Need help with large algae problem

[Poseidon03]

I added a skimmer and been doing weekly 10% water changes

Personally, I'd do 15 gallon water change every other day for 8 days (a total of 4 water changes). This will get your nitrates down to the teens and then you can go after your phosphates to get them under .1ppm. You can use 4 more water changes every other day, gfo (GO SLOW), or phosphateRX (my favorite). You should review how much you feed and how much you water change based on how your parameters go weekly from there. You rocks will leach nitrates and phosphates for a while, but after keeping your nitrates and phosphates down for a while, the hair algae problem will go away. Also while doing this, keep manually removing the algae

 

[Reef.Blue]

Personally, I'd do 15 gallon water change every other day for 8 days (a total of 4 water changes). This will get your nitrates down to the teens and then you can go after your phosphates to get them under .1ppm. You can use 4 more water changes every other day, gfo (GO SLOW), or phosphateRX (my favorite). You should review how much you feed and how much you water change based on how your parameters go weekly from there. You rocks will leach nitrates and phosphates for a while, but after keeping your nitrates and phosphates down for a while, the hair algae problem will go away. Also while doing this, keep manually removing the algae

Would I be able to do 10g water changes instead of 15 or do you think 15g is necessary?

 

[Reef.Blue]

Personally, I'd do 15 gallon water change every other day for 8 days (a total of 4 water changes). This will get your nitrates down to the teens and then you can go after your phosphates to get them under .1ppm. You can use 4 more water changes every other day, gfo (GO SLOW), or phosphateRX (my favorite). You should review how much you feed and how much you water change based on how your parameters go weekly from there. You rocks will leach nitrates and phosphates for a while, but after keeping your nitrates and phosphates down for a while, the hair algae problem will go away. Also while doing this, keep manually removing the algae

I was also interested in buying a different brand of salt, i'm currently using Coralife salt which I know is not the best. I was thinking about buying the Red Sea Coral Pro salt. Would you recommend that or something else? Price is not a worry, just whatever is the best.

 

[VirginiaReefer]

I attached a picture if you go up a few posts. I have been manually removing the algae so the picture is a few hours after I removed it

Highly recommend a tuxedo urchin or a sea hare. Them with the turbo snails got mine down to nothing

 

[VirginiaReefer]

I was also interested in buying a different brand of salt, i'm currently using Coralife salt which I know is not the best. I was thinking about buying the Red Sea Coral Pro salt. Would you recommend that or something else? Price is not a worry, just whatever is the best.

i use instant ocean which also isnt great. you should be fine likely although im sure there are some minor benefits from switching you prob wouldnt notice a HUGE difference IMO. itd likely be more for corals than algae.

 

[Icryhard]

Odd question, but: Does any natural lights end up on your tank? If I am not mistaken, this can often result in algae bloom.

 

[ReefEco]

It is not your salt, you have to get your nitrate and phosphate down. Have you tested your distilled water yet, to see what levels are like in it? As has already been suggested several times, do a string of larger water changes together a couple days apart. I'd start with a 50% change to start, then you can do 25% every 3-4 days until you reach desired levels. If using distilled water and the logistics of transporting and buying all that water is a hurdle, consider buying an RODI unit. This is one of the main reasons that almost every reefer uses their own RODI unit, not only because it produces clean water, but also just access to it - when something is difficult (lugging water from the store) usually we are less likely to do it. In this case, you are going to need upwards of 100 gallons of new saltwater or more...

 

[Reef.Blue]

Odd question, but: Does any natural lights end up on your tank? If I am not mistaken, this can often result in algae bloom.

I have a blind next to my tank that blocks the light from the window.

 

[Reef.Blue]

It is not your salt, you have to get your nitrate and phosphate down. Have you tested your distilled water yet, to see what levels are like in it? As has already been suggested several times, do a string of larger water changes together a couple days apart. I'd start with a 50% change to start, then you can do 25% every 3-4 days until you reach desired levels. If using distilled water and the logistics of transporting and buying all that water is a hurdle, consider buying an RODI unit. This is one of the main reasons that almost every reefer uses their own RODI unit, not only because it produces clean water, but also just access to it - when something is difficult (lugging water from the store) usually we are less likely to do it. In this case, you are going to need upwards of 100 gallons of new saltwater or more...

The salt was kind of an unrelated question and I wasn’t really talking about the algae, just a question to better my knowledge

 

[jda]

I skipped a lot of the replies, so I apologize. You cannot "lights out" your way out of this unless you mean like many months.

Keep exporting by hand and get 8-10 new urchins. Rock and pencil from the Keys are good - they stay in the rocks. Pincushions are good too, but they can pick up your snails. Then, get some real live rock to populate that area once the urchins eat it down to bare rock - if the area stays sterile, then it will come back again. If you don't have a few hundred snails, then get 100 astreas or ceriths too... they like to head to the glass, so pick them off and toss them back on the algae mats.

Limpets eat a lot of algae too.

If you keep your tank in the mid 70s, then turbo snails from the gulf eat a lot of algae, but they can suffer and die at 78 and up.

Suck out, or hand pull as much as you can.

This can take a few months, but it will work.

The algae is there because the space was available and it took it faster than anything else. Algae can grow with minimal no3 and po4, so don't sweat that, but having reasonble numbers is a good idea for many other reasons. I have .1 no3 and po4 at 1-3 ppb and I would still have algae everywhere if I did not have established rock and a huge CUC. Live coralline (not just purple colored things), film algae, surface bacteria and the other things that are on real live rock does not have algae grow on top of it.

As a last resort, you can use a algaecide like AlgaeFix, but it has unintended consequences which can kill some corals, cause dinos to move in to the vacated area and make your tank to where you might not even be able to have good algae for a long time. I would not do this unless you have no other option.

 

[jda]

Wait - with nitrates and phosphate that high, you will need to get the no3 down before most of these inverts will do well. Phosphate will help too. Algae will grow with even the lowest amount of no3 and po4, but most inverts will not thrive.

 

[Poseidon03]

I was also interested in buying a different brand of salt, i'm currently using Coralife salt which I know is not the best. I was thinking about buying the Red Sea Coral Pro salt. Would you recommend that or something else? Price is not a worry, just whatever is the best.

There's no really "best salt." All can maintain a stable reef. The main difference is time to mix and how dirty it makes your mixing bin. Tropic Marin is really good, but got bad rep when they had some bad baches. I still like them personally and think they put in corrective measures to make sure that doesn't happen again. Most big salt manufacturers have had issues before. Another good one I've used is RPM. Both of them mix pretty clean and quick.

 

[fish farmer]

Like many have already stated. Increase export by water changes, wet skimming, manual pulling during water changes, maybe additional CUC, possibly use GFO sparingly. Decrease feeding, but don't starve your fish.

I had elevated Nitrate (30ppm) and Phosphate (1-2ppm) and used the methods above coupled with a fist sized piece of chaeto in the sump and got my levels down over several months. 29 gallon sumped tank.

Now my levels are on the low side and been that way for several years.

 

[Poseidon03]

Would I be able to do 10g water changes instead of 15 or do you think 15g is necessary?

10 gal is fine, but you will need to do more. Based on your corals and fish, you might be able to do an even larger water change and do less changes. You have to make sure your pH, alk, and temp are close in parameters, though.

 

[ReefEco]

Please be very cautious of the advice to add huge amounts of urchins and "hundreds" of snails in a 40 gallon breeder to solve this issue. While you can increase some CUC, it is best to do that in a way which scales with the amount of algae you WILL have and your ultimate goal, so that a significantly over-size CUC for such a size tank will not just die in a week since there is nothing to eat. There is no fast fix here, and the guidance to nuke the tank with CUC is not the measured, long term solution. If you add 100 snails, your algae will be gone in a week (or 2 days), there will be nothing left to eat, the snails will starve, die, and the algae will come back if you haven't coupled that with fixing your nutrient issue. If your tank is in balance, I would guess that the appropriate clean up crew for a 40 breeder is probably 1 urchin and 10-20 snails. For comparison, I have about 75 snails and no hermits (and 5 tangs) in my 400 gallon. Not a spec of algae. As has been said, you FIRST need to determine where all the nutrients are coming from. More CUC is maybe step 7 on the list, after water testing, water changes, more water testing, manual removal, water testing, water changes, more water testing, buying an RODI unit so you can do water changes whenever you want, etc. The best path here is not adding things to your tank (CUC, additives) but taking away the fuel for the algae, and removing the algae itself. Then you can add snails maybe 5 at a time, until you reach an equilibrium with nutrients, algae growth, and algae controls (nutrient export, herbivores.) It will take several months most likely. I'm sorry to say, but the thing that got you here is because of a lack of good husbandry and water quality/testing. We've all been there - I certainly have too. Work on those fundamentals first.

 

[jda]

If you need to catch up, you have to buy a larger crew. You will likely have to get rid of some of them when they do catch up, but even if you add slowly, you have to overpopulate for them to have any chance to catch up. The great things about urchins is that they can eat coralline if there is no soft stuff around... and plenty of locals are happy to have them for their tanks when they have done their jobs in yours.

The algae can live off of ammonia for nitrogen (no nitrate needed) and 1 ppb of phosphate, so you can never remove enough fuel to have it die out - if you did, you would kill coral too.

 

[ReefEco]

If you need to catch up, you have to buy a larger crew. You will likely have to get rid of some of them when they do catch up, but even if you add slowly, you have to overpopulate for them to have any chance to catch up. The great things about urchins is that they can eat coralline if there is no soft stuff around... and plenty of locals are happy to have them for their tanks when they have done their jobs in yours.

The algae can live off of ammonia for nitrogen (no nitrate needed) and 1 ppb of phosphate, so you can never remove enough fuel to have it die out - if you did, you would kill coral too.

"Larger crew" and "hundreds" of snails for a 40 breeder are two different things. 70ppm nitrate and 1.5ppM phosphate are the issue right now. The goal is to remove enough nutrients to have normal algae growth be kept in check with a reasonable crew of herbivores. This is the balance we strive for in every tank. Adding a gargantuan CUC is simply swinging the already out of balance pendulum in the system needlessly in the other direction, instead of easing it back into a sustainable equilibrium. Smarter way is for the aquarist to act as the 100 snails in the short term, with manual removal, until things reach that balance. Taking more critters from the ocean to make up for husbandry is not the path I would suggest. Give a fish, or teach to fish...

 

[jda]

You think that 100 snails in a 40b is gargantuan? This is often what it takes, but not yet. The no3 and po4 need to come down, but even at 1.0 and .10, that algae will grow just as fast and is not limiting.

 

[ReefEco]

Yeah, 100 snails seems like a lot, at least to me : ) And it is completely avoidable through other means. Maybe add 10 and start there. Agree the algae is established and will still keep growing at most nutrient levels, but there is no hope at getting ahead of it and rebalancing until the nutrients get reduced. And honestly, I think there is some progress here to be made in other husbandry areas that simply dumping in more CUC might prevent : ) Taking more stuff from the ocean to solve problems is usually my last solution...

 

[Reef.Blue]

Yeah, 100 snails seems like a lot, at least to me : ) And it is completely avoidable through other means. Maybe add 10 and start there. Agree the algae is established and will still keep growing at most nutrient levels, but there is no hope at getting ahead of it and rebalancing until the nutrients get reduced. And honestly, I think there is some progress here to be made in other husbandry areas that simply dumping in more CUC might prevent : ) Taking more stuff from the ocean to solve problems is usually my last solution...

I current have a pretty decent CUC at the moment. About 25-30 small ceriths, 5 astrea snails, small conch, 5 nassarius snails, 10-15 hermits, and a brittle star that does a pretty good job of cleaning the sand bed.