Algea has me close to getting a gun!!!!

[Salty D-O-G]

It is all mainly green algea but it will not go away. It only gets worse when I turn the MH's on. Then I get a red slime algea growth with lots of bubbles. Any pointers? Thanks in advance. All parameters look good except alkilinity is high and PH is a little low at 8.1



Jerry

 

[Salty D-O-G]

And yes I have been doing weekly water changes with RO/DI. About 25%

Jerry

 

[burning2nd]

not enough....

every 3 days 15%

 

[Ed Hahn]

Please tell me a little about your tank. Do you have a sump, skimmer, type of lighting, flow inside your aquarium?

Here are a few tricks. I would add algae to your sump to combat another type of algae. Run your lights opposite of your photo period.
Drip Kalk slowly with Ph monitor raising your PH slowly so your phosphates percipitate faster.
Feed only what your fish will eat, be selective of your foods for fish,
try to prevent dead spots so food does not lay dormat.
A phosphate reactor with Phosphate remover might be a good idea. (Warner Marine has a pretty good product, Rowaphos)
Keep your water paremeters as stable as possible (temperature, small ph swings).
thats a few ideas.
good luck,
Ed

8.1 at Ph is pretty good.

 

[Scooterman]

Seems like your supplying the algae with food to grow, how much are you feeding? Are you doing more than WC's like actually sucking out detritus, blowing off the rocks throughly? How long has your tank cycled? How well is your flow coverage? How much are you skimming? How long has your tank been up? How well is your tank water getting detritus to the sump to get skimmed? How many fish do you have & how big is your tank? Have you read the Algae control thread? these few questions should help determine your problems!

 

[Cwazy Clown]

astreas own...1 per gallon...worked for my crazy alga.

 

[twilliard]

scooter said it all.

I battle it like it was WW3
Clean those rocks inside and out.
Even if your tests show nothing it may be because the nutrients are bound in the algae. I was doing water changes every other day and it took almost 2 months for it to clear up.
Keep the stuff a floating, get it to the skimmer, suck it out. Wash those rocks up.

You will win

 

[Dr. Dee]

When was the last time you changed your R.O filters i will check my system with a TDS tester:idea: Your tds should be from 1-5.

 

[Krish]

I agree...Excess nutrients fuel algae to grow. The fact that you may not be reading any nitrates, phosphates etc doesn't mean they are present...Just means they are bound up in the algae which needs to be exported. I did something similar to what Ed suggested with algae in the fuge with a light on an alternate photoperiod from the tank. What I did though was not add an algae...I ran more watts per gal over the sump for a longer period of time than the main display and the algae grew there all by itself rather than the main display ( because the conditions were better for it to grow there) and then every week, I just vaccumed out whatever algae grew until eventually the tank balanced out and nothing grew anymore. You will need to find your source of "food" that is fueling the algae to grow and also physically remove what you can to export what is bound up in it.

 

[twilliard]

Even if you use water with PO or NO (Im talking small amounts) you will still win the battle over algae.
Im sure you know your condition of water. So I would put energy into cleaning.
Even if you do just water changes, your still not cleaning the crap out of the tank that needs to get out.
I think there should be a new definition in our world of reefing.
water changes-"water changes is a new addition of wanted elements"
a REAL water change- "stir it all up, scoop it out, clean the sucker, blow them rocks out water change"
kinda get the idea? I didn't word it exactly the way I wanted to, but hey what is the definition of a water change?

 

[Scooterman]

When was the last time you changed your R.O filters i will check my system with a TDS tester:idea: Your tds should be from 1-5.

Unless your using a lab grade tester you should read 0 TDS, anything else the scale can be way off, 5 could be more like 50, not good to go by!

 

[Dr. Dee]

Unless your using a lab grade tester you should read 0 TDS, anything else the scale can be way off, 5 could be more like 50, not good to go by!

Yeah i agree with that,note use a lab grade thats what i use. But please test for that,it will help also. Oh 50,uummh

 

[Scooterman]

Typically if you get any reading other than 0 it is easy to start changing ro/di filters, most cases it is time, pressure is usually low at this point also, If you have a gauge on your unit, it helps but regardless the advise by Dr. Dee is sound advise

 

[DaBrowns]

Try "Chemiclean" used as prescribed I had good results. Also if you skimmer is too small, or tank is new (not fully cycled) like ours...outbreaks are pretty common for the 1st year or so.

 

[Salty D-O-G]

Tank specs:

Started Dec17 2006

180 Oceanic with twin overflows
72" Outer Orbit
Type 4 Mega Sump personally customized so I could have a refergium
Aqua Medic T1000 Skimmer rated for up to 250 gallons
2 X 1800 Danner Mag pumps
1 X 2400 Danner Mag pumps
RO/DI Top off system
130 pounds of live rock
2" fine sand
2" coarse sand
6 pounds of small rubble (spead out to make a more natural look)







When I started my 54 corner I never had this much trouble with algea. As long as I keep the MH's off everything is ok but I'm afraid my SPS corals aren't getting enough light from the PC compacts. All my Zoo's, Mushrooms, Ricordia, Star and Clove polyps, Plate Coral and Anenome are nice and expanded and seem very happy. My Pulsing Xenia how ever has not been happy and I had 3 clusters on the rocks and I am now down to one . I have been feeding my fish frozen food. Spurilina enriched brine shrimp and mysis shrimp and I feed the anenome thawed out silversides. Now I use tank water to thaw out food and the fish seem to like it better. I always throw about a 1/4 of the food away from lack of eating and a flake treat at night (Maybe I should stop this). I was forced to shut down my 54 so I had to move everything into this one altho I did sell all my big fish to the LFS. I do have a lot of snails(Astrea 15, bumble bee 10, nassarius 50, margarita 25, cerith 10) and some scarlet and halloween hermit crabs. I notice the Astrea's clean the best so I will stop tonight and get some more from the LFS. I guess I should get some more Hermit crabs to deal with the excess food waste altho those little nassarius snails do a awesome job once the excess gets to the bottom. The Emerald crabs took care of the hair algea in no time however. I can't think of much more info at this time.

Jerry

 

[Scooterman]

You didn't mention how many & what size fish you do have at this time, that helps also, you may want to stay in check on how much your feeding, also try thawing in RO water instead & don't put that water back into the tank. Your keeping saps & softies so your probably poisoning the xenia some & that would be normal, glass boxes can't contain every species of corals without some ill effects, time will determine how bad that gets. Adding lots of hermits & snails will eat wasted foods & then poop, that poop will add up with the quantity of snails & hermits, so consider that when cleaning & removing detritus. The turbo floater is a great little skimmer, had one myself but even on a 100g tank, it can't keep up with that kind of load be sure to keep it clean & tweak it to remove as much as you can. Ever time you feed your tank your adding to the problem, so how do you feed your fish & still reduce detritus, removing it before it becomes a problem, vacuum your gravel get as much of it out as you can, keep that sump clean, your progress won't show up suddenly, it will take time to stabilize your system. Flow, you can have a 100 times turnover 7 still not be worth a crap, how tight are your LR's, can water flow around, between & keep waste suspended? Water placement is very important, get it right, get is randomly & get it well placed. Flake foods typically contain lots of "P" try feeding seaweed, it is a natural food, use a veggie clip, they work great. Last, the more information you can provide will give us a better chance to help but again it won't happen overnight, also hit the reading, it will reveal things that may be overlooked, sometime the simple things are a major problem.
HTH Jerry!

 

[davidabrown66]

yes, need more info here. This is all about nutrient import/export.
Import:
How is it being added? (frozen foods - rinse thoroughly, water processing-RO, bottled conditioners, salt mix used, your hands, anything that enters the water at all. Treat this like your in a biohazard situation, and don't want to cross contaminate.

Test your source water just before you top off your evap, b/c sometimes the source water can obtain nutrients after the RO process from something else you're doing or not doing, like cleaning out your RO water holding container.

Export: Good skimmer production daily, at least one Lb of live rock per gal, also suggest using (2) HOT Magnum Canister filters. 1 with carbon and denitrate, and another with phosguard. Run this in your sump for 24 hours at a time, and you will starve this out in a couple of weeks. Change out the media after a weeks worth of usage, and start again. Increase your water flow, b/c once the algae starts to die it will take oxygen with it as it decomposes. You should also have water flow at the surface of your water to move the top layer of water towards your overflows.

Cyano algae is an indication that there's not enough flow through your reef already, so need to plan on much more here at all levels.

I had this same problem in my 50 gal reef. I had zero nitrates/phosphates when testing, but tons of algae including red (cyano) algae, bubble (slimy) algae, turf, valonia bubble algae, and strange fish losses that I could'nt account for. I thought I had enough flow with a 10x's turnover rate, and 2 internal powerheads on a wavetimer...not!

I now have a turnover rate of 40+, b/c of SPS. Not a single hair of algae. I had to use Magnums for a couple of months on and off to keep my Phosphates and Nitrates close to zero after it was cured. If these numbers grow above .2, the natural process is for algae to consume these nutrients and use them for food. If this goes unchecked, the algae becomes prolific, and your test kits will eventually read zero, b/c the algae is so efficient in converting nutrients. Even your rocks might hold bound up phophates for a period of time. Make sure you use a powerhead to blow off the detritus.

We all want to help, but alas I'm being long winded, and still need more info.

 

[DonW]

Try "Chemiclean" used as prescribed I had good results. Also if you skimmer is too small, or tank is new (not fully cycled) like ours...outbreaks are pretty common for the 1st year or so.

Chemiclean is NOT a good idea.

Don

 

[DaBrowns]

It was prescribed to me from a RF moderator, and board sponsor. I trust him and it worked for us. However I agree that it's not a "solution" per se. Nor is it a substitute for good husbandry...but after coming home from an extended weekend getaway to a tank full of red slime...it ended the problem quickly...and hasn't been back yet.

 

[DonW]

It was prescribed to me from a RF moderator, and board sponsor. I trust him and it worked for us. However I agree that it's not a "solution" per se. Nor is it a substitute for good husbandry...but after coming home from an extended weekend getaway to a tank full of red slime...it ended the problem quickly...and hasn't been back yet.

It kills bacteria and works for things like cyano not green algae. Its also not selective and can kill benefical bacteria.

Don