Brown hair algae with zero nutrients.... HELP!

[kuora4]

Hey, so there this brown hair agae growing continuously in my display over the rocks.... It used to be green hair algae, but now its brown.. I tried getting some out, but it just grows back!... Phosphates and nitrates are at 0 ppm, I use RO/DI water for water changes... The thing is that I need to bring up nitrates a bit to feed the coral, but I cant do it if the algae wont go...

Corals are thriving, growing, and opening their polyps... But now they're starting to lose some color due to the low nutrients I believe...

Here are the parameters:

Salinity: 1.025
Alk: 8.95
Phos: 0
Nitrates: 0
Ca: 420
Temp: 24 - 26
PH: 8.4

Lights (radions): 2h dimming, 7h 100% blue, royal blue... Its a deep tank, so at the middle PAR values are less than 200.

 

[ptreef]

how old is tank?
Whats the clean up crew?
What are you testing with?

 

[kuora4]

how old is tank?
Whats the clean up crew?
What are you testing with?

The tank is new, 4 months.... But it had the regular algae outbreak in the fisrt 2 months... Then it was fine... Then this brown algae...

Clean up crew is, turbo snails, nerite snails, blue-leg hermits

Testing with hanna for phos, and salifert for nitrates.... Th rest is hanna

 

[rayn]

If the phosphate and nitrate are 0 and algae is still growing, they are consuming it too.

I had the same issue, added a rabbit fish and it is gone. This doesn't solve any nutrient issues though.

 

[bubbaque]

Have you tried using GFO?

 

[Jorden Watkins]

Gfo can be great for nusaince algae problems, of course there are stubborn kinds of algae that don't seem to respond to low nutrients such as bryopsis alage

 

[melev]

The algae may be brown because of the lack of nutrients, yet there is still enough to keep it present. You'll really need to manually remove the bulk of it by hand, and then add a new crew of critters to devour what remains. A big herd: one critter per gallon is what I'd recommend.

My video about GHA removal explains how to remove it from the rock. It won't be fun, it's not easy, but it works every time.

 

[BluewaterLa]

The tank is new, 4 months.... But it had the regular algae outbreak in the fisrt 2 months... Then it was fine... Then this brown algae...

Clean up crew is, turbo snails, nerite snails, blue-leg hermits

Testing with hanna for phos, and salifert for nitrates.... Th rest is hanna

Questions about the said brown algae.
Does it easily siphon off the rocks or sand ?
Does it quickly grow back almost overnight ?
Is it slimy to the touch almost snot like ?

 

[kuora4]

Questions about the said brown algae.
Does it easily siphon off the rocks or sand ?
Does it quickly grow back almost overnight ?
Is it slimy to the touch almost snot like ?

Sorry for the late answer... I was away from the forum for a while.. To answer your question, yes, yes and yes.... Im thinking its diatoms that are growing over the tiny GHA... What do you think?

 

[BluewaterLa]

Could you post a picture of it pulled out and in your hand ?
Or maybe Pm me and then text me a picture ?
I aske the questions above because I've run into similar algae that were extremely aggressive and hard to kill off with out breaking the tank down and sterilizing everything.
Getting a good ID can lead to good advise on how to get rid of it quickly.
There are certain algae described as brown/tan, snot like slime that can be killed off by removing iron in the water.

Get back with me or shoot me a pm.

 

[kuora4]

Could you post a picture of it pulled out and in your hand ?
Or maybe Pm me and then text me a picture ?
I aske the questions above because I've run into similar algae that were extremely aggressive and hard to kill off with out breaking the tank down and sterilizing everything.
Getting a good ID can lead to good advise on how to get rid of it quickly.
There are certain algae described as brown/tan, snot like slime that can be killed off by removing iron in the water.

Get back with me or shoot me a pm.

Hey! Thx for your answer...

So here's a better description of the issue:

I had TONS of GHA at the beggining, it was LONG and strong... As the nutrients went down so did the strength of the algae, its color starter fading and venetually became white and short... I was happy here...

After a couple weeks I added some sand to my sump (I couldnt add it at the beggining) now, I know that the sand releases silicates, and the diatoms feed on them to build their algae-like architecture... So... What happens now is that I have very little green algae, its almost white, and over it there are brown strings growing, they easily disolve at touch... If I brush a rock, its disolves and there is nothing left to grab... Usually when you do this there are some strings of algae you can catch in the overflow... Nothing with mine.. It just dislves...

Here's what it looks like

 

[kuora4]

Here's how it looks today

 

[BluewaterLa]

Good deal it seems you have starved out the green hair algae.
You can siphon out the dying slime with water changes so you ensure that you are removing most of the mess that could possibly grow back.

A good tool for removing green hair algae from the rocks is a wooden BBQ skewer, as you stick the pointed end on the rock and twist it the hair algae will wrap up around the stick and you can pull it out, clean end of skewer and repeat. This will remove a large portion of the green hair algae giving you a jump on getting rid of it.

I'm glad it is working out for you and that you are learning in the process.
I am equally happy that the brown strings were just the green hair algae withering away as it starved out.

 

[kuora4]

Good deal it seems you have starved out the green hair algae.
You can siphon out the dying slime with water changes so you ensure that you are removing most of the mess that could possibly grow back.

A good tool for removing green hair algae from the rocks is a wooden BBQ skewer, as you stick the pointed end on the rock and twist it the hair algae will wrap up around the stick and you can pull it out, clean end of skewer and repeat. This will remove a large portion of the green hair algae giving you a jump on getting rid of it.

I'm glad it is working out for you and that you are learning in the process.
I am equally happy that the brown strings were just the green hair algae withering away as it starved out.

Thx man! I'll keep you updated on this! Hopefully it'll go away!

 

[BluewaterLa]

Keeping a good maintence schedule of water changes and good skimming will aid in nutrient removal. Feeding enough to keep your fish healthy, not over feeding will help keep nutrients down.
Be careful of coral foods, additives like liquid fuel among others can add nutrients to the water to keep nuisance algae thriving.
If coral nutrition such as amino acids among others cannot be tested for in the aquarium we should always be reserved when dosing the tank with these products.
Again good husbandry and routine maintenance will go a long way in keeping the tank free of nuisance algae blooms.
Good luck and happy reefing

 

[Keilus]

Questions about the said brown algae.
Does it easily siphon off the rocks or sand ?
Does it quickly grow back almost overnight ?
Is it slimy to the touch almost snot like ?

I am having the same issues in my y biocube 29 gallon.
yes on all 3 questions

 

[homegrowncichlid]

An algae scrubber and a heavy clean up crew will clear that up for you.
Everyone talks about clean water and maintenance, however, over time algae will grow. It's like trying to stop a blade of grass from growing on your newly plowed dirt awn. Given water, light and nutrients a seed will sprout. So step one is to add the usual clean up crew of herbivores. Unfortunately, any crab will learn to eat your dry food over tough algae. You need the crabs to mow the lawn, before the snails can polish it down.
When I moved to algae scrubbing and after the scrubber was established, algae will grow everywhere, without preference between the scrubber or the main display. With a very heavy clean up crew only in the main display (I'm talking about 3 or 4 x the usual amount of snails, hermit crabs, and even 3 urchins in a 75gallon), the algae in the display will eventually be out competed by the algae in the scrubber. Yes I still get some patches of dark green hair algae in the display, which no one likes to eat. (The usual pest of cyano, dinos or diatoms could bloom in, but that can happen to anybody, since very few organisms will target feed off those) The tough dark green hair algae seem to grown in a at tight cracks and crevices and expand outwards, I control that with 3 days of total black out every 1 or 2 months. That is enough to weaken and soften them up just a bit for the appropriate herbivore to pluck off. I find the fox face to be the most adventurous with plucking this non-tasty hair algae (bryopsis included). Even if he doesn't eat it, he just plucked it off, tastes it and spits it back out, I still consider this control, just not by eating, the floaters will get filtered out.