Algae issues.

Sharkattackmack

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So I'm having an issue with both algae and phosphate. I tested twice on the weekend. Once with the red sea and once with the Hanna. Hanna gave me much high results than the redsea so I was confused. Anyways I did a water change later that night and tested again today and the Hanna tester said I was up to .63 phosphate. In the last two days I've really noticed the algae growing fast on my rocks. Almost came out of the blue but it is hard to tell with the bluelights.

Tomorrow I'll do another water change. I will take a few hours off my lighting schedule and continue to monitor.

I have rowaphos bagged and ready. I have 4-5 dwarf hermits with 3 more on the way, trochus snail, 2 nassarious and a porcelain crab. I've been trying to find a tailspot blenny but there isn't much in my area for one. Feeding I'm going to be more watch full of how much I do.
 

ScottR

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Controlling nutrients such as phosphate is important but I’d look at long term solutions. Some people always keep something like rowaphos in their tank at all times. But manual removal is usually my first method of action and then establishing long term goals such as feeding appropriately, weekly or biweekly water changes, zero TDS RODI, running a refugium or algae turf scrubber among other things. It’s also important to try to ID the type of algae you’re dealing with as sometimes it looks like algae but could be something else (dinos or cyano for example). GHA (green hair algae) is quite common and there are many threads on here about the ways others have tackled this problem. For some algae, a clean up crew will eat but some just leave it alone.

I saw you got nassarius snails and a porcelain crab. Nassarius snails won’t touch the algae but may help clearing up uneaten food in the sand. Porcelain crabs primarily filter feed and won’t touch the algae.
 
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Sharkattackmack

Sharkattackmack

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Controlling nutrients such as phosphate is important but I’d look at long term solutions. Some people always keep something like rowaphos in their tank at all times. But manual removal is usually my first method of action and then establishing long term goals such as feeding appropriately, weekly or biweekly water changes, zero TDS RODI, running a refugium or algae turf scrubber among other things. It’s also important to try to ID the type of algae you’re dealing with as sometimes it looks like algae but could be something else (dinos or cyano for example). GHA (green hair algae) is quite common and there are many threads on here about the ways others have tackled this problem. For some algae, a clean up crew will eat but some just leave it alone.

I saw you got nassarius snails and a porcelain crab. Nassarius snails won’t touch the algae but may help clearing up uneaten food in the sand. Porcelain crabs primarily filter feed and won’t touch the algae.
Thank you! I will take some photos of it tomorrow and upload them. Currently I think over feeding might have been my issue. Nothing has been out of the ordinary other than my LFS has no shrimp so I had to feed with blood worms.

I picked up a robuddie which I will be buying new cartridges for sometime this week. The last tote I made was reading at 14 and the filter resin is looking brown. I'm curious if this is also my issue as I tested the jug I have been using and as someone here mentioned maybe the jug is leaching something into the water as it now reads 44.

If it wasn't for it being winter/covid I found a place that has the blennys in stock it's just a long drive for me to pick one up. Ill keep you posted.
 
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Sharkattackmack

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Just got home from work and took these. My filter floss is brown and it was a new piece last night. Looks like some hair algae on the base of some corals. About to do a waterchange and debating putting the skimmer back in.
 

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ScottR

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I see what could possibly be diatoms (brown algae commonly seen in newer tanks. They use silica to build their shells and usually go away after a few months or so). I also see film algae which is normal. In a reef tank, we actually want algae because if we can’t grow algae, we can’t grow corals. Your tank looks perfectly normal and I wouldn’t go nuking it.
 
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Sharkattackmack

Sharkattackmack

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I see what could possibly be diatoms (brown algae commonly seen in newer tanks. They use silica to build their shells and usually go away after a few months or so). I also see film algae which is normal. In a reef tank, we actually want algae because if we can’t grow algae, we can’t grow corals. Your tank looks perfectly normal and I wouldn’t go nuking it.
Thank you!
 

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A product that I have been having a lot of success with is Vibrant. I used to work for a aquarium service company and I would say that I used Vibrant in about 90% of all my services. Gives a lot of stability and the bacteria competes against the algae for nutrients, reducing significantly algae issues of any kind. A plus is that its natural so you can't really overdose. Here it is https://amzn.to/3qDVyrY
 

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