I have 75 gallon general reef tank with a 20 gallon sump that I have had up and running for about 5 months. I am starting to get more than a bit of green algae growing on my live rock and powerheads. I am running T5 lighting on a 6 hour cycle. I just checked my water and all of my levels are good. I check ph, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphates and calcium. Ph is between 8.1 and 8.2, calcium is at 400, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphates are all at 0. My water temperature hovers right about 79 degrees. My salinity is at 1.024-1.025 I have a decent size cleanup crew, about 16 maybe 18 snails and hermit crabs. I have about 4 fish that eat algae. I also have a couple of urchins. Is this a problem that will go away? It seems to be slowly getting a bit worse. What can I check? What can I add? What should I do? It's not a disaster... Yet.
What do I do about Green Algae?
- Thread starter phjr8
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Lovge
Active Member
you could try a couple days of lights out totally, I did this and it seems to have helped a bit. as far as your params they all say the same thing. the tests might read 0 but you have something built up somewhere because the algae needs to eat something.
how often are you doing water changes and what do you use for nutrient export? You have excess phosphates because you have algae (it's reading 0 on the test because it's bound up in the algae). You'll most likely need to use some sort of phosphate removing product - either GFO or phosguard or research other methods out there.
SantaMonicaHelp
Valuable Member
Have you considered using an algae scrubber? You can build your own to the specifications of your tank, and many people have had success using this method to control nuisance algae.
There's lots of useful information on algae and scrubbers in this thread:
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/equipment-lighting-hardware-aquarium-filtration/86207-lowest-cost-easiest-way-eliminate-green-hair-bubble-turf-slime-algae-your-aquarium-hopefully-permanently.html
There's lots of useful information on algae and scrubbers in this thread:
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/equipment-lighting-hardware-aquarium-filtration/86207-lowest-cost-easiest-way-eliminate-green-hair-bubble-turf-slime-algae-your-aquarium-hopefully-permanently.html
I'm doing roughly 20% changes every other week. I have been using Thrive Aquatics for nutrients. I think that's what you were asking. I have phosphate remover, but I don't really know how much to add. The directions are pretty vague. I use their website and it generally tells you how much of a product to use based on what your levels are, but as I said before, my phosphates show 0. I guess I kind of figured that was my problem, but I don't want to overdose something and cause an even bigger problem.
Is it algae or Green Coralline?
what type of phosphate remover do you have? I'm not familiar with thrive......is that a product that is supposed to lower nutrients? I was asking more in lines of do you have chaeto, fuge, skimmer, pellets?
Fishroomlady, I'm pretty new to this so I really don't know what any of those things are. I don't mean to sound stupid, it's just that I don't know what I don't know. I have a protein skimmer, I just added it last week. Thrive makes a line of supplements that you can use to dose the tank with. I'm using their phosphate remover. They have a great website where you can enter your tank readings and it gives you instructions of what you may need to do. It is nothing that I want to rely on, but it is great for a beginner like me.
STOP dosing Thrive Aquatics! Your only feeding the algae
SantaMonicaHelp
Valuable Member
Sounds like your rocks are filling up with phosphate. 6 month is very quick, but it could happen. Here's more info:
Nutrient Export
What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.
So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients come from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.
Then the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on them consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.
Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crew, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.
So whenever you have algae "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then, there is a problem).
So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals
Nutrient Export
What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.
So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients come from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.
Then the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on them consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.
Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crew, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.
So whenever you have algae "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then, there is a problem).
So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals
