Salt Creep
Active Member
Hello reefers,
I have been battling this brown hair algae for quite some time and I haven't been able to effectively beat it. Tank is over a year old, coral and livestock do fine. I have tried researching and found maybe this is from low nutrients. I have had undetectable nitrates for a while but didn't do anything about it because the coral has done ok. I did pick up some ESV nitrate yesterday and probably going to start dosing to get around 10ppm but before I make any changes I wanted to check with you all to see how others have dealt with this specific algae. I have a robust CUC with astrea, trochus, turbo, nassarius, and margarita snails, about 20 blue and red legged hermits, sand sifting star, 3 peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, 3 emerald crabs, 2 pincushion urchins, 1 tuxedo urchin... might be forgetting some.
Fish:
5 chromis
2 dispar anthias
1 Tomini tang
2 clowns
1 diamond goby
1 purple firefish
1 royal gramma
1 bengai cardnal
I feed one frozen cube rotating through a saltwater multipack with a pinch of pellets spread through the day in small amounts
Tank:
75 gallon tank with 20 long sump, skimmer and carbon reactor. 4 XR15 for lighting on a modified AB+ schedule (less reds and green) par ranges from 250 around the edges to up to 400 in the middle part. Flow is provided by 2 MP10s and 2MP40s with about a 50x turnover. Started with BRS dry rock with about a 2" sandbed. RODI always tested and 0 TDS, red sea blue bucket salt
Params:
35ppt salinity
1300 mag
8.5 dKh
440 calcium
0.03 phos
undetectable nitrates
pH stays between 8.2 and 8.3
kept stable with 2 part dosing
If I am forgetting any helpful information let me know and I will provide it. I have been battling this for about a year. It does come off pretty easy with a small hose siphon, brush, or blasting it hard with a baster. This "works" but I have to do it weekly, it doesn't get all the stuff in the small crevices of the rock, and makes a huge mess of my tank with algae floating around until it gets caught on the powerheads or overflow at which point I will clean it off. I do use a fish net to get the large pieces.
This is a lot of work and annoys everything in the tank when I do it so I am hoping to come up with a solution. Would raising my nitrates help? My CUC doesn't seem to attack this algae very much and I have dealt with algae in past tanks but nothing like this.
I have been battling this brown hair algae for quite some time and I haven't been able to effectively beat it. Tank is over a year old, coral and livestock do fine. I have tried researching and found maybe this is from low nutrients. I have had undetectable nitrates for a while but didn't do anything about it because the coral has done ok. I did pick up some ESV nitrate yesterday and probably going to start dosing to get around 10ppm but before I make any changes I wanted to check with you all to see how others have dealt with this specific algae. I have a robust CUC with astrea, trochus, turbo, nassarius, and margarita snails, about 20 blue and red legged hermits, sand sifting star, 3 peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, 3 emerald crabs, 2 pincushion urchins, 1 tuxedo urchin... might be forgetting some.
Fish:
5 chromis
2 dispar anthias
1 Tomini tang
2 clowns
1 diamond goby
1 purple firefish
1 royal gramma
1 bengai cardnal
I feed one frozen cube rotating through a saltwater multipack with a pinch of pellets spread through the day in small amounts
Tank:
75 gallon tank with 20 long sump, skimmer and carbon reactor. 4 XR15 for lighting on a modified AB+ schedule (less reds and green) par ranges from 250 around the edges to up to 400 in the middle part. Flow is provided by 2 MP10s and 2MP40s with about a 50x turnover. Started with BRS dry rock with about a 2" sandbed. RODI always tested and 0 TDS, red sea blue bucket salt
Params:
35ppt salinity
1300 mag
8.5 dKh
440 calcium
0.03 phos
undetectable nitrates
pH stays between 8.2 and 8.3
kept stable with 2 part dosing
If I am forgetting any helpful information let me know and I will provide it. I have been battling this for about a year. It does come off pretty easy with a small hose siphon, brush, or blasting it hard with a baster. This "works" but I have to do it weekly, it doesn't get all the stuff in the small crevices of the rock, and makes a huge mess of my tank with algae floating around until it gets caught on the powerheads or overflow at which point I will clean it off. I do use a fish net to get the large pieces.
This is a lot of work and annoys everything in the tank when I do it so I am hoping to come up with a solution. Would raising my nitrates help? My CUC doesn't seem to attack this algae very much and I have dealt with algae in past tanks but nothing like this.
