Help please

Shawna Solomon · Oct 15, 2018

My tank is approximately four months old. I have heard from many people/websites/forums that it goes through some funky algae phases in the first year. I have this web like brown stuff growing all over my tank and some of it is making its way onto my corals. I’ve even tried vacuuming it out and it comes back in like an hour

.
My parameters are
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates recently dropped from 5 to 0 but I feed my corals since there are no nutrients
PH 7.8
KH 12 It doesn’t budge with water changes it’s been that since day one. I test with API kits.
Calcium 460
Phosphate 0

If anyone can offer advice or identify what it is I would really appreciate it.
It’s kind of hard to see in picture buts it’s very stringy like.

Thank you!

Hitman · Oct 15, 2018

Part of the many ugly stages of your tank maturing.
I would recommend getting better tests kits. Personally I like the Salifert and Hanna Checkers. I use Hanna for PO4 and ALK and Salifert for everything else. Salifert are in my opinion the best mix of accuracy and price. I personally have never trusted API test kits.
What are you using for a salt mix?
What do you have for a clean up crew?
What do you have for flow in the tank?

Shawna Solomon · Oct 15, 2018

Hitman said:
Part of the many ugly stages of your tank maturing.
I would recommend getting better tests kits. Personally I like the Salifert and Hanna Checkers. I use Hanna for PO4 and ALK and Salifert for everything else. Salifert are in my opinion the best mix of accuracy and price. I personally have never trusted API test kits.
What are you using for a salt mix?
What do you have for a clean up crew?
What do you have for flow in the tank?

For flow I have a gyre ice cap 3k and two hydor 1150 GPH and it’s a 125 tank. Clean up crew just some snails because my cleaner shrimp was eating by one of my fish and the emerald crabs were bugging my Duncan and climbing on them and nesting or something lol. And okay thanks for the recommendation on the test kits. Is it just a phase or is it something that needs to be taken care of?

Hitman · Oct 15, 2018

Personally I think it’s a combo of the ugly phases and flow. I had the same Hydors when I had a 125 and they just didn’t move the water enough. I think if you have the 3K in the center and say a 2000+ gph on each end and have them on a pulse or wave mode it will eliminate the dead spots that that stuff loves to grow in.

Shawna Solomon · Oct 15, 2018

Hitman said:
Personally I think it’s a combo of the ugly phases and flow. I had the same Hydors when I had a 125 and they just didn’t move the water enough. I think if you have the 3K in the center and say a 2000+ gph on each end and have them on a pulse or wave mode it will eliminate the dead spots that that stuff loves to grow in.

It’s mostly on the side where the gyre is and the algae is moving but doesn’t come off the sand. I will try that though thank you. It’s amazing how fast it comes back after one water change. I just bought the gyre last Sunday so maybe I need to be patient.