How do I get rid of these algae?

[Gravityband]

These light green dusty looking algae has taken over my tank. They are every where. I tried using vibrant with no obvious effect. Also tried adding a few more snails hoping they would feed on them. My water parameters are good. Zero nitrates zero nitrites and no ammonia. pH 8.2. These algae’s are blocking my corals....

 

[Subsea]

Ultra low nutrients favor nuisance algae.

Also, considering that coral biomass has a 30:1 ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus, you are starving your coral.

Have you attempted to vacuum it out with partial water change schedule.

 

[loui]

your going to either need to remove the rock and scrub them or siphon out what you can (you will need to do this multiple times). Next you need to figure out why it is happening to begin with. Phos and nitrate reading 0 is telling you the hair algae is using all the phosphate and nitrate. Once you get the rock reasonable clean then you can start to figure out what the next step will be. Such as not using RO/DI water, not having a very good skimmer, over feeding, have lighting that is more to the red and yellow color. There are a lot of different reason why this may happen. But you need to get the tank back under control to get to the next steps.

 

[Hemmdog]

I’m going to guess your using api test kits as well.

Where’s your hermit crabs? And tangs? They would eat that in a second. Stop dumping chemicals in your tank at the first sight of a problem. I have heard nothing but horror stories with vibrant long term.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

I am seeing a decent amount of coraline algae on the back glass, which tells me your Ca, Alk, and Mg are probably close to where they need to be. All the green hair algae mean you definitely have high phosphates. There are a few approaches you can take. I am not a fan of pulling everything and scrubbing. Some people have had success using fluconazole to kill the algae then aggressively controlling the nutrients. I have read good things about vibrant, but it seems like it did not work for you. Peroxide is also a direct you can take. You definitely want to investigate those before attempting. Once you kill the algae you definitely want to get your phoshpates under control with GFO or lanthanum chloride. Also all tanks have algae, the critters the mow it down are what keep things looking pretty.

 

[Subsea]

I am seeing a decent amount of coraline algae on the back glass, which tells me your Ca, Alk, and Mg are probably close to where they need to be. All the green hair algae mean you definitely have high phosphates. There are a few approaches you can take. I am not a fan of pulling everything and scrubbing. Some people have had success using fluconazole to kill the algae then aggressively controlling the nutrients. I have read good things about vibrant, but it seems like it did not work for you. Peroxide is also a direct you can take. You definitely want to investigate those before attempting. Once you kill the algae you definitely want to get your phoshpates under control with GFO or lanthanum chloride. Also all tanks have algae, the critters the mow it down are what keep things looking pretty.

I do ‘t agree that gha means high phosphate. Yes, while it’s true that coralline is efficient at using nutrients, that does not necessarily mean that phosphate is high.

@Gravityband
I question your test kit accuracy. I find it hard to believe that you have zero nitrogen in your tank water. What is your phosphate?

When algae’s & coral uptake nutrients, they use both organic & inorganic nutrients. Your test kits only measure inorganic nutrients.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

I do ‘t agree that gha means high phosphate. Yes, while it’s true that coralline is efficient at using nutrients, that does not necessarily mean that phosphate is high.

@Gravityband
I question your test kit accuracy. I find it hard to believe that you have zero nitrogen in your tank water. What is your phosphate?

When algae’s & coral uptake nutrients, they use both organic & inorganic nutrients. Your test kits only measure inorganic nutrients.

Melevsreef has a great video on combating GHA, which involves getting it weak by taking phosphates to 0 with lanthanum chloride. Without phosphates GHA cannot grow, it needs a nutrient source. Nitrogen is also important, but no where as much has phosphate.

 

[Madmanmadrid]

If you only have fish I'd recommend taking it out and cooking it with lanthium chloride. Until you dont get anymore phosphate in the water.that should help alot fast.

 

[Subsea]

Melevsreef has a great video on combating GHA, which involves getting it weak by taking phosphates to 0 with lanthanum chloride. Without phosphates GHA cannot grow, it needs a nutrient source. Nitrogen is also important, but no where as much has phosphate.

I don’t doubt Melvin’s video. Obviously, there is more than one way to deal with your problem algae. You have already treated your tank with chemicals. No need to stop now.

 

[Gravityband]

Guys thank you for all your input. I think I need to provide a little more back ground on my situation. So I had this 36 gallon tank set up and running for six months, I had a pair of clown, one diamond goby, one flame angel, one Midas blenny and one long nose hawk. Clean up crew I had one red leg one blue leg and Halloween hermits plus 10 various snails. Along with mushroom, two kinds of zoa, one frogspawn, and pulsing xenia. Around August, I had severe velvet. I tried the chemical bath and hospital tank with copper dosing. I failed and lost all of my fish within the following three weeks. Then I had my display tank run just on corals and inverts. Everything seem fine at first. Then out of no where my tank was covered in red slime algae. I then used chemi clean. After two dosage ( followed by 20% water change) red slime dramatically decreased. Then practically disappeared. But soon after that my tank is covered in green hair algae just like the previous pics I posted. I do my water change 20% on a weekly basis. And the testing kit I have is from API. I used to put a bag of Phosguard along with my purigen in one of the chambers. I just ran out of the phosgaurd and forgot to replace it. Should I switch over to lanthanum chloride?

 

[Gravityband]

And my tank was fish less from August to last week. I just added two clown and one diamond goby in....

 

[Subsea]

Chemiclean then vibrant with no nutrient input for four months. Before adding fish last week were you measuring tank parameters, if so, did you ever see elevated phosphate?

 

[Mical]

I had a similar issue a couple of years ago and a fellow reefer said to test my magnesium. Then using online calculator - http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chem_calc3.html - run mag up to about 1500 using Kent Tech M. Tried his suggestion and it was gone in 10 days.

 

[Gravityband]

Chemiclean then vibrant with no nutrient input for four months. Before adding fish last week were you measuring tank parameters, if so, did you ever see elevated phosphate?

I tested pH, nitrite, nitrates, and ammonia.
Didn’t test the phosphate tho....

 

[Subsea]

I tested pH, nitrite, nitrates, and ammonia.
Didn’t test the phosphate tho....

So, you were ready to add more chemicals to eliminate phosphate without knowing your phosphate concentration in the display tank.

I suggest you slow down and think through your solutions.

 

[Subsea]

Here’s what @Randy Holmes-Farley thinks of lanthanum chloride:


I'm not a fan of lanthanum for several reasons. The first is that I do not know whether the elevated levels of lanthanum that may result in the tank water are totally benign for every organism we keep It may be, but it may not be.

My bigger concern is that the lanthanum phosphate is not actually removed from the system. Perhaps some is skimmed out, but I expect a lot of it just piles up on the bottom of the tank. It may become available through various processes (like passing through the gut of a sea cucumber), so I would prefer to see it actually exported. I have the same concern with dosing soluble iron to bind phosphate vs using GFO to bind phosphate (which is exported).



__________________
Randy Holmes-Farley

Current Tank Info: 120 mixed reef

 

[Gravityband]

Here’s what @Randy Holmes-Farley thinks of lanthanum chloride:


I'm not a fan of lanthanum for several reasons. The first is that I do not know whether the elevated levels of lanthanum that may result in the tank water are totally benign for every organism we keep It may be, but it may not be.

My bigger concern is that the lanthanum phosphate is not actually removed from the system. Perhaps some is skimmed out, but I expect a lot of it just piles up on the bottom of the tank. It may become available through various processes (like passing through the gut of a sea cucumber), so I would prefer to see it actually exported. I have the same concern with dosing soluble iron to bind phosphate vs using GFO to bind phosphate (which is exported).



__________________
Randy Holmes-Farley

Current Tank Info: 120 mixed reef

Thank you for this, I will look more into GFO route. Much appreciated.

 

[Madmanmadrid]

As far as my lanthium chloride comment. I ment for the rocks to be taken out of the tank then used in a seperate container. Then rinsed well before adding to tank. I should have been more clear on that.

 

[Subsea]

Melevsreef has a great video on combating GHA, which involves getting it weak by taking phosphates to 0 with lanthanum chloride. Without phosphates GHA cannot grow, it needs a nutrient source. Nitrogen is also important, but no where as much has phosphate.

When I read your last sentence of this post, your reference to phosphate being more important than nitrogen, I disagree because algae uses 30 times as much nitrogen as it uses phosphate.

Micro algae uses the nutrients of carbon:nitrogenhosphorus in a constant ratio of 116:16:1 and is commonly called the Redfield Ratio.

Macro algae ratio of C:N is 560:30:1 with some fast growing Caulerpa in the ratio of 100:1. With that ratio, nitrogen is 100 fold to phosphorus. I consider Nitrogen as more than important. It is mandatory just as phosphorus is mandatory, but nitrogen is 100 times more concentrated than phosphorus.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Here’s what @Randy Holmes-Farley thinks of lanthanum chloride:


I'm not a fan of lanthanum for several reasons. The first is that I do not know whether the elevated levels of lanthanum that may result in the tank water are totally benign for every organism we keep It may be, but it may not be.

My bigger concern is that the lanthanum phosphate is not actually removed from the system. Perhaps some is skimmed out, but I expect a lot of it just piles up on the bottom of the tank. It may become available through various processes (like passing through the gut of a sea cucumber), so I would prefer to see it actually exported. I have the same concern with dosing soluble iron to bind phosphate vs using GFO to bind phosphate (which is exported).



__________________
Randy Holmes-Farley

Current Tank Info: 120 mixed reef

Public aquariums use lanthanum chloride in their large exhibit tanks to control phosphates. I understand Randy's concerns, but public aquariums have shown over decades that the CORRECT use of lanthanum chloride is safe and effective. Also the precipitate that forms can be caught using a 10 micron sock = export.

When I read your last sentence of this post, your reference to phosphate being more important than nitrogen, I disagree because algae uses 30 times as much nitrogen as it uses phosphate.

Micro algae uses the nutrients of carbon:nitrogenhosphorus in a constant ratio of 116:16:1 and is commonly called the Redfield Ratio.

Macro algae ratio of C:N;Pis 560:30:1 with some fast growing Caulerpa in the ratio of 100:1. With that ratio, nitrogen is 100 fold to phosphorus. I consider Nitrogen as more than important. It is mandatory just as phosphorus is mandatory, but nitrogen is 100 times more concentrated than phosphorus.

The Redfield ratio is not one number for a specific species of algae or phytoplankton. It is more of a range, and limitations in one element can cause shifts in the makeup of an organisms C:N: P. If you want a more in depth understanding then I recommend checking out Kevin Arrigo paper on global nutrient cycle. Falling within the common Redfield ratio for a phytoplankton does not mean it will grow faster. It just states what the makeup of the organism is. In reef keeping we notoriously shift the balance between nitrogen and phosphate. We have little practical control over carbon. The foods we feed also tend not to have a balance in nitrogen and phosphate. Now WWC and BRS have released videos on what they focus on to keep their corals thriving and doing so well (I don't think anyone would dispute WWC's success in reef keeping). If you don't want to watch this entire video then start at 8:53, he blatantly states low phosphate is more effective than low nitrates for fighting nuisance algae.

Beyond that Minnesota Pollution Control Agency goes over excess run off in local lakes (local for me at least) that is causing massive amounts of algae blooms. Their study showed agriculture nitrate and phosphate runoff leading to issues in the lakes, stressing that the excess phosphate runoff is the largest force leading to the algae blooms.