Fighting algae and need help.

chris124 · Feb 17, 2016

I have some kind of algae growing on my live rock and overflow and I;m not having much luck beating it. My tank is a 75 gallon fowlr. Here are my water parameters Ammonia 0ppm nitrite 0ppm nitrate 0ppm ph 8.0 temp 76 dkh 12 and phosphate is between 0.0 and 0.25 ppm. Here are some pics.

CodyRVA · Feb 17, 2016

The little bubbles put me in mind of dinos, but it's hard to say. Have you tried blacking out your tank? I had dinos before and my nitrates and phosphates both read 0. It's misleading; as they consume the NO/PO as its produced. Dinos usually flourish from water changes.

Duke4Life · Feb 17, 2016

That green looks a lot like the beginning of hair algae.

Duke4Life · Feb 17, 2016

What type of water was used?

brandon429 · Feb 17, 2016

I like to stop in an leave predictions and in this thread:

-the link in my sig has the technique for all that to be gone within 36 hours regardless of nutrients.

the reason you have it isn't nutrient related, its due to allowing calcified surfaces in the tank to take on benthic organisms (algae) without hand guiding them out. in essence, we take reef rocks, put them in an aquarium having no grazers matching the wild, and try to get the rocks to not grow algae. my way linked has a 36 hour turnaround time, its pure hand guiding. you don't have dinos, you have non guided substrates where the most adapted opportunist resides, until you disallow them. either way, its nice to know you have a very simple invader to fix.

Be sure and consider the sheer number of posts we collect about how people were addressing nutrients before and during the algae invasion, since natural reefs grow tons of algae without having nutrient problems. it means that nutrient controls are for prevention, not removing something already set in.

the telltale sign of incorrect advice is anything that recommends you leave the community in the tank to self support. what you do with nutrients is irrelevant to how you start a tank, yours would be a simple algae restart (clean)

chris124 · Feb 17, 2016

CodyRVA said:
The little bubbles put me in mind of dinos, but it's hard to say. Have you tried blacking out your tank? I had dinos before and my nitrates and phosphates both read 0. It's misleading; as they consume the NO/PO as its produced. Dinos usually flourish from water changes.

Actually what looks like bubbles is sand. My goby stirs up the sand and it gets caught in the algae.

chris124 · Feb 17, 2016

Duke4Life said:
What type of water was used?

Using rodi.

AnOldSaltyDog · Feb 18, 2016

Looks like the beginning of hair algae to me. They love nitrates and phosphates. Algae like this is known to lock up certain nutrients which can cause misleading water testing, in particular nitrates and phosphates. Do you feed heavy? If so, cut back on your feedings to reduce nutrients in your water column. Also try to remove as much detritus and such from your tank, dust off your LR and run your skimmer wet. Water changes also can help, however, if the problem persists or gets worse an algaecide might help kill the algae to "unlock" those nutrients which are being locked out of the water column which should in turn reduce the problematic algae. Do you dose any form of carbon? Sometimes carbon dosing can feed bad algae if it's given in excess for periods of time...How deep is your sand bed by the way?

CodyRVA · Feb 18, 2016

chris124 said:
Actually what looks like bubbles is sand. My goby stirs up the sand and it gets caught in the algae.

Ahhh gotcha, your goby is a beast! One way or another you have a nutrient issue. As mentioned, over feeding, it's possible a large snail (or something) died in your work rock, skimmer is under performing, etc. My advice is to target the source and to not use chemicals.

chris124 · Feb 18, 2016

AnOldSaltyDog said:
Looks like the beginning of hair algae to me. They love nitrates and phosphates. Algae like this is known to lock up certain nutrients which can cause misleading water testing, in particular nitrates and phosphates. Do you feed heavy? If so, cut back on your feedings to reduce nutrients in your water column. Also try to remove as much detritus and such from your tank, dust off your LR and run your skimmer wet. Water changes also can help, however, if the problem persists or gets worse an algaecide might help kill the algae to "unlock" those nutrients which are being locked out of the water column which should in turn reduce the problematic algae. Do you dose any form of carbon? Sometimes carbon dosing can feed bad algae if it's given in excess for periods of time...How deep is your sand bed by the way?

I feed one cube of mysis three to four times a week, I have started thawing it in rodi water and then discard the water rather than put it in the tank. No I don't carbon dose and sand bed at its deepest is two inches. I adjusted the skimmer and now it pulling some pretty nasty stuff so will see what happens. Thanks.

chris124 · Feb 19, 2016

Ok I may have found part of my algae problem. I neglected my ato reservoir and it had a good coating of nasty slime in it. Do you think this could have been part of the problem?

AnOldSaltyDog · Feb 19, 2016

chris124 said:
Ok I may have found part of my algae problem. I neglected my ato reservoir and it had a good coating of nasty slime in it. Do you think this could have been part of the problem?

Probably a symptom of the problem, but algae locks up the nutrients...remove the slime and you'll export those unwanted nutrients...btw do you have any macroalgae in your system? I have a 34 gal reef cube, no refugium or sump and have been thinking of adding a hang on container for macroalgae, they eat up all the nutrients that would otherwise feed the bad algae plus it's a free source of food too...

chris124 · Feb 19, 2016

AnOldSaltyDog said:
Probably a symptom of the problem, but algae locks up the nutrients...remove the slime and you'll export those unwanted nutrients...btw do you have any macroalgae in your system? I have a 34 gal reef cube, no refugium or sump and have been thinking of adding a hang on container for macroalgae, they eat up all the nutrients that would otherwise feed the bad algae plus it's a free source of food too...

I tried growing macro algae a while back with no luck. Might have to give it another try.

AnOldSaltyDog · Feb 19, 2016

Couldn't hurt...just be patient with it, takes time to get algae under control...the way I think of it is the algae didn't just happen over night and it won't go away over night...what type of cleaning crew do you have?

chris124 · Feb 19, 2016

AnOldSaltyDog said:
Couldn't hurt...just be patient with it, takes time to get algae under control...the way I think of it is the algae didn't just happen over night and it won't go away over night...what type of cleaning crew do you have?

My crew has Ceriths Nassarius Nerites and Hermits from reef cleaners.org.

AnOldSaltyDog · Feb 19, 2016

chris124 said:
My crew has Ceriths Nassarius Nerites and Hermits from reef cleaners.org.

Have you seen them eating any of this algae? It's hard to find a good CUC that can reliably take down hair algae, some report it's a hit and miss...good to have them though everything helps.

chris124 · Feb 19, 2016

AnOldSaltyDog said:
Have you seen them eating any of this algae? It's hard to find a good CUC that can reliably take down hair algae, some report it's a hit and miss...good to have them though everything helps.

They eat some of it. It's far from perfect but it still helps. From what I can tell the hermits are the best.

AnOldSaltyDog · Feb 19, 2016

chris124 said:
They eat some of it. It's far from perfect but it still helps. From what I can tell the hermits are the best.

But once you get it under control they'll be a big help in maintaining it. Emerald crabs are known hair algae eaters if memory serves. Honestly all tanks are gonna have a bit of algae, it's kinda natural and happens to us all. With patience and maintenance you'll get a handle on it. Unless you get lazy like me and just use a bit of algaecide lol!

AnOldSaltyDog · Feb 19, 2016

chris124 said:
They eat some of it. It's far from perfect but it still helps. From what I can tell the hermits are the best.

But once you get it under control they'll be a big help in maintaining it. Emerald crabs are known hair algae eaters if memory serves. Honestly all tanks are gonna have a bit of algae, it's kinda natural and happens to us all. With patience and maintenance you'll get a handle on it. Unless you get lazy like me and just use a bit of algaecide lol!