Help... Algae taking over and corals dying!

[wolf.656]

Hello,

First post here and I am still somewhat new to reefing. I started a 40 gallon aio innovative marine tank in January. I has been going well but over the past month I have been fighting what I believe is green hair algae. I have been doing water changes and scrubbing the algae and noting is working. My parameters and other details are below.

Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 78
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 2ppm
Phosphate: 0.04ppm
Calcium: 486ppm
Alkalinity: 8.0 dKH
Magnesium: 1400ppm

2 Clown Fish
2 B/G reef chromis
1 clown goby

2 frogspawn (one is practically dead and ill probably remove from tank today)
1 duncan coral
1 crown leather
1 elegance coral
(I feed the corals reef roids every now and then)
*All the corals took a turn for the worst this week, except for the crown leather*

Kessil a360 light
IM UV light
IM protein skimmer
Tunze ATO

The algae is really bad and any help would be awesome!

 

[creativeballance]

Nitrate or nitrite?

 

[Kris 2020]

Yeah answer to above question is important. Also do you have a clean up crew, and if so what? How long have you had livestock in the tank? Did you add them all at once? If the 2ppm above is nitrite, what is your nitrate level?

 

[Perthegallon]

Here’s how I fixed my massive hairline algae outbreak by getting 3 urchins for my tank which is 45 gallons and getting macro algae

 

[Perthegallon]

What is the age of the tank also and pictures would help

 

[Lizbeli]

Hair algae is a good nutrient exporter. I suspect that even with phosphates being tested at .04 you probably have a phosphate problem. Algae just binds it up.

Tried and true way- better clean up crew, manual removal, water changes, and maybe even peroxide spot treatments. I am battling a hair algae problem after my refugium light died. My system just hasnt been the same since. Even with a new light and cheato. I think the algae has a good hold and is still out competing my macro.

Manual removal is a pain. But I find that its getting easier to pull out. Which tells me its dying. Peroxide has worked great on the top rocks when I do water changes and they are exposed. I added an emerald crab to help my tuxedo urchin. He is doing a great job if you don’t mind waiting for the results

However, I am just started phosphate E to help. My measurable phos is .08. I may even add this to a doser. I prefer not to use gfo.