Why so green ?

[Nanolifeuk]

Having a nightmare with the algae on the back wall. The rocks are cured that way and I’m not particularly bothered about them (I read that they should turn darker and purple as coralline takes over)

This algae is so hard to scrape away, I press as hard as possible with my scraper but it just prevails. I water change every week and I’m sick of it growing back before the next w/c.

As you can see I am trying to start GSP on the wall so I could do with this being finito asapo

thanks peeps

 

[Timfish]

Looks like the normal "uglies" to me. Algae is ubiquitous, trick is getting enough corals and sponges and other stuff competing with algae for nutrients and the right combination of herbivours to keep algae in check. Here's some links:

Establishing a Healthy Microbiome in a New Aquarium Using Live Rock

Studying the effects of live rock in a newly established aquarium shows that high-quality live rock promotes the rapid establishment of an effective biological filter and a microbial community similar to those found in mature reef tanks.

www.reef2reef.com

Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont


BActeria and Sponges


Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)


Richard Ross What's up with phosphate"


Regarding DOC this book and video are excellent introductions:


"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems

 

[Nanolifeuk]

I’ll check these out- thanks man ! My tank went through a horrible ugly phase about 6 months ago dinos bubble algae the lot , I would class it a pretty clean now with the blues on it’s just that back wall.

ive introduced corals again last week (just a few frags) hopefully I can get these growing and outcompeting.

on a seperate note I have just done a full house of salifert tests, every single parameter is low.

kh 7.0
Mg 1200
Ca 400
No3 >or=2
Po4 0

I do my weekly water change tomorrow (20L tank is 60L) surely the corals and algae aren’t consuming all that down.