Changing water too often or too much = algae bloom?

[j.falk]

A friend and I were discussing my recent algae bloom issue and he suggested that because I'm changing 5 gallons of water per week in my 20 gallon nano that it could be too much at one time, thus removing too much beneficial bacteria and that could be causing the algae bloom. Is that a possibility?

From my understanding, changing more water more often should help remove nutrients from the tank thus helping to keep algae from growing...right?

 

[brandon429]

no, this is how it works:

water changes can never remove BB *to a degree you could register lack thereof on an ammonia test kit. can't be done. once a tank is cycled, it cannot be uncycled due to water changes of any degree, any frequency, even if you changed brands each time.

when we add changed water back to a typical tank, that flows across filthy sand carrying nutrients into the water, that are supposed to stay buried, in tanks that store up filth (nearly all)


but if that tank was cleaned per advanced nano reef techniques, to be cloudless, then it would have less inherent feed for algae anyway (detritus = nitrate and po4 awaiting degredation) and when you pour water back in over clean surfaces, clean water swirls around.

the issue is pouring water back into a filthy tank. lets make it clean, then u can change as much water as you want.

here's 30 pages of 100% water changes to back up statements above
B

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

conventional reef wisdom would state large water changes are bad.


following the rules is why people present rough tanks to that thread, to be unroughed

conventional rules has everyone storing up algae fuel in the sandbed and rocks, it takes a rule breaking thread to collect any actual turnarounds/welcoming others to be posted for compare and contrast.


The new way of nano reefing is this: refuse to lose any system to invasion, build it to be accessible as we do there. Make it cloud free. pack it heavy with corals, light with fish, heavy with feed and water changes at least in intervals, occasionally deep clean it preventatively, and make it live longer than any nano reef around. conventional rules have you set up a tank, refuse to ever access it deeply, and see what happens (requiring luck to get any age vs direct intervention take responsibility mode)

when algae comes up on a rock, kill it off the rock outside the tank.

set all water params to what grows coral, not what starves algae. You dont need water params measured to run a nano reef. thats 33 pages of never asking for any param and what we do is turn out bright active healthy reefs, 100% water changes are a core part of the method.

its not that you have to change 100% of the water to be effective, its that there's five years worth of doing so above to inspect for outcome patterns.

here's another large % water changer

Fix all your fish tank and reef aquarium problems with 95% water changes* | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Having worked the retail marine LFS beat for many moons, we’ve seen countless people come in to the shop, day in day out, trying to get their water parameters right or worse, trying to figure out what…

reefbuilders.com

 

[brandon429]

in the microbiology of cycling thread, on page one it says that how we are taught to cycle a tank controls how we deal with algae in the next phase. Thank you for this post.

cycling paradigms are directly linked to algae control rules and boundaries. check

 

[j.falk]

I guess I should've mentioned it's a barebottom tank. No sand to stir up. What little I find on the bottom of the tank in detritus is removed weekly when changing the water.

 

[j.falk]

when algae comes up on a rock, kill it off the rock outside the tank.

I'll bet this is where I'm making the mistake. I've been using a toothbrush to scrub the rocks inside the tank before doing a water change. It's more than likely spreading the algae thus making things worse instead of better.

@brandon429 Thank you for the advice!

 

[brandon429]

hey thats neat ur low storage, nice preps.

we absolutely get GHA challenges in bare bottom reefs, and when the tanks are huge/ 300+ gallons it can take special additives or balances to control it via the water, when sand is not the cause.

but for a nano unless that aquascape is just firm locked down, the cheat of just lift out rock and treat outside of the tank, so that scraped or brushed items can be saltwater-rinsed down the drain, is an appealing cheat.

we put peroxide on the former growth spots as a double cheat...its outside the tank so no harm, easy to rinse off after 2 mins burn, and this really stops growback for sure.

if your growth wasnt bad in the first place, a clean up crew or lucky fish might make final work of it. having no sand to store up waste really helps your long term scope with the system for sure.

 

[j.falk]

@brandon429 - I took your advice and completely changed 100% of the water and while doing so removed as much of the algae from the rocks as I possibly could. No negative results. Fish and corals are all fine. Thank you again!