Green dust algae question.

[Jhoussock]

Every couple of months I get sick of my dust algae and research to limit it. Often I find it’s normal and part of the daily maintenance. Just want to see what you guys think about it. If you look at my picture you can see where i wiped it with my finger. This is after a day maybe two days. I use a magnet cleaner and it comes off and then makes its way back in the next day or two. I will say I don’t monitor my phosphates because my nitrates run around 2 and corals are thriving. Would lowering my phosphates help if they are indeed high? Should I try removing the algae with a sponge and rinsing in ro water between scrapes? Is this really something that is a normal everyday thing?

 

[Qasimja]

unfortunately its something youll have to deal with part of the hobby at least for me it was on all my other tanks

 

[Jhoussock]

unfortunately its something youll have to deal with part of the hobby at least for me it was on all my other tanks

So when you say “deal with” is there any better way than a magnet cleaner

 

[Auquanut]

Film algae is someting that I think every reefer deals with as part of tank maintenance. I clean my glass about every three days (magnetic glass cleaner). I've seen where others clean their glass far less often. My only comment would be this: It looks like you have a beautiful display with very little if any nuisance algae. If you decide to make any changes to reduce the film algae, such as nitrate/phosphate reduction, do it very slowly. Coral are like me. They hate change.

 

[Ling_Thing]

Sounds like your lacking bacteria. I was dealing with the same thing when my tank was fairly young 6 months and I kept using eco balance twice a week and my nutrients have stayed the same except I don’t have my clean my glass maybe once a week and I only run my skimmer every 3 days for 8 hours. Skimmers sometimes take out too much beneficial bacteria and then algae takes over.

 

[Jhoussock]

Sounds like your lacking bacteria. I was dealing with the same thing when my tank was fairly young 6 months and I kept using eco balance twice a week and my nutrients have stayed the same except I don’t have my clean my glass maybe once a week and I only run my skimmer every 3 days for 8 hours. Skimmers sometimes take out too much beneficial bacteria and then algae takes over.

Hmmm interesting, would bio pellets and some added bacteria to kick start help? I have a reactor and pellets I never connected.

 

[Jhoussock]

Hmmm interesting, would bio pellets and some added bacteria to kick start help? I have a reactor and pellets I never connected.

Oh just noticed you mentioned echo balance when I reread I’ll look into it

 

[Ling_Thing]

Hmmm interesting, would bio pellets and some added bacteria to kick start help? I have a reactor and pellets I never connected.

No Im not saying to start carbon dosing that’s a different type of bacteria and will
Rob nutrients from other types of bacteria imo. I would never carbon dose or use gfo in my tank it just strips the water too clean and I have all acropora so they need dirty water. What are your current n03 and p04? When I was dealing with dust algae my nutrients were 0 so I slowly raised n03 and p04 and dosed eco balance and things have never looked better.

 

[Jhoussock]

Here’s a full tank shot just Incase there’s something I can adjust, add, or eliminate to help the cause ...skimmer is a nyos 120 I also have cups with bio-rings on the bottom and poly fill on the tops. There’s a sponge for bubbles between my skimmer and pump. Tank is a RedSea reefer 250

 

[Jhoussock]

No Im not saying to start carbon dosing that’s a different type of bacteria and will
Rob nutrients from other types of bacteria imo. I would never carbon dose or use gfo in my tank it just strips the water too clean and I have all acropora so they need dirty water. What are your current n03 and p04? When I was dealing with dust algae my nutrients were 0 so I slowly raised n03 and p04 and dosed eco balance and things have never looked better.

No3 runs around 3ppm to 5ppm I never tested my po4 as the only algae I get is the dust algae so I figured it can’t be that bad. I can get a test kit if it could be the culprit. Something I should have on hand anyway. I will say when I run my salinity a little high like 35.5 ppm the algae developed much slower but 34.5 where I like to keep it seems to make it bloom faster.

 

[Ling_Thing]

Here’s a full tank shot just Incase there’s something I can adjust, add, or eliminate to help the cause ...skimmer is a nyos 120 I also have cups with bio-rings on the bottom and poly fill on the tops. There’s a sponge for bubbles between my skimmer and pump. Tank is a RedSea reefer 250

Honestly if it were me I would just remove that sand bed you have all it does is act as a toilet for the tank. It harbors a lot of doc’s that are not testable that algae feeds off. If you want a sand bed I would suggest a real DSB atleast 4 inches deep. Any sand less than that just acts as toilet honestly and doesn’t do anything for denitrification. I made the mistake of setting up my reefer 450 a couple years ago with sand and learned the hard way.

 

[Jhoussock]

Okay that’s something I’ll look into too. I’ve always wished there was a product you can lay in the bottom that’s like a sandpaper to give the sand texture look but easy to vacuum anything on top.