Green Turf Algae everywhere

ZhiYung · Mar 13, 2019

Hello guys !
My 110 gallons tank is suffering from a serious algae problem. I have a sump with full of chaeto in it and an oversized skimmer, but it seems like nothing can compete with this Green Turf Algae stuff. They are growing everywhere on the sand gravel. I'm thinking of spot treating with H2O2, but too afraid to use because I think that it will also affect the Refugium with Chaeto down below.
Any thing will eat these ? Urchin ?. None of my tangs are touching it, neither the snails or hermit crabs.

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James M · Mar 13, 2019

I would first start with siphoning out all the algae on the sand bed and manually removing some from the rocks
Maybe a 3 day black out ?

ZhiYung · Mar 13, 2019

James M said:
I would first start with siphoning out all the algae on the sand bed and manually removing some from the rocks
Maybe a 3 day black out ?

the problem is, I may have to pull out all of the sand. Because anywhere that these grow, they rooted down below and stick the sand together like a piece of rock, quite hard to break off.

Zeal · Mar 13, 2019

ZhiYung said:
the problem is, I may have to pull out all of the sand. Because anywhere that these grow, they rooted down below and stick the sand together like a piece of rock, quite hard to break off.

Actually have 2 specific rocks that grow this ****.

No idea WHY its just those 2 rocks.

Might let it sit out in the Miami sun for like a month to completely kill it

ZhiYung · Mar 13, 2019

Zeal said:
Actually have 2 specific rocks that grow this ****.

No idea WHY its just those 2 rocks.

Might let it sit out in the Miami sun for like a month to completely kill it

Will Sea urchin eat these ?

lapin · Mar 13, 2019

ZhiYung said:
Will Sea urchin eat these ?

Urchins live on rocks and not the sand. I dont think that will work.

jtl · Mar 13, 2019

You need to manually remove as best you can. It will take many attempts. You also need to find the source and correct it. Given the amounts this has been going on for a while and it will take quite a while to correct the problem.

Maritimer · Mar 13, 2019

Do you have any tiger-sand or fighting conchs in your system? They might be able to help . . .

~Bruce

Triggreef · Mar 13, 2019

Nothing will eat that. Which is why you have plague proportion. Also it is mostly hair algae but there could also be turf algae in there too. A few options...

A. Better maintenance. Which is really keeping up with nutrients and may be difficult given just the fish I see in the picture. Because CBB need many feedings, and YT will basically eat everything before the CBB can. Which means to keep the CBB healthy your feeding a lot. Which also means the YT is eating a lot and not so interested in algae.

B. Slow method... Light your sump well, and always keep it on 24/7. Grow everything out of control down there. Limit light in your tank to 6 hours per day, no more, no less. That's the full amount that will benefit your corals anyway. More than that is only helping algae grow. Do those and regardless of nutrient levels in a couple months you'll have no algae in your display anymore.

C. Quicker method although not necessarily permanent... Pull your macro from your sump. Manually remove as much of the hair algae as you can from display. Including whatever sand comes out with it. Pull carbon/gfo and any other media, turn off skimmer. Research Fluconazole and dose that per the recommended dose (or a little extra, I did double accidentally and all sps and lps and everything else was fine). Within a couple weeks you'll be algae free. Then add macro back to your sump and go back to option A and/or B.

Mjrenz · Mar 14, 2019

Algae is a pain but I have found that it's best to take it slow, I tried hydrogen peroxide once after watching some YouTube videos and killed all of my inverts and some fish. Don't believe what people say on YouTube, you definitely can overdose easily. I've started using a deep sand bed in my refugium and I'm growing macro algae with a 24 hour light cycle. It took several months but my nitrates and phosphates are nearly undetectable and all the algae in the tank is slowly dying off while the macro is growing like wildfire.

O'l Salty · Mar 15, 2019

GHA is packed with sugars. You have to physically remove it to slow reproduction. Once I removed all of the algae I could by hand I treated with Fluconazole. Within a month I was algae free but I kept removing any algae I could during that time. I've dosed up to 20ml of hydrogen peroxide. in a 40b with no negative results. I turned off all the pumps and treated clumps of GHA with a syringe and HP. You have to be very gentle and try to keep the HP on the algae. It will start bubbling. I've tried treating the tank with HP but it did absolutely no good.