Help with an algae issue on my tank

Dilan Patel · Dec 26, 2018

Hey guys! My 135 gallon tank is a couple days a way from being 1 year old. To be honest I was hoping to be further in the tanks progression than it stands right now. I know one of the issues is that I am in college now so I am unable to fix issues that arise until I come home for a break which is not often.

This tank was originally supposed to have corals in it by the end of the year but I am really struggling with algae. It went through a hair algae phase which I took care o the last time i was home. This time I am running into diatoms/brown hairlike algae growing on the rocks. I thought I would have been way past this phase by now. I have a decent bioload. I have no problems keeping nitrates low as they are at <5ppm according to salifert and phosphates are <.03 according to hannah. I run a denitrator as well as carbon and GFO to help me keep these levels where i want them.

So I thought the issues to my algae was due to my water being put in but I put the same water into my other tank and it has not one spec of algae on the rocks. also the ppm is 1 from my 5 stage RO/DI system. so that checks out. Then I started thinking that it was my LED with too much par. But they are at the lowest settings on they are SB Reef lights and Im pretty sure those arent the issue as they were new a year ago. Next I thought it was due to me not dosing magnesium and alk and calc and stuff so I started dosing that and all I have really seen with that is coraline is growing better. Any ideas on how I should go about the issue?

saltyfilmfolks · Dec 26, 2018

What is your cleaning crew and what is the algae?

Dilan Patel · Dec 26, 2018

I have a bare bottom so really my cuc is just snails and mostly trocus snails to be specific. I think the algae is diatoms or something like that, cyano and some stringy brown algae.

stevef22 · Dec 26, 2018

what are your nitrates and phosphates at? they are likely too high

Dilan Patel · Dec 26, 2018

they are currently less than 5ppm for nitrate and less than .03 phosphate. so technically not high.

Redrider · Dec 26, 2018

I’m a beginner. I tried Kent phosphate sponge. It seemed to have mitigated additional growth.
I still had algae on the vertical walls of the tank but a dozen turbo snails took care of most of it.
I think that keeping the lights on a timer, with 8 hours on, made a big difference. The refugium light was cycling opposite of the DT light. The algae on the sand was taken care of by a diamond goby.
I hope this helps. Good luck