New tank algae question

[subareef]

hi everyone.

New to this forum and looking for help with an algae problem I’ve been dealing with. I have a 75 gallon tank with a 20 gallon sump below housing my protein skimmer, return pump, refugium (not set up completely yet). So the tank has been going about 6 months now and I recently had a problem with cyano and I took care of that with chemiclean and lots of siphoning and water changes. Along the way I developed what seems to be a GHA problem and I can’t seem to get rid of it no matter what I try whether it be blasting the rocks, trying to siphon, water changes, turning off lights, etc. my nitrates are very low at about maybe 1 and phosphate is about a .50. I’ve got an aquamaxx Nemo led light that seems to provide enough light to me. In the tank I have hermit crabs, blood shrimp, emerald crabs, snails, and one yellow tang who seems very happy. I had a diatom problem and fixed that with bumping up the light intensity it seems.

The GHA I’m just having a heck of a time getting rid of and was looking for new suggestions, I just started trying a treatment with dr Tim’s waste away and it seems to be helping some. However, some odd looking white like slime/algae or whatever seems to be forming up towards the top of the tank on the rocks where algae was. I have two koralia 1500 Powerheads at opposite ends banking off the glass and one small wave maker I picked up for free in the back and the flow seems fine, sand bed stays clean.

What is that weird white algae stuff and what other steps can I take to get rid of what I think is GHA? In the pictures (first picture) the white algae appears purple like in the light and from the camera on my phone and I can try to get a better picture. You can also kind of see it on the picture with my small wave maker (second picture) Help please

Thanks in advance. Any other tips would be appreciated. I had this tank as a freshwater for a while and decided to jump into the saltwater because they’ve always caught my eye

 

[Crabs McJones]

hi everyone.

New to this forum and looking for help with an algae problem I’ve been dealing with. I have a 75 gallon tank with a 20 gallon sump below housing my protein skimmer, return pump, refugium (not set up completely yet). So the tank has been going about 6 months now and I recently had a problem with cyano and I took care of that with chemiclean and lots of siphoning and water changes. Along the way I developed what seems to be a GHA problem and I can’t seem to get rid of it no matter what I try whether it be blasting the rocks, trying to siphon, water changes, turning off lights, etc. my nitrates are very low at about maybe 1 and phosphate is about a .50. I’ve got an aquamaxx Nemo led light that seems to provide enough light to me. In the tank I have hermit crabs, blood shrimp, emerald crabs, snails, and one yellow tang who seems very happy. I had a diatom problem and fixed that with bumping up the light intensity it seems.

The GHA I’m just having a heck of a time getting rid of and was looking for new suggestions, I just started trying a treatment with dr Tim’s waste away and it seems to be helping some. However, some odd looking white like slime/algae or whatever seems to be forming up towards the top of the tank on the rocks where algae was. I have two koralia 1500 Powerheads at opposite ends banking off the glass and one small wave maker I picked up for free in the back and the flow seems fine, sand bed stays clean.

What is that weird white algae stuff and what other steps can I take to get rid of what I think is GHA? In the pictures (first picture) the white algae appears purple like in the light and from the camera on my phone and I can try to get a better picture. You can also kind of see it on the picture with my small wave maker (second picture) Help please

Thanks in advance. Any other tips would be appreciated. I had this tank as a freshwater for a while and decided to jump into the saltwater because they’ve always caught my eye

Welcome to R2R!

Low nitrate and phosphate level readings are common with this type of situation, reason being is the algae is consuming it rapidly so it doesn't show up on your test. Are you using RO/DI water to do your water changes? How much and how often are you feeding? And what is your bioload? (fish corals ect) Do you have a clean up crew?

 

[subareef]

Welcome to R2R!

Low nitrate and phosphate level readings are common with this type of situation, reason being is the algae is consuming it rapidly so it doesn't show up on your test. Are you using RO/DI water to do your water changes? How much and how often are you feeding? And what is your bioload? (fish corals ect) Do you have a clean up crew?

I am using RO/DI water and it’s reading 0TDS. I’m using instant ocean reef crystals, I have been using Red Sea. It figured I’d give this a try since there was some local. I’m doing about 20% water changes every other week using the sump to do so. Filter socks, Reef octopus skimmer. As for the bio load in the tank I have a clean up crew of snails, blue leg hermits, red leg hermits, one emerald crab who’s gotten pretty big always picking at the rocks, one blood shrimp, and one yellow tang who seems very happy and also loves picking at the rocks. Every like 3 or 4 days I add some green seaweed and him and the shrimp go crazy over it. For the crabs and such I don’t really add any food for them as they’re always picking at the rocks and the snails as well eating algae off the walls. I’ll add a few pellets of hikari crab food and they all go nuts over that as well and eat it up as well as the tang trying to get a bite here and there.

I cycled the tank for about 3 months before adding anything into it, dosing with ammonia and testing everyday. I bought dry rock from Marco rocks, there’s about 90 pound of rock total


The white algae almost seems like a fix kind of and the green algae and green/brown algae looks almost like fur the keeps growing longer it seems and waves in the current, not sure how easy it is to see in the pics.