Algae Problem

[KPH]

Hey all,

Hope you are all well!

I started up a FOWLR tank back in June. Went through the normal diatom phase and it seemed to go away eventually with coralline algae spreading from my one live rock i had to all the others. Well, i’ve noticed it’s been slowly creeping back in and suddenly, almost over night it seems, it and green hair algae are everywhere. Nothing has changed. Feeding hasn’t changed, light amount hasn’t changed. I’m at a bit of a loss.

My question is how to get rid of it. I’ve read everything from scrub it all off with a toothbrush, to dosing with phosphate removing chemicals, to direct hydrogen peroxide treatments in tank. How would you guys recommend removing this stuff?

The green and brown algae are even all over the shells of my snails and crabs.

 

[SPR1968]

You could try manually removing it, but you really need to find the cause and then address that

You dont say what your nutrient parameters are, but I’m guessing it could be caused by raised phosphate levels, although you may get a false low level if the algae is using this as a food source.

 

[Subsea]

Welcome to reefing. As I looked at your other thread titles, I see you are operating a 29G and considering converting a 55G to a marine ornamental.

what livestock do you have in the tank?

what does your clean up crew consist of?

Pictures tell a thousand words!

History of tank maintenance and in particular, nutrient export mechanisms,

 

[KPH]

Sorry for the late reply.

Testing the water showed everything within normal limits. Don’t have a phosphate test though.

The tank has 2 clowns, 2 yellow tail damsels, a strawberry pseudochromis, and a neon doddyback (gigantic *******)

Cleanup crew is: 6 snails (not sure what kind they all are but it’s an assortment) 4 dwarf hermit crabs...all are red legs i believe.

 

[SMSREEF]

Manual removal is the best way. Even on the snail shells.
You can also spot treat rocks with peroxide out of the tank. But only spot treat so you don’t kill the good bacteria inside the rock.
You need many more snails. I would have at least 15 (a mix of trochus, cerith, astrea) but they will not eat the long stuff. They will help keep it from growing back.
An emerald crab would be good to add as well.
Urchins are good algae eaters too, but they will eat your coralline algae too. Some people don’t mind this, but if you like your coralline, urchin may not be right.

 

[KPH]

Manual removal is the best way. Even on the snail shells.
You can also spot treat rocks with peroxide out of the tank. But only spot treat so you don’t kill the good bacteria inside the rock.
You need many more snails. I would have at least 15 (a mix of trochus, cerith, astrea) but they will not eat the long stuff. They will help keep it from growing back.
An emerald crab would be good to add as well.
Urchins are good algae eaters too, but they will eat your coralline algae too. Some people don’t mind this, but if you like your coralline, urchin may not be right.

I’d prefer to keep what coralline algae i have left and hopefully more spreads. My main concern with adding more clean up crew is my doddyback. He’s pretty aggressive towards anything new i put in. He harasses snails and the hermit crabs, flips them over etc. He’s already killed a peppermint shrimp. I’m afraid adding a larger crab will trigger him again.

You’re recommending i add all this to my 29 gallon biocube? Is that too many snails/crabs etc?

I should probably remove the dottyback and either stick with the fish in there or get another less aggressive smaller fish.

Thoughts?

 

[raylinds]

I had a horrible algae problem and just recently got rid of it. I got a large container of Phosphate E and some Vibrant. I have a phosphate test kit that was showing pretty low phosphate levels. I was dosing the Phoshphate E based on instructions for my level of phosphates. I was not seeing good results and was confused about how I could have so much hair algae with fairly low phosphate levels. I did some research and came up with a theory that there was a lot of phosphates in the algae that was not showing up in the tests.

Based on this theory, I started dosing 5X the recommended dosage of Phosphate E daily and the recommended dosage of Vibrant weekly. I also reinforced my cleaning crew with more snails and blue legged hermits and started to scrape algae off the glass whenever it appeared. I brushed some off of the rocks that were covered the worst.

After about a month my aquarium is almost completely clear of algae, including the rocks. Now I think I can trust the phosphate tests and dose as directed if I need to. I think I was grossly overfeeding and have cut back on that.

WARNING: While this worked for me I do not know if there may be adverse effects to overdosing the Phosphate E, so I am not recommending it. My fish are all doing great and I have not added any corals as I wanted to get rid of the algae before adding any. If someone more knowledgeable about reef chemistry is aware of a problem with overdosing the phosphate killer, please chime in.

Ray

 

[SMSREEF]

I’d prefer to keep what coralline algae i have left and hopefully more spreads. My main concern with adding more clean up crew is my doddyback. He’s pretty aggressive towards anything new i put in. He harasses snails and the hermit crabs, flips them over etc. He’s already killed a peppermint shrimp. I’m afraid adding a larger crab will trigger him again.

You’re recommending i add all this to my 29 gallon biocube? Is that too many snails/crabs etc?

I should probably remove the dottyback and either stick with the fish in there or get another less aggressive smaller fish.

Thoughts?

I have 8 snails in my 10 gal cube. 12 or more in my 10 gallon macro, and at least 30 plus a bunch of trochus babies, and 10 hermits in my 60 cube.
I’m not sure what to say about the dottyback. My orchid leaves everything alone.

 

[SMSREEF]

If you happen to live in Miami I can give you some baby trochus snails.

 

[KPH]

I don’t. I live in Mississippi. Ok. I’ll grab some more snails and probably a few more crabs. I think I’m going to have to get rid of my Dottyback if he’s just gonna keep killing my clean up crew.

I’ll look into the phosphate E that was mentioned. I picked up some seachem phosphate removing gel balls and will be putting them in today. But I’d also like to dose the water directly.

I think once that starts going I’ll be able to take out some of the snails, crabs and rocks that are the worst and scrub them a bit easier.