Looking for help with this ugly algae!

[CousinLarry]

This is my first salt tank - it's a Fluval Evo XII 12.5gl. all stock setup but I added UV sterilizer to first chamber. Tank is now two months old.

Tank was crystal clear for first month and a half after I set it up. Then I noticed a light green coating on a couple of surfaces. That's when I added the UV sterilizer hoping to stop it before it got out of control.

Over the next month up til now, it's gotten really bad. I got some Phos-lock and put that in the second chamber stack about 15 days ago. It seemed like after I did that the green turned to brown. Now it looks almost like brown spider webbing all over the rock and coral, and it seems to be forming bubbles in it. [emoji24]

Does anyone know what the best plan of attack to get this cleared up would be?

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

[Flippers4pups]

What's your water parameters?

 

[CousinLarry]

What's your water parameters?

Last test was two days ago using Salifert tests:
Ammonia 0-0.15
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate .5

Those are the only tests I have right now. What other ones should I get?

 

[Flippers4pups]

You need calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, Phosphate, pH.

Could have elevated Phosphates in your system.

What lights are you using?

 

[Gareth elliott]

It looks like cyano specifically calothrix sp. or something similar there are a bunch of filament forming cyano.(a freshwater type is the one that causes fish kills in lakes and rivers, ok got sidetracked lol)



Phosphate test kit will help to confirm as these grow rapidly in high phosphate environments.

Physical removal of what you can, tooth brush on a siphon.

Trochus snails 1 per 5-10 gallons.

Lower your phosphate to less than .10 but above 0.

There is another snail that eats this i forget its name.

Anecdotally some have reported less cyano by increasing ph, if it’s convenient could try a airline from skimmer to window. If not convenient dont do this, as the work probably will not equal the results.

 

[CousinLarry]

Thanks for the tips. Grabbing a phos test today. Also I pulled it the two coral pieces and soaked in boiling water, then scrubbed with toothbrush.
The live rock has a lot on it, but it also has a lot of life on it so I think I'll just scrub that in the tank.
Getting 10gl if water today and will do a 5gl change, then another 5gl in a few days. I also put fresh phos lock in the filter. I'm slowing down with feeding a bit too.
Keeping my fingers crossed!

 

[Rjukan]

When I added the 7.5 to my system I had this same type of growth for the first couple weeks. Even though the tank was plumbed into an established system, and I used established LR, it still had this type of growth.

I took care of it by cleaning off the rocks and glass once a week (scraped the glass and siphoned out the junk, swished the rock around in a bucket of SW), did it for 2 weeks and by the 3rd week it wasn't coming back as strong. Added 1 turbo snail at that time and it took care of it from there.

I wouldn't try any types of meds or extreme measures if I were you, just put a little elbow grease into it and buy a turbo snail. See how that does after a couple weeks.