4 year old tank Still going through algae cycles

[Treefer32]

I've seriously just accepted that this part of reefing. One never gets away from algae cycles. But, I'm tired of scraping my glass and releasing tons of dead algae into my display. Especially now that I'm going without water changes. I used to make tank scraping day my water change day on my 340 gallon display.

So, here's the deal. I go through this cycle on my end panes of glass and my back glass. My back glass is painted black (on the outside) and the end pains are clear. Since the tank is in wall, I let the end glass build up with algae because I get tired of scraping it from inside the tank every 2-3 days.

So, It goes through a cycle of film algae, which my blennies gladly eat. Then, it turns into fuzzy brown / green algae, then that gets covered with a layer of cyano, then it all dies and the fuz just stays attached as an ugly gray brown fuzzy algae. That stays there indefinitely until I scrap the glass. It comes off really really easy. But, I hate releasing it into the tank.

My front glass I scrap every 2 days with my flipper, so it stays clear of the fuzziness.

Just wondering if this algae cycle is normal on my tank glass?

My stats are as follows:

PHosphates: .06 ppm (been this now about 4 weeks in a row)
Nitrates: Not tested.
Salinity 1.025
Alk: 8.8 dkh
calcium: 525
Mg: 1540
ph generally 8.1 to 8.4

Filtration is:
Algae turf scrubber - is full of hair algae every 3 days.
Skimmer
Vodka dosing 7 ml per day.
filter socks replaced every 2-3 days.
25 micron nu-clear cannister filter - cartridge replaced every 3 -4 weeks.

Have 4 gyres and 2 MP40s for circulation.

Do I just need to deal with the ugly hair algae and be glad it's easy to scrape once or twice a week?

 

[blaxsun]

You could always try a UV.

 

[G Santana]

I finally beat back GHA but I still have to clean my glass on average every 3-4 days. I run a skimmer, scrubber and a UV, feed lightly and still I have to clean my glass that often. That's maintenance for you.

 

[Dkmoo]

I assume you run the scrubber 20/7 already? Sound to me that the cause is that your entire filtration isn't keeping up with the maturing tank.

Keep in mind that nutrient export isn't sequential - nutrient doesn't line up and to through your sump and return to your DT as clean water. Whats happening is that nutrient is everywhere in your system and being exposed and absorbed by everything at the same time (algae, coral, skimmer, scrubber, etc. ) then this becomes a probability game of relative surface area exposure of "everything in DT that can absorb nutrient" vs "everything in Sump that can export nutrient". As tank matures, you will have more biodiversity so more organic nutrient processors but your sump's processor is more or less fixed. Also, chances are your DT light is much stronger than the photosynthesis that's going on in your scrubber.

If you are already maxing out your scrubbers harvest rate, then to remedy you gotta just add more "algae growing capcity" in your sump. Afterall, every strand of gha grown in your sump is one less that'll grow in your DT.

Add a lot more CUC can also help. Their job will help upcycle the nutrient locked up in the DT algae back into the water column so it has more chance to be absorbed by sump's processors.

 

[Treefer32]

@Dkmoo in working with Turbo Aquatics I am running the scrubber 22 / 7. I turn lights off for a half hour on the scrubber 4 times a day. I used to do 14 on and 10 off and it took 7 days for the scrubber to build up, when I talked to Turbo Aquatics he mentioned running it 24/ 7. Or an intermittent half hour here and there to let the algae rest. But, that raised my growth rate from every 7 days to every 3 days, pretty much doubling the speed. Which was phenominal. I wondered if anyone lets the algae grow, let it go through a 6 month cycle on the glass will it burn itself out? Within about the 2nd or third week of growing it loses any green or yellow it had and turns brown or gray. It really doesn't live long, I didn't know if something else would grow in its place or it just would look ugly for a while.

Fish don't eat it when its dead.

I have an underpowered cleanup crew. Mostly asterina starfish and about 10 snails. I had more, but, my dragon wrasse decimates them. I have a Conch that somehow has survived 3 years being carried around the tank by the Dragon Wrasse.

I agree, it's maintenance, just trying to determine how I can spend less time in the tank cleaning stuff.

 

[ZoWhat]

You need smthg to OUTCOMPETE the algae you already have.

That's where home brewed tetraselmis phyto comes in.

If you dose this type of phyto daily, within 2mos your algae problem will almost disappear. All bc the phyto outcompetes and eats the nutrients that's feeding your algae.

 

[NoahLikesFish]

paul b's tank still goes through algae cycles. i assume all tanks can and will cycle thru algae. in his book, he talked about getting a bunch of condium algae and gha in his tank. everything was flourishing and eventually it just died away.

 

[Dkmoo]

@Dkmoo in working with Turbo Aquatics I am running the scrubber 22 / 7. I turn lights off for a half hour on the scrubber 4 times a day. I used to do 14 on and 10 off and it took 7 days for the scrubber to build up, when I talked to Turbo Aquatics he mentioned running it 24/ 7. Or an intermittent half hour here and there to let the algae rest. But, that raised my growth rate from every 7 days to every 3 days, pretty much doubling the speed. Which was phenominal. I wondered if anyone lets the algae grow, let it go through a 6 month cycle on the glass will it burn itself out? Within about the 2nd or third week of growing it loses any green or yellow it had and turns brown or gray. It really doesn't live long, I didn't know if something else would grow in its place or it just would look ugly for a while.

Fish don't eat it when its dead.

I have an underpowered cleanup crew. Mostly asterina starfish and about 10 snails. I had more, but, my dragon wrasse decimates them. I have a Conch that somehow has survived 3 years being carried around the tank by the Dragon Wrasse.

I agree, it's maintenance, just trying to determine how I can spend less time in the tank cleaning stuff.

Phyto can work, as zoa said. I don't recall if you have UV. But should turn that off if going with phyto route bc you don't want to sterilize the phyto. Skimmer may also counteract some of its effectiveness bc it can pull phyto out. But turning skimmer off is probably worse so its still a net positive to dose phyto. Also depends on how dense your home brew is so the correct dosage is trial and error. I dose my tank too, basically i increased the dosage every few days to see if there's any negative reaction. So far nothing negative happened which lead me to believe its hard to OD on phyto. Just go slow and monitor, then react.

Also, Have you considered large urchin? Maybe the spikes can fend off the wrasse. What about a sea hare? One urchin does the job of 5 snails. 1 sea hare does the job of 10 snails.

If there is room in the sump, maybe also add a fuge. As zoa said, its all about outcompete, so the more you step up the sump game, the less algae will grow on DT.