Where did all my nuisance algae go?

[Big Mistake]

I have a little 10-gallon water box with a few corals and an anemone. 3 years 3 months.

I have always struggled with nuisance things in the tank. One after another.

It has all suddenly "overnight" disappeared now in July 2023.

I have a clean tank. Like on YouTube and at the fish store.

Only two changes.

In January 2023 I added a few tablespoons of sand and maybe 8 oz of saltwater from the Florida Keys.

6 months to take affect? Probably not.

I have 3 urchins which keep the glass clean, and they have converted all the Coralline Algae to "sand".

The glass was completely covered in Coralline algae.

I have some blocks of Marine Pure in the tank (to hold frags) and the urchins have been turning that into sand too.

So, my bare bottom tank is now 30/70 bare bottom. About 70 covered in sand, coralline algae calcium carbonate, and Marine Pure urchin nibbles.

Average depth 1/2 cm. Spread out it would cover the entire bottom not occupied by "rock" which is 70% of the bottom.

I have been running PhosBond and Chemi-Pure Elite for a long time. No change.

And I have a Hanna Ultra low Phosphate checker and it claims around 0.03 and recently 0.06.

I think it is the sand and the anerobic bacteria it supports or some such.

My dkh got really low for a while - I was wondering if dkh in the 9-10 range would suppress algae and friends.

I recall suddenly I recently did run another campaign of AlgaeFix but in the past it had no effect.

It might have been the cause ... but I had stopped treating with AlgaeFix again as it was once again not helping. Maybe this time I dosed a sufficient amount?

I have been siphoning out Red Planaria Flatworms but that has been a response to the cleaner tank?

Ugh - taking the addition of sand like material to cover the bare bottom as the direct unambiguous cause of an improved tank would be a ...

-Big Mistake

 

[Lavey29]

What do you mean DKH got really low in 9 to 10 range? What is it usually?

 

[Lavey29]

I set up a 180 2 months ago that I bought used from a friend. It had been lights out for months (maybe longer.) It came with 200 lbs of formerly live rock. My ammonia has finally fallen to 0, nitrite is 0, and nitrate is down to 20ppm from over 180.

One week ago this stuff started growing, and it now covers the tank. There is also a green algae that dusts the glass and has turned my water green.

Is this Bryopsis?

My skimmer is filling up with a black/green sludge daily. I have not been doing water changes since I was curing the live rock, but I will be doing my first change tomorrow.

There are no inhabitants in the tank, but I do not want to go lights out due to the macro algae that I have growing in there. I understand that nuisance algae is part of setting up a new tank, but this is ridiculous!

Any ideas? Is this Bryopsis? Any way to kill the nuisance algae without killing my macro algae?

Uh, having a reef tank involves daily husbandry. Are you manually removing the GHA? Are you doing weekly water changes to help stability? You will experience a variety of ugly algae phases over the course of the first year. Get a diverse cleaner crew and get your hands wet.

 

[Big Mistake]

What do you mean DKH got really low in 9 to 10 range? What is it usually?

I was not clear - the dkh, due to massive coralline algae bloom I let happen, got down in the 3/4 range.

So happy to have coralline algae in the tank I sang "let it grow, let it grow".

I use Tropic Marin Bio Atif which out of the box is around 8 and use All For Reef to try to keep in 9ish.

The only thing in the tank that consumes dkh is the coralline algae and snails for their shells.

Letting coralline algae cover all the glass in a tank is probably a ...

-Big Mistake

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Why don't you just be grateful for the positive effects something seemed to have (maybe just maturing?). I try to find the source of the problems and solutions as well but in this case I think you'd learn more from letting the tank do its thing for a little while now...

 

[formallydehyde]

I set up a 180 2 months ago that I bought used from a friend. It had been lights out for months (maybe longer.) It came with 200 lbs of formerly live rock. My ammonia has finally fallen to 0, nitrite is 0, and nitrate is down to 20ppm from over 180.

One week ago this stuff started growing, and it now covers the tank. There is also a green algae that dusts the glass and has turned my water green.

Is this Bryopsis?

My skimmer is filling up with a black/green sludge daily. I have not been doing water changes since I was curing the live rock, but I will be doing my first change tomorrow.

There are no inhabitants in the tank, but I do not want to go lights out due to the macro algae that I have growing in there. I understand that nuisance algae is part of setting up a new tank, but this is ridiculous!

Any ideas? Is this Bryopsis? Any way to kill the nuisance algae without killing my macro algae?

I don't think that's bryopsis. The amount of nitrates your tank started out with seems insanely high for something without any livestock - guessing there's a bunch of dead animals and stuff inside all that formerly live rock that are rotting which are providing your nuisance algae with a lot of nutrients and there's nothing around to eat it.

 

[formallydehyde]

I have a little 10-gallon water box with a few corals and an anemone. 3 years 3 months.

I have always struggled with nuisance things in the tank. One after another.

It has all suddenly "overnight" disappeared now in July 2023.

I have a clean tank. Like on YouTube and at the fish store.

Only two changes.

In January 2023 I added a few tablespoons of sand and maybe 8 oz of saltwater from the Florida Keys.

6 months to take affect? Probably not.

I have 3 urchins which keep the glass clean, and they have converted all the Coralline Algae to "sand".

The glass was completely covered in Coralline algae.

I have some blocks of Marine Pure in the tank (to hold frags) and the urchins have been turning that into sand too.

So, my bare bottom tank is now 30/70 bare bottom. About 70 covered in sand, coralline algae calcium carbonate, and Marine Pure urchin nibbles.

Average depth 1/2 cm. Spread out it would cover the entire bottom not occupied by "rock" which is 70% of the bottom.

I have been running PhosBond and Chemi-Pure Elite for a long time. No change.

And I have a Hanna Ultra low Phosphate checker and it claims around 0.03 and recently 0.06.

I think it is the sand and the anerobic bacteria it supports or some such.

My dkh got really low for a while - I was wondering if dkh in the 9-10 range would suppress algae and friends.

I recall suddenly I recently did run another campaign of AlgaeFix but in the past it had no effect.

It might have been the cause ... but I had stopped treating with AlgaeFix again as it was once again not helping. Maybe this time I dosed a sufficient amount?

I have been siphoning out Red Planaria Flatworms but that has been a response to the cleaner tank?

Ugh - taking the addition of sand like material to cover the bare bottom as the direct unambiguous cause of an improved tank would be a ...

-Big Mistake

Urchins are very prolific algae eaters and you put three of them into a small tank. That would be my guess. Make sure you supplement them so they don't starve now that there's nothing for them to eat.