It’s killing my coral, NEED HELP

[Chris_Noles]

Your nitrates and phosphates are elevated what spectrum light are you running ? A white light with red and green in the spectrum will grow algae with elevated levels of po4 no3

Here is my lighting ramp up/schedule

 

[Chris_Noles]

As mentioned here are my phosphate and nitrate parameters both seem really high. Nitrites and Ammonia are 0, I can test alkalinity and calcium if needed as well.

@Reefing Reefer

 

[salty_dawg]

I don’t know man but your tank looks tiny take the rocks out and scrub them

 

[Aqua Man]

I am going to try some manual removal and add more CUC since that might help solve the issue. Going to run my skimmer aswell.

What have you added to beef up your CUC?! Did you go ahead with the blackout for a few days?

You have an AIO tank, what’s in your back chambers? Filter floss? Have you been running the skimmer? Skimmer pulling good gunk?

 

[Chris_Noles]

What have you added to beef up your CUC?! Did you go ahead with the blackout for a few days?

You have an AIO tank, what’s in your back chambers? Filter floss? Have you been running the skimmer? Skimmer pulling good gunk?

Hey Man, yup I am doing a blackout for 3 days and I am going to go to the LFS and see what else I can get. Anything cheap I should get? An urchin at my LFS is almost like ~$30, I have like 3 hermits, 1 Turbo and 1 Astera snail.

In my back chamber I have the skimmer which I usually empty once a week. 2 layers of filter floss and a mini carbon reactor thing in the back. Skimmer does pick up a good chunk of gunk.

 

[Aqua Man]

Hey Man, yup I am doing a blackout for 3 days and I am going to go to the LFS and see what else I can get. Anything cheap I should get? An urchin at my LFS is almost like ~$30, I have like 3 hermits, 1 Turbo and 1 Astera snail.

Be prepared and plan accordingly to do a water change after the blackout. I would pickup 5-6 Astrea snails, see if they have Trochus and get 3-4 of those too. Also cerith snails would be great. Cerith burrow in the sand and eat algae. Not a fan of Nassarius (zombie snails) which are carnivores.

In my back chamber I have the skimmer which I usually empty once a week. 2 layers of filter floss and a mini carbon reactor thing in the back. Skimmer does pick up a good chunk of gunk

Good chunk of gunk! Love it! How’s the floss looking? How often does it get changed/clogged? Also curious how often you need to clean the front glass?

 

[Chris_Noles]

Be prepared and plan accordingly to do a water change after the blackout. I would pickup 5-6 Astrea snails, see if they have Trochus and get 3-4 of those too. Also cerith snails would be great. Cerith burrow in the sand and eat algae. Not a fan of Nassarius (zombie snails) which are carnivores.



Good chunk of gunk! Love it! How’s the floss looking? How often does it get changed/clogged? Also curious how often you need to clean the front glass?

Yup I have the water ready after the blackout is done. Last time I was in there he gave me some cerith snails for free, so it’ll be a toss up if he has some or not. My tank is a 25 gallon so would another 10-12 snails be too much?

As for my filter floss it needs to be changed. I change it once it starts looking brown.

 

[I never finish anythi]

Just get a sea hare . It will demolish gha in that tank in a week . If it is gha that is..

 

[Aqua Man]

My tank is a 25 gallon so would another 10-12 snails be too much?

Oh yeah, 25 gallons. At least a couple Trochus or Astrea then. Glad you have Cerith, they always live well for me.

 

[Kasrift]

Yup I have the water ready after the blackout is done. Last time I was in there he gave me some cerith snails for free, so it’ll be a toss up if he has some or not. My tank is a 25 gallon so would another 10-12 snails be too much?

As for my filter floss it needs to be changed. I change it once it starts looking brown.

I think 10-12 is fine. As mentioned, I have a ton more in my 32 gallon. I recently set up a 10g frag tank and I have 5 trochus, one conch, two small blue hermits, 2 cerith, and one astrea in there.

 

[Chris_Noles]

Oh yeah, 25 gallons. At least a couple Trochus or Astrea then. Glad you have Cerith, they always live well for me.

Sounds like a plan, I’ll finish the blackout and then up the clean up crew….wonder why my nitrates are really high though….

 

[Chris_Noles]

I think 10-12 is fine. As mentioned, I have a ton more in my 32 gallon. I recently set up a 10g frag tank and I have 5 trochus, one conch, two small blue hermits, 2 cerith, and one astrea in there.

Sounds good, I am going to finish the blackout and up the clean up crew. Did you see my parameters though?

 

[Kasrift]

Sounds good, I am going to finish the blackout and up the clean up crew. Did you see my parameters though?

Yes, they are fine. Ideally you want them lower, but it is not the end of the world. Sounds like your skimmer is picking up stuff, I'd just continue with Brightwell Microbacter clean, keep on weekly water changes, and a decent CUC and manual removal as much as you can and you should be fine.

 

[Aqua Man]

I think 10-12 is fine. As mentioned, I have a ton more in my 32 gallon. I recently set up a 10g frag tank and I have 5 trochus, one conch, two small blue hermits, 2 cerith, and one astrea in there.

Every tank is different. In my 20 Tall I have 2 snails. One Astrea and a turbo. My 22 long has 4 snails (Astrea and Trochus) and a few hermits.

Sounds like a plan, I’ll finish the blackout and then up the clean up crew….wonder why my nitrates are really high though….

If you see your crew not keeping up with the algae then add more. A few weeks ago I moved a couple snails from one tank to another.

Every tank is different even when I do the exact same things to each one. I have 5 tanks and each one has its own personality!

Nitrates need to be extremely high to hurt snails and hermits. I think you’re good!

 

[Kasrift]

Every tank is different. In my 20 Tall I have 2 snails. One Astrea and a turbo. My 22 long has 4 snails (Astrea and Trochus) and a few hermits.


If you see your crew not keeping up with the algae then add more. A few weeks ago I moved a couple snails from one tank to another.

Every tank is different even when I do the exact same things to each one. I have 5 tanks and each one has its own personality!

Nitrates need to be extremely high to hurt snails and hermits. I think you’re good!

Agree every tank is different. I was playing "home swap" too with some snails from the DT to my frag tank and just decided it would be easier to stock both properly.

A large portion I think has to do with rockwork, people are going for NSA scaping more and more and have less rock to actually have algae grow on, so less snails are needed since scraping glass is easily done.

 

[Chris_Noles]

Bought a conch today going back this weekend for more snails.

 

[Aqua Man]

Bought a conch today going back this weekend for more snails.

How’s the conch doing? Never owned one, they are kinda scary looking! Lol..

 

[Aqua Man]

@Chris_Noles How’s the tank doing?

 

[Rennurdoar]

Bought a conch today going back this weekend for more snails.

Astrea snails 100%! My LFS here in NEFL I can get them around $1 each. That's been my best investment for algae so far. I see a lot of people say they have suicide tendances, but mine seem to right themselves most of the time. I think I've had to help one or two a few times though. In my 65-gallon I just transferred over, I had 35 Astrea snails, 5 Nassarius, 5 Trochus, 10 Cerith, 10 Red/blue hermits and 3 emerald crabs.

Now that I've gone bigger, I'll be adding some more CUC also. The other biggest help IMO is Phytoplankton!! I dose in the morning, and the evenings. I would definitely get some, as well as seed the tank with copepods. Those two alone will help clear up a lot of the film algae as well (and any other nuisance usually). There are many vendors and some LFS will carry both also. Good luck and hopefully it clears up soon!

Oh, and go NOLES!

 

[Chris_Noles]

@Chris_Noles How’s the tank doing?

Same issue still