My tank is packed with SPS and I haven't lost any pieces for 6 months. Things are going great in that department, but I've been gone on the road for 9 weeks and I've got some green turf algae to deal with. I'll go over my tank so you guys can help me with some suggestions.
About 470 gallons for the system.
I am running GFO, bio-denitrator and a huge refugium with lots of macro algae that gets harvested every other week. The refugium light comes on opposite of my lights and it's doing great.
Parameters have stayed extremely stable and within the desired range for SPS.
Temp swings are from 77-77.3
Radions are running at 90% for 5 hours and then they ramp up and down
I don't have any hair algae, diatoms or cyano. I haven't noticed anything in the water column and it looks clear to me.
Clean up crew is 1 sand sifting star fish and 6 conches for my sand. I have 8 emeralds, about 2 dozen of those huge snails and 30 -40 crabs. I realize I may be low on the crab/snail side, but they don't touch the turf algae anyway and I believe most of my excess nutrients are sucked up by all my SPS. The sand sifting crew does a great job keeping it White.
Since I've been gone, my wife has been feeding the tank and I believe she has been over feeding and that's where the problem started from. But as I read about Turf Algae, it feeds off of very very low excess nutrients and it's difficult to get rid of, so my initial thought of over feeding, may not be where it came from. But I'm not really sure lol
I do have a Naso Tang, but he doesn't pick at algae on the rocks. Personally, I hate tangs and I refuse to put anymore into my system, so tangs are out of the question. It's hard to find any information about people resolving this issue on any of the big forums. I did find a couple people that say Chitons will do the job, but no one can confirm it. Snails, crabs and sea hairs won't touch it and I have not noticed any of my emeralds on it either. It's very hard to get off the rocks and someone suggested using a screw driver so I tried that. I spent about 7 hours on Sunday and got about 5% of it out of the system, but most of it is unreachable. I really don't want to rip into my stack, but I guess that will be a last resort.
I first saw it about 6 months ago on 1 single rock, but I didn't think anything of it and didn't really care it was there. When I got back from Toronto the other day, it had spread like wild fire. I have not changed anything on my tank or added anything since I've been gone which was around the 19th of July.
I read an article of someone doing a black out for nearly 90 days and this algae was still in his system. Kind of frustrated, but I'm tempted to just leave it and keep moving forward with more corals and maybe have them battle it out for nutrients. I have around 60 pieces of SPS with some fairly large colonies.
It would be nice to speak with someone who has successfully eliminated the problem from their tank.
Suggestions? lol
About 470 gallons for the system.
I am running GFO, bio-denitrator and a huge refugium with lots of macro algae that gets harvested every other week. The refugium light comes on opposite of my lights and it's doing great.
Parameters have stayed extremely stable and within the desired range for SPS.
Temp swings are from 77-77.3
Radions are running at 90% for 5 hours and then they ramp up and down
I don't have any hair algae, diatoms or cyano. I haven't noticed anything in the water column and it looks clear to me.
Clean up crew is 1 sand sifting star fish and 6 conches for my sand. I have 8 emeralds, about 2 dozen of those huge snails and 30 -40 crabs. I realize I may be low on the crab/snail side, but they don't touch the turf algae anyway and I believe most of my excess nutrients are sucked up by all my SPS. The sand sifting crew does a great job keeping it White.
Since I've been gone, my wife has been feeding the tank and I believe she has been over feeding and that's where the problem started from. But as I read about Turf Algae, it feeds off of very very low excess nutrients and it's difficult to get rid of, so my initial thought of over feeding, may not be where it came from. But I'm not really sure lol
I do have a Naso Tang, but he doesn't pick at algae on the rocks. Personally, I hate tangs and I refuse to put anymore into my system, so tangs are out of the question. It's hard to find any information about people resolving this issue on any of the big forums. I did find a couple people that say Chitons will do the job, but no one can confirm it. Snails, crabs and sea hairs won't touch it and I have not noticed any of my emeralds on it either. It's very hard to get off the rocks and someone suggested using a screw driver so I tried that. I spent about 7 hours on Sunday and got about 5% of it out of the system, but most of it is unreachable. I really don't want to rip into my stack, but I guess that will be a last resort.
I first saw it about 6 months ago on 1 single rock, but I didn't think anything of it and didn't really care it was there. When I got back from Toronto the other day, it had spread like wild fire. I have not changed anything on my tank or added anything since I've been gone which was around the 19th of July.
I read an article of someone doing a black out for nearly 90 days and this algae was still in his system. Kind of frustrated, but I'm tempted to just leave it and keep moving forward with more corals and maybe have them battle it out for nutrients. I have around 60 pieces of SPS with some fairly large colonies.
It would be nice to speak with someone who has successfully eliminated the problem from their tank.
Suggestions? lol