Algae... admit I have a problem

[BriansBrain]

I have to swallow my pride and ask for help with a newbie issue and ask you to beat a dead horse. Algae. My tank is still young at 11 months and has gone through several uglies. But this hideous algae conglomerate has been driving me crazy for 4 months. I’ve had patience, and I still do, but it needs beat back because it’s at plague proportions now and stripping nutrients and smothering coral. It only really grows on the rock and a little on the back glass.

I don’t have a microscope but it looks like Alot of turf and maybe others. I’ve been running BRS GFO in a reactor changing media every two or less weeks. I started dosing and used a bottle of Continuum Bacter Clean M as directed on the bottle, not sure that’s done much. Dosed microbactor7 as well. After, did a round of fluconozole. It worked but the algae came back and stronger. I am starting to be convinced the rock (pukani, Tonga, Fiji) I reused from my last setup was not cured 100% and is leaching. Most of the rock is anchored and glued, so pulling rock out to clean is not ideal. I can however remove and about 25% easily and dip. But it usually just comes back.

I am currently trying a 3 day blackout now to try and beat it back some. I kow it’s not a cure all, but what would you recommend I try and do during and/or after the blackout?
I have a little nopox, but I don’t think nitrates are my problem. But idk that’s why I’ve come here lol
I feed once per day frozen and have not specifically fed corals in a while.
135ish gallon system
no3 2, po4 0.02 pH 8.1-8.4, Alk 8.5dkh, CA 420, I need test Mg when I get home, but was last at 1520
4 radions xr 15 ab+ @ 62%
6 urchins, tons of trochus snails (they keep multiplying), dwarf ceriths, Kole tang, chocolate tang, 2 clowns, 4 chromis, 2 wrasses, and a very skittish small blue throat trigger.

Pictures are nasty obviously and a lot of floaters because I was doing a water change and trying to pull what I can off. Pretty tough to manually remove

 

[Cole.mormon]

have you tried microbacter clean

 

[Cole.mormon]

a multifaced attack is good

 

[Cole.mormon]

try imagitarium algea reducer microbacter clean and seachem purity

 

[Cole.mormon]

i used i beat algea in an month

 

[Cole.mormon]

What media are you running

 

[BriansBrain]

What media are you running

My export is Granular

What media are you running

just BRS Granular GFO in a reactor currently along with the algae scrubber on for 20 hours, skimmer, and BRS 2 part

 

[Bdroid]

If you don’t have a refugium, you can try vibrant. Based on BRS, vibrant is very effective and seem to have cleared up a lot of their test tanks within 9 weeks. Maybe, someone who has experience using vibrant can chime in.

 

[Cole.mormon]

filter floss, sump any filtration items

 

[Cole.mormon]

it has killed a few of my corals

 

[BriansBrain]

have you tried microbacter clean

I have not tried that but I do have some dr Tim’s refresh and waste away sitting around come to think of it

 

[Cole.mormon]

microbacter clean has enzymes and bacteria that specifacly eats algea

 

[Gordonm]

If you don’t have a refugium, you can try vibrant. Based on BRS, vibrant is very effective and seem to have cleared up a lot of their test tanks within 9 weeks. Maybe, someone who has experience using vibrant can chime in.

Vibrant did work for me.

 

[Gravity]

Follow the Dr Tim’s algae recipe. The refresh and waste away combo has really reduce my algae. If you want to be more aggressive follow the Dino recipe which utilizes a blackout. Either way it promotes growth of heterotrophic microbes to absorb nutrients instead of photosynthetic organisms.

 

[BriansBrain]

microbacter clean has enzymes and bacteria that specifacly eats algea

If you don’t have a refugium, you can try vibrant. Based on BRS, vibrant is very effective and seem to have cleared up a lot of their test tanks within 9 weeks. Maybe, someone who has experience using vibrant can chime in.

Yea my opinion is the nutrients are absorbed by the algae before it is free in the water column where my filtration can take care of it. I think CUC and bacteria are my best best, but I’ve been trying both (baster clean m) for a couple months and the $ adds up fast maybe I just need to try a different bacteria cleaner product?

 

[BriansBrain]

Follow the Dr Tim’s algae recipe. The refresh and waste away combo has really reduce my algae. If you want to be more aggressive follow the Dino recipe which utilizes a blackout. Either way it promotes growth of heterotrophic microbes to absorb nutrients instead of photosynthetic organisms.

Since I just started a blackout last night, And have those two products sitting around I’ll give the Dino tactic a try

 

[pseudorand]

I tie a toothbrush to a hose and scrub mine off during water changes. It's a lot of work and won't be a permanent fix, but since you can't remove your rocks...

Also, do you have a fuge? I have a similar size tank with similar params (though my phosphate is 0.1). But I have a big ball-o-chaeto that really took off when I started supplementing iron. I have no way of knowing how much that helps, but it seems like macroalgae would compete for lots of things we don't even know to measure, while GFO and such just remove phosphate, leaving other trace elements that giving some organism an advantage over others.

AlgaeBarn also recommends jump starting your pod population with ocean magik, which I have tried. Something helped, but I made lots of changes over a few months, so I have no idea of that's what helped.

Can you turn down your lights without impacting your corals?

 

[Fishnchips]

1) reduce your photoperiod. Cut off an hour or two in the am and pm. 2) feed a lot less for a few weeks 3) consider dosing no pox or other carbon 4) try fluconozole or vibrant 5) wait for results

 

[CrazyCarlitos]

U can try Fluconazole if all else failed.
It’s usually used to get rid of bryopsis.. but will also take out other nuisance algae afaik.
Only thing is that unless u find the source of the excess nutrient, the other algae (besides the bryopsis) will come back.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bryopsis-cure-my-battle-with-bryopsis-using-fluconazole.285096/

Good luck!

edit*. Just read that u already tried it.

 

[BriansBrain]

I tie a toothbrush to a hose and scrub mine off during water changes. It's a lot of work and won't be a permanent fix, but since you can't remove your rocks...

Also, do you have a fuge? I have a similar size tank with similar params (though my phosphate is 0.1). But I have a big ball-o-chaeto that really took off when I started supplementing iron. I have no way of knowing how much that helps, but it seems like macroalgae would compete for lots of things we don't even know to measure, while GFO and such just remove phosphate, leaving other trace elements that giving some organism an advantage over others.

AlgaeBarn also recommends jump starting your pod population with ocean magik, which I have tried. Something helped, but I made lots of changes over a few months, so I have no idea of that's what helped.

Can you turn down your lights without impacting your corals?

I do not have a chaeto refugium because of space restraints but have a algae scrubber. It’s really tough to scrub off but I’m sure it won’t hurt to do that with a hose attached. Will adding phyto for the pods raise nutrient levels?