How do I beat brown algae?

[Boogieman]

Hello All - I have a 75 gallon tank that’s been running since late May of 2022.

I recently peroxide cleaned my live rock. I wanted things done quickly i pulled all of my live rock out at once.
I used strong peroxide diluted to 5 percent strength.. sprayed it on scrubbed it with a tooth brush

rinsed with fresh water.

And sprayed and scrubbed a second time.

Rinsed and soaked and rinsed to make sure there was little peroxide left. And put my rock back in .

I did a 50 percent water change since everything was stirred up. And dosed a heavy shot of bottle bacteria over the next couple days. I did not see a spike in Ammonia or nitrites at all.

I do have a couple brightwell bricks in the sump that I never touched. And I did not touch my sand bed.

 

[Boogieman]

I should also say I removed all my corals.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Hello All - I have a 75 gallon tank that’s been running since late May of 2022.

PO4 .08, Nitrates 0, Alk 8.8, ph 7.9

For the past few months (maybe longer) I’ve been dealing with bubble algae. Been scraping/siphoning, added emerald crabs, a one spot Foxface (yes, I release I’ll likely need to re-home him in a couple of years) and it keeps coming back. Crabs and Foxface don‘t seem to be making a dent.

Getting tired of spending a couple hrs each weekend scraping rocks (in addition to regular cleaning and water change). Now, my rockscape is getting pretty jacked - moving a bit with scraping, super glue cracking loose.

Talked with my LFS, who helped with tank set-up, etc and they recommended taking out the rock (maybe 1/3 to 1/2), scrubbing it clean and dipping it in peroxide for 5 min. They say to wait a week or so before doing the next 1/3 to 1/2 of the rock so some of the good stuff can grow back on the rock that was dipped. The recommended mix was a 3:1 ratio of saltwater to peroxide.

I decided to post here as I saw Randy’s post above about using peroxide outside the tank.

my questions are:

1) I bought the 3% peroxide - would that be the one to use in a 3:1 ratio or would a higher concentration be needed?

2) Thoughts on this method?

3). I have some corals - not a ton. I could remove probably all of them except for a ricorida. Otherwise, I have 4 zoas (one isn’t doing too well from scraping bubble algae around it, 2 others have some bubble algae on the base), 2 torches, 1 hammer (some bubble algae on the skeleton), a Duncan, and a rhodactis that’s doing ok but not great. Would you remove these before dipping and just clean manually or dip them with the rock?

Best to start your own thread...

 

[Joe.D]

Best to start your own thread...

Good idea!

started new thread here https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/d...e-to-fight-bubble-algae.975189/#post-11213043

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

One culprit is Reed roids - They are well known for increasing Phosphates which promote algae.
Try dropping whites to 45% and cut percentage of food per feeding and see if this helps (will take effect about day 3 to notice)
For GHA and cyano, some good snails are Astrea-trochus-trochus-nerite-nassarius

Turned down the lights to 45% hopefully as an added bonus this gets the Nem to split. Also added Apex pods. Not more Reef Roids and draining water from frozen foods. ( I use tank water to defrost food)

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

Update:

I raked all the problematic aragonite sand coated with algae with a back scratcher, yes a back scratcher and it worked great. The pile was removed from tank around 3 pounds worth +/- I now have around 1/4" of sand cover.

I looked at the sand covered in algae under microscope @ 40x interestingly the larger aragonite had a GHA strain that enveloped the pieces then connected to other enveloped pieces forming a dense matt. I suspect this is related to

Aragonite Sand And Phosphate Adsorption

In the near future, I will looking at how phosphate adsorbed to aragonite sand affects nuisance algae growth. I wondered about the phosphate molecules hopping on and off the sand grains. How fast does does sand bind PO4? How much phosphate does a gram of aragonite sugar sand adsorb? Does the...

www.reef2reef.com

I will remove the sand until there is a bare bottom if that's what it takes but I do like the way the clean sand bounces the light back into the tank.