What is Your Go To Method for Controlling Algae in Your Tank

[Gumbies R Us]

We all at some point get algae in our tank, and it is not the most present thing to look at. I'm wondering what method as worked the best for keeping algae down in your tank.

 

[Jekyl]

Time.

 

[stephnjeph]

Personally I make sure to keep my nutrients in check and have a solid clean up crew

 

[Scorpius]

Time.

Lol. Great minds think alike.

 

[DanyL]

1. Tangs, Tangs, and a few more Tangs - these herbivores do their job well.
2. Large and diverse CuC - seriously, put 20-30 snails, shrimps, urchins and crabs - they not only stir your sand if you have any, but can also get to all the hard-to-get spots you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise.
3. Nutrient control (Skimmer, GFO, Biopellets) - don't necessarily chase numbers, keep them steady, but it is effective to monitor and make adjustments when needed.
4. Manual cleaning of detritus, bubble algae, sand, etc during weekly water changes.
5. Filter Roll - this one is very effective, more than I would've thought.

 

[His Coral Highness]

toothbrush lol

 

[RedoubtReef]

A large refugium.

 

[CasperOe]

Time.

.. who's the wisest of them all

 

[fish farmer]

Chaeto
Clean up crew
Light fish load

 

[The_Skrimp]

Vodka dosing has worked better to clean up my rocks than anything else I’ve tried.

 

[Willhersh34]

Good maintenance practices
CUC
Fuge with macro algae, currently using sea lettuce and will add others for diversity
Tangs

 

[MoshJosh]

chaeto, CUC, manual removal if needed

 

[vlangel]

I have lots of ornamental macro algae that are out competing nuisance algae. I get very little, mostly just film algae on the glass. My rock is 20 years old and this tank I have now has been set up for going on 7 years so no doubt a mature system helps too. It is a high nutrient system by design with softie coral, a few LPS and all the macro algae utilizing those nitrates and phosphates.

 

[Waters]

Snails, urchins, fish, corraline algae, and tank maturity.

 

[Slocke]

I'm going to say I find fish useless for algae control. They may occasionally nibble at some but they are far too picky and once you give them a stable food source like nori they'll often just eat that.

Snails and urchins are by far the best. Mexican turbo snails were so good at controlling algae in my tank I have to add algae to the tank to keep them alive.

 

[waver]

test your water. No3 and Po4. find the source and eliminate it.

cant eliminate it? skimmer, nitrifying bacteria, refugium, decrease photo period

bristle tooth tangs will helps with algae as well as snails and crabs. They mitigate the side effect, they wont cure your problem

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

You have to think of your reef tank as a system, and that system needs to be designed in ways that manage the import and export of nutrients well. A huge component of this system design has to consider the point of tank maturity. IMO most tanks that struggle with algae are either still new or are not adequately handling nutrient import/export. IME it's usually better to try and figure out the problem with the system that is leading to algae issues than to grab a quick fix solution. At times these solutions can new helpful (so they have their place), but only after the hobbyist has done the work of diagnosing and correcting the system as a whole.

So, I'm not a fan of use of algaecide or whiplash nutrient stripping to correct algae issues. Instead, be diligent in checking your parameters and correcting issues with your system. Fine tune the system.

 

[Dburr1014]

I have tuffs here and there.
Going to try something new cuz I've tried everything else.
Reef actif
Hoping this will work. We will see.

 

[Toob]

Trying to control algae by limiting nutrients is nonsense - corals need nutrients too. And algae are better at using it anyway - nutrients will never get low enough to “starve” algae without first starving out your corals.

The answer is herbivores, IMO. And corraline (time, as someone said above)

 

[Runningfanatic]

Personally I'm not convinced that high nitrates and phosphates are as big an issue as I used to think. I've had my current tank for more than 10 years. I've always had an algae issue. At times, I wanted to just give up. Two years ago, I started using Vibrant. It did not clear up my tank, but it did give me a bad case of dinos. I dealt with that for about a year. My nutrients were ridiculous. Nitrates over 100 and phosphates at .6. One thing I did to deal with the dinos was to add copepods. Slowly, I noticed for the first time ever, the algae was disappearing. I then started carbon dosing to reduce the nutrients. That took time as well. But for the first time ever for me, I now have a clean looking tank! My clean up crew is minimal, just a few small hermit crabs and nassarius snails in my 75 gallon. Other than the copepods and the carbon dosing, I'm doing nothing different than I've always done. So, I'm not sure exactly what has "fixed" my algae issue, but those two things are the only changes I made. I'm actually at a point that I really enjoy looking at my tank and want to expand it!