Green algae growing on live rocks.

JKay · Dec 22, 2017

Hello everyone,

Happy holidays to everyone! My live rocks are filled with coralline algae but now starting to get filled with green algae. Am I doing something wrong? Using API test kit, nitrate 0 ppm, nitrite 0 ppm, ammonia 0 ppm, high range PH 8.0, phosphate 0.25 ppm, calcium 440, and KH 7 drops to turn yellow.

I'm also getting a lot of those annoying vermetid snails. I've scraped off so many of them but seems like they're always there and a lot of them.

One of my soft corals just died also about a month ago. Not sure why the soft coral died but I'm thinking it's from a sand sifting goby I bought but then returned it because it was making my water too dirty and making the sand cover my corals. My brain coral is currently dying right now and not sure why.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance.

Crabs McJones · Dec 22, 2017

Any pictures of the algae in question?

SashimiTurtle · Dec 22, 2017

Pictures would help a TON.

Also for corals dying, you seem to have very few nutrients for a tank that's growing green algae on the rocks. I know softies prefer a little dirtier water. I'm wondering what you use for lights. How high are they turned up and how long are they on?

SashimiTurtle · Dec 22, 2017

Also, welcome to R2R!

JKay · Dec 22, 2017

It’s a 55 gallon tank with a 5 gallon sump. Lights are the 48” Current USA. Blue LEDs 100% and white LEDs 100% at the same time for 8 hours. Moonlight for 6 hours at 10%. I have a blue tang, yellow tang, a nemo, a goby and shrimp, and two cleaner shrimps. Feeding one cube frozen food per day. Pictures are attached.

SashimiTurtle · Dec 22, 2017

I'd back your whites to 50%. They are really good at growing algae.

Those tangs need some nori to be healthy, but they should be pecking your rocks to get some vegetation in their diet... they are herbivores. I'm not going to do it, but be prepared for the tang police to jump in here at any minute.

What do you have as far as snails and hermits? They are the backbone of your clean up crew, and will help keep your rocks clean of algae. Always keep more snails than hermits. Hermits will eat snails if they get hungry, and will even kill a snail just for his shell.

Maggie321 · Dec 22, 2017

You might back whites and blues way down. I don't know how much power your have but I have a S B Reef light black box and my blues are at 30% and whites are at 10%. I turned mine as far as they would go and not notice it being dark, then slowly turned them up.

Yes nori is a staple for tangs. I cut mine into 1" squares and put in 1 in the morning and one in the evening sometimes just 1 a day and sometimes I fast the tank. I also feed mysis shrimp. I rinse mine. There's a ton of phosphates in the liquid they are frozen in. And that will contribute to algae growing on rocks.

._Z_. · Dec 23, 2017

I have those same lights. They aren’t nearly as powerful as most of the others on the market (like radion or AI). I have two that I run at the default setting (100% during the day), a couple inches off the water surface. I’m a noob at this though, but I’d look into obtaining a par meter before changing your lights too much.

Susan Edwards · Dec 23, 2017

How old is the tank? Is the green algae fuzzy or just rock turning green? Could it be green coraline that will eventually turn purple? I know new rocks/tanks rocks often go green first and it's not an algae that brushes off

JKay · Jan 1, 2018

My tank is 10 months old. Fuzzy green algae which used to be purple.

Susan Edwards · Jan 1, 2018

Not sure. Can you post a close up? Could it be your coraline died off and the rock is back to going green as some rocks do? Can't really see the algae but for the green. Can't see the "fuzzy" . I'm rather new at all this...

JKay · Jan 2, 2018

I also have tons of vermetid snails all over the rocks.

Tokash23 · Jan 2, 2018

Coraline turns white when it dies off if im not mistaken. Looks like green hair algae to me i would up the clean up crew like some of the others said and possibly lower your light intensity as well.