Algae issues

[Qasim]

I remember last year I had a lot of green hair algae all over my rockwork and i was not able to fight it. I went on a holiday and left my tank under my friends maintenance who was feeding the tank very little he was sometimes forgetting to feed for a whole day and I left my tank under his control for two weeks later on when i came back all the algae was gone nothing was left

 

[Snowxcross]

someone mentioned taking a rock at a time and pulling it from the tank and brushing it, what would be the proper procedure for this? I have GHA in my tank and I have been physically removing as much as I can and "pinching" it off while I do water changes, but I feel like I haven't made any progress and I feel the tank still looks the same after weeks of chasing it down.... if removing the rocks and brushing them will help me get a little ahead, maybe that might be the route to take...

It will get you ahead for sure, however you need to know what's causing the GHA. So doing all that work scrubbing rocks will be fine until the GHA comes back. Look, i still "pinch" some stuff off rocks too and run a super low nutrient tank, yet a little grows here and there. Try to know what's causing the GHA, figure out what it is exactly you need to do, lower nitrates, add flow, adjust lighting intensity, whatever... once you've done that and phosphates are low, scrub some rocks and put the turbo snails to work!

 

[Qasim]

I think it all started with a chocolate chip starfish dying and decaying in my tank that I totally forgot about a couple months ago that I just remembered. it was living in my sump for a long period of time and it was doing well but I forgot about it and it was gone I couldnt find it nor pieces of it. afterwards the algae wave came and corals are dying because of this and Im not sure what to do at this point. Im just skimming and adding more nitrifying bacteria for the past 5 days and today will be the last day of adding the nitrifying bacteria then I will add on a weekly basis.


I did a nitrate test yesterday my nitrates were down between 25-50 on a salifert NO3 test kit which I guess is 40ish. Im using Microbacter 7 and I was thinking if I should use Brightwell aquatics razor marine if it claims to remove algae from the rockwork it might be helpfull to get rid of the algae from my rockwork.

 

[Blutspitze]

someone mentioned taking a rock at a time and pulling it from the tank and brushing it, what would be the proper procedure for this? I have GHA in my tank and I have been physically removing as much as I can and "pinching" it off while I do water changes, but I feel like I haven't made any progress and I feel the tank still looks the same after weeks of chasing it down.... if removing the rocks and brushing them will help me get a little ahead, maybe that might be the route to take...

Seconded what's said above. Figure out what's causing the issue, then scrub after adjustments are made. When I do this for the rock and powerhead in my fuge during scraping days - I use a stiff-bristled toilet brush (it's exclusively a rock brush, no worries) and go to town. I'll do it during a water change, so I can use the old water to rinse, and just scrub scrub scrub. It works wonderfully well for soft algae and leaves the coraline.

I think it all started with a chocolate chip starfish dying and decaying in my tank that I totally forgot about a couple months ago that I just remembered. it was living in my sump for a long period of time and it was doing well but I forgot about it and it was gone I couldnt find it nor pieces of it. afterwards the algae wave came and corals are dying because of this and Im not sure what to do at this point. Im just skimming and adding more nitrifying bacteria for the past 5 days and today will be the last day of adding the nitrifying bacteria then I will add on a weekly basis.


I did a nitrate test yesterday my nitrates were down between 25-50 on a salifert NO3 test kit which I guess is 40ish. Im using Microbacter 7 and I was thinking if I should use Brightwell aquatics razor marine if it claims to remove algae from the rockwork it might be helpfull to get rid of the algae from my rockwork.

Dead things'll definitely do it. Have you checked ammonia levels? That's what tends to spike after a death and decay. Either way, the best way to reduce nitrates will be to get water changes done.

 

[Qasim]

Thanks for the reply i checked my parameters, everything apart from my magnesium is more than enough. Alk 13,5 po4 btw .01 and .025 nitrate 50 and mag was 1230 i dosed some mag but my corals are not happy at all. All closed up and i already started to loose heads from my lps corals buble anemone has shrunk palm size to an inch everything is doing bad i have thought of selling some of my fish and do heavy water changes but i had coral pro salt but there is aquaforest reef salt available now. I will get thst and start doing big wster changes like every week around 30% of water hopefully afterwards things will get better if not any worse.

 

[DJMCB35]

@Qasim, slimy and bubbles can be cyano as well. From your pictures and description, I would say it is GHA and cyano that are your main problems. Though it is not impossible to have dino's with GHA and cyano, dino's don't compete very well with other algae and bacteria. That is why dino's tend to show up in near 0 nutrient systems, they are better at survival when other competitors are nutrient limited.

I would highly encourage you to consider eliminating the source of food for these algae by checking out some threads by @brandon429. Just click on his thread here or look for threads started by @brandon429. His process would clean your tank up in a few hours and if done correctly, will continue to keep it clean. I have had great success using his methods.

Can you point me towards the particular thread you’re referring to, please? I’ve looked at all the headings and lead in verbiage. There’s just so much. I’m looking for the hair algae fix. Thanks.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Can you point me towards the particular thread you’re referring to, please? I’ve looked at all the headings and lead in verbiage. There’s just so much. I’m looking for the hair algae fix. Thanks.

Just click on the highlighted word "thread" in my post and it will take you to the thread.

I'm surprised I saw your question since this thread is 2 years old. In the future, you might want to consider direct messaging questions to the individual you want information from in threads this old, otherwise your questions are likely to go unanswered IMO. Good luck :)!