K100286 · Apr 12, 2017

Vibrant should kill it.

BlueCursor · Apr 12, 2017

Vibrant works by lowering nitrates and phosphates via bacteria growth. His are already at 0 so Vibrant won't help much, if any.

WLDSHARK · Apr 12, 2017

+1 on the Fluconzole Treatment. there are a couple of threads here on R2R. I did the treatment with no impact on corals and fish. Best of luck.

aras · Apr 12, 2017

Thanks all. Not dosing any carbon. Fluconzole sounds interesting. However, if I'm not removing the root cause doesn't it mean algae will come back shortly after the treatment is completed?

zgerike · Apr 12, 2017

algefix
... it works wonders and is coral and fish safe, I used it in my tank and couldn't believe how well it worked and how quick

K100286 · Apr 12, 2017

BlueCursor- true to point but the bacteria in vibrant will also kill he algae cells directly according to the company's postings. I doubt if someone had high NO3 and po4 that Vibrant would be able to lower them fast enough to starve the algae to death. Especially since new nutrients are being added each day when the fish are feed. In this case if the NO3 is actually zero NO3 dosing could be done.

wkscott · Apr 12, 2017

Your tank is showing zero nitrate and phosphate because that huge amount of algae is consuming them to grow. When you clean the rocks, you are exporting these nutrients. Do NOT increase your nitrates at this time or you will be cleaning those rocks weekly.
You actually have very high phosphate and nitrate levels in the tank, just not readable in the water column.

DayMan · Apr 12, 2017

I have almost exact same setup, equipment, parameters... and algae issue! No detectable NO3 or PO4 but algae is going wild. Only feeding a single clown once a day in 150 gallon total volume. I just plumbed in a reef octopus BR-1000ss direct to skimmer in hopes biopellets will grow my bacteria population to "naturally" control algae root cause. This isn't much help, but you're not alone, Ill be following this one and update if I find a positive impact on algae control with B.P.

K100286 · Apr 12, 2017

Wkscott that was a good observation about the tank not showing nutrients when tested due to the algae consuming them. Maybe just me, but I would give Vibrant a try. Many have with good results including me.

Jakepen · Apr 12, 2017

Flucanzole will eliminate it

aras · Apr 14, 2017

Thanks all. After reading suggestions here and on some other forums here is how I plan to proceed:

New GFO reactor is up and running. Will be replacing Rowa Phos weekly.
Hydrogen Peroxide ordered. Will clean few smaller rocks without corals for now. Don't want to kill too much bacteria so will go slow with this one.
Will syphon out most of the gravel that is currently badly covered in GHA, leaving few patches for goby and shrimp. Rest will be bare bottom until things start improving.
Reduce light intensity to 60%, in a week will go down to 50%.
Cut feeding to every other day for fish, and once a week for corals.
Looking into how to increase lighting in the sump for cheato.
Will buy some more clean-up crew.

Hopefully this will do the trick. If there is not enough improvement in a month or so will look into chemicals suggested here.

Rebel107 · May 9, 2017

I'm new to the hobby don't know if I'm any help. But I had the same problem my tank is a 75 been up since January. I bought a rector and used phosguard problem was gone in a month.

aras · May 9, 2017

Things seem to improving in my tank as well

. I suspect Rowa Phos in a reactor is helping most, but I also did most of the things listed above (except removing gravel and increasing sump lighting). Hopefully will be able resolve this without chemicals.

brandon429 · May 9, 2017

if it helps to know, extensive 7+ yr studies in reef tanks show zero impact to bacteria no matter how you use peroxide. its simply a terrible sterilizer of highly porous surfaces and of high surface area substrates. you don't have to factor bacteria at all in reef tank work unless there are meds or extreme drying issues. the reason that's helpful is it means you can clean as deep as you need to, instead of a bunch of smaller catchups.

In a microbiology lab I ran at a beef packing plant in the 90s 3% peroxide was so weak we wouldn't even use it at all, too weak. very weak sterilizer

it takes specialized contact times and lack of biofilms before it becomes a good sterilizer... and a much higher percentage too. 3% is good for direct algae battling outside the tank though.