Need Help with algae issues
- Thread starter Kami2011
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Kayotic5011
Active Member
What kind of system is that hooked to? Filtration? you running any phosguard gfo anything like that?........When it comes to nutrients in water something has to use them. No matter if its fresh water or salt water one rule will always apply, when the life in the water makes waste (Organics) they have to get broken down and used up or it causes pollution or better known as nitrates, ammonia and other by products of that manner. Your Filtration is what usually takes care of that but when you have so much in the way of life in your tank your filtration can only do so much to take out whats not used......This leads me to your algae problem...with what I said above, something in that eco system you created for your corals has to help the filter with that issue....that's where the slime, hair, cyno, and other bad algae come into play. Some of these algae thrive on poor water quality while others thrive on good water quality, but all do one thing an do it well, they use up the left over nutrients that the corals are creating.....Testing of your water is probably high in phosphates and nitrates but the readings are fooling you by saying 0...at least that would be my guess, and the reason I say this is because what you would test the water for is being consumed by the algae, giving you a reading as if your tank was right in water quality.
I would suck that stuff out with a siphon and do the water change while your at it, I think your high in nitrates and phosphates and very possibley silicates. Doing a water change and sucking it out in the process will help reduce the spread of it around the tank while bring down the lvls in your aquarium.....If you dont have one look into a reactor for some gfo or phosguard or something in that manner. A refugium will also help with this as there is macro algae in them to help you naturally reduce the spikes as mentioned above.
I would suck that stuff out with a siphon and do the water change while your at it, I think your high in nitrates and phosphates and very possibley silicates. Doing a water change and sucking it out in the process will help reduce the spread of it around the tank while bring down the lvls in your aquarium.....If you dont have one look into a reactor for some gfo or phosguard or something in that manner. A refugium will also help with this as there is macro algae in them to help you naturally reduce the spikes as mentioned above.
I see what you mean. Everything is at 0, but that’s probably because the algae/slime is using it. I currently have a reactor on the tank but it’s running carbon. Should I switch it to gfo?
Kayotic5011
Active Member
yes excatly, how long have you been running the carbon? and yes imo Id switch it over for a little bit because the carbon doesnt seem to be keeping it at bay, so might as well try another route....or get another reactor and run one carbon and one phosguard or gfo. If you were to have two reactors you could run one with chaeto and one with gfo and that would be a good combo, heard of that done a few times.
Kayotic5011
Active Member
do you have a protein skimmer?....lol dang right as i was asking that I looked at mine to make sure it wasn't over flowing and it was just about too....I kicked up some proteins yesterday cleaning my tank and its been working on taking them out nonstop since
Kayotic5011
Active Member
I would try the change...eliminate the phosphates along with some water changes and I think you will see a major difference. Just get that nasty out of there as careful as possible to reduce the risk of spreading it around worse
Kayotic5011
Active Member
what do you have in it? Does it act more like a sump than a refugium? and have you noticed and slime down there as well?
Kayotic5011
Active Member
That is what I was expecting to hear actually. The chaeto is really good at taking away nitrates and without a boost of nitrates that slime cant take hold....Ive noticed in my refugium where the chaeto touches the sand its always clean white and in other places no so much sometimes. That there is a good example of how the proper use of the nutrients will not allow the improper use and growth of bad problematic algaes.
In my old 40 gallon I had a 20L refugium on it I made and it was all going nice...then bam out break of brown hair algae, one thing I noticed through the whole thing was that my refugium never got one trace of the stuff lol, to much good algae and chaeto in there for it to take hold....come to find out what cause it for me was not having RO water and using tap being its all i had at the time and when I added my water I added it straight to the return of the refugium and in turn it pumped it into the top tank to mix it.....bad idea, specially if you have tap water as it can be high in nitrates that will really through your tank through a loop. Now I make sure not only to use filtered water and it gets poured into the skimmer side of the refugium so it mixes before it gets to the top tank...I wouldnt want to hit this with a blast of frest water anyway
In my old 40 gallon I had a 20L refugium on it I made and it was all going nice...then bam out break of brown hair algae, one thing I noticed through the whole thing was that my refugium never got one trace of the stuff lol, to much good algae and chaeto in there for it to take hold....come to find out what cause it for me was not having RO water and using tap being its all i had at the time and when I added my water I added it straight to the return of the refugium and in turn it pumped it into the top tank to mix it.....bad idea, specially if you have tap water as it can be high in nitrates that will really through your tank through a loop. Now I make sure not only to use filtered water and it gets poured into the skimmer side of the refugium so it mixes before it gets to the top tank...I wouldnt want to hit this with a blast of frest water anyway
Reefer40b
Valuable Member
You may want to try some vibrant, there is a large forum on here that talks about it, lots of success. Just make your you have a good means of export for all the dying algae... maybe small amounts of GFO and a second skimmer if necessary.
Use RO/DI water if not already.
Use RO/DI water if not already.
ColbyNTX
Community Member
I think your water source can play a big part of importing nutrients. I too was fighting algea for a long time. I was using RO water from my LFS. My MIL bought me an aquatic life RO/DI unit for Christmas. Started using it and 10% weekly water changes. I can no longer get algea to grow. I’m actually concerned about my tuxedo urchins having enough to eat. My only chemical filtration is a bag of chemipure blue and a bag of purigen. Tank is moderately stocked with no skimmer. I do feel like I feed too much also.
Kayotic5011
Active Member
Agreed, The water we deem safe is actually full of so many chemicals that if you had an actual list of whats in it you wouldn't even brush your teeth with it. All these chemicals and just the awesome leaching power of water have major impacts on what nutrients are in the water and at what amount and a lot of the time its not as clean as they want you to think.....hell I wont even give my cat tap water...As water goes through your pipes it leaches the metal from its surrounds and brings that with it effecting the amount of metals like steel, copper, lead, and so on that are found in the water....in lime stone caves as the water is passed through the limestone it collects tons of calcium and becomes high in ph and other minerals, but if there is iron pyrite in that cave then the water leaching over the pyrite will become sulfuric acid as pyrite is a sulfide. This is actually a larger problem than people think as sulfuric acid is a common by product of mining for gold and copper, its just a good thing they do what they do to get that out of our drinking water......but...they have to use chemicals some of which total block out certain nutrients from being able to enter the water without being poured back in, not to mention if to much of one nutrient is in any one place such as a water system or soil, you'll then end up with whats called "nutrient block" and it wont allow anything needing that certain nutrient to obtain it ultimately causing something else to take hold that doesn't need much or any of that blocked nutrient....hint the nasty hair algae and cyno's that show up in tanks. They usually grow in low nutrient waters, but If you look in a healthy tank with good algae and micro algae growth you will notice that you have little to none in the way of bad growth.
Balance of water is extremely important for proper growth of all life within its eco system. Balance your water and the rest will fall into place, but you use the hose be prepared to deal with the slime like a runny nose. hahahaha
