Green algae taking over my life

[nikvik1]

Maintenance
Water change schedule: 1.5g weekly, RO/DI 0tds with red sea coral pro salt
Feeding schedule: no food going into the tank. I don't have any fish and don't feed the corals.
Media change: 1tbsp Phosgaurd every 4 days, Filter floss every week

light: Nemo light LED 18w
(8hrs white light, 16hrs blue light)

Inside sump
First chamber: Media basket with filter floss at the top and 2 chemipure blue nano bags in the 3rd compartment down. Middle chamber: cheato refugium with magnet light and 50w heater.
Last chamber: syncra silent 1.0 return pump and minimax reactor running Phosgaurd

Water movement: Aqamai kps
(wave mode 5%-40% 1,5s pulse, constant flow 20%)

parameters:
Kh: 6
Ca:340
Ph:8
Temp:80
Salinity:1.026
Phosphate:0
Nitrate:0

Live stock:
2 astrea snails
Branching hammer
Mushrooms
Caulastraea (candy cane)

I have had the tank for just over a year now and I keep getting green hair algae what ever I try to do. Its not been a fun year as its just been a constant battle that I cannot win. This is the last chance before I take down the tank as I am all out of options. Over the year I've added many additions to the tank to try to combat this issue and the last thing I did was remove 90% of the live rock and replace the sand. I kept a few rocks that had no hair algae and purchased a ceramic centre structure you can see in the photo. After the rock and sand removal I thought I had figured it but over the last week its started to come back. Please help as I really dont want to have to take it all down and would love this to be a beautiful lps tank.

 

[JasonK84]

Lights are on for an awful long time. 16 hours is a lot. Knock it down to 10 on your blues and 8 on whites. Still having a problem take some more off. Since you don't feed the tank the nutrients are coming from the light. Photosynthesis.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Is this a current photo?
I don’t see algae. A lot of other odd stuff too. Like no corraline.

 

[nikvik1]

The light never switches off it changes from whites to blues and I can only change the amount of time the whites are on. The rock/ceramic you see in the middle is new as I removed all the old stuff that had hair on it. But there hasn't been any corraline growth in the tank recently. The algae has just started to come back again after the rock and sand exchange about 2 months ago

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Wish mine looked that clean.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

I would reduce the light schedule as mentioned earlier. You said you have a cheato light, how long are you running that light?

 

[mtdaly85]

I’m no expert but I’m going to venture a guess that your tank is too sterile / clean without enough bio diversity. Stripping your tank of all those nutrients that would otherwise be consumed by things you want in your tank (coral, coraline algae, pods, etc.) could be allowing the green algae to flourish by consuming whatever trace amount of nutrients are still in the system. I’m by no means an accomplished or long time reefer, but every “veteran” I’ve talked to and all the research I’ve done suggests that extremely clean / overly complex tanks are more susceptible to nuisance algae and bacteria. Again, what the heck do I know, but this is just my $0.02!

 

[nikvik1]

The cheato light runs in the back chamber only and its on for 12 hours

 

[nikvik1]

I’m no expert but I’m going to venture a guess that your tank is too sterile / clean without enough bio diversity. Stripping your tank of all those nutrients that would otherwise be consumed by things you want in your tank (coral, coraline algae, pods, etc.) could be allowing the green algae to flourish by consuming whatever trace amount of nutrients are still in the system. I’m by no means an accomplished or long time reefer, but every “veteran” I’ve talked to and all the research I’ve done suggests that extremely clean / overly complex tanks are more susceptible to nuisance algae and bacteria. Again, what the heck do I know, but this is just my $0.02!

Im starting to think this could be the reason. Ive been so fixated on a clean tank with no nutients avaiable for the algae its the only other option. I think I might add 2 fish and about 3 more snails. Thanks for the advise

 

[cracker]

Me Too ! & I'm loaded up with HA as well. Honestly Nik it's not bad at all !

 

[cracker]

Im starting to think this could be the reason. Ive been so fixated on a clean tank with no nutients avaiable for the algae its the only other option. I think I might add 2 fish and about 3 more snails. Thanks for the advise

Agreed ! Sounds counter intuitive ,but a "little" of nutrients will help. You will have to add snails/cleanup crew,more CUC. his happened to me as well.

 

[nikvik1]

Ok, so I think I will take the plunge!(sorry about the bad pun). Im going to add 3 more snails and 2 fish. Probably a blenny and a clown. One thing to note is my RO/DI is reading 0.25 on phosphates but 0 tds. I don't really know what that means or if its related