Combating Turf Algae - Thoughts on H202?

[Dou g]

Trying to overcome my agae woes. All (98%) of my long hair algae is gone in the display tank, but now I have a stubborn Turf Algae growing. I saw videos of people suggesting spot treating each day where roots are more stubborn, but some threads on here seem to have me believe there is no such thing as spot treating and that it impacts the whole tank regardless. I originally thought the h202 would breakdown relatively quickly, but further research seems to suggest 2-4hours.

Spot treating would be applying h202 in display with a dropper (5-7ml) to the problem areas with zero flow in tank for 30-40 minutes. I tried it two days a week ago and Algae in those spots is lighter, but I didn't do follow up treatments after reading the forums more as I originally thought this was a less invasive approach than treating the whole tank or using another algaecide. So far i do not see visable negative affects to coral/fish/inverts. Is there an overall consensus I'm just not finding?

I have a 40G Breeder with sump (30G tank, ~15gal of water, filter socks, skimmer, chaeto refugium). Refugium is only a few months old so still establishing. Chaeto is growing but so is a bunch of other algae/slime (not dinos) in there.

I'm leaning into better controlling nitrate phosphates, but terrified of bottoming them out after a long battle with Dinos which there has been no signs of visually or under microscope for about a year (yay!).

Here are some pictures up the algae attached to sand siphoned during a water change.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Sounds like you have a lot of filtration on a 40b, more filtration than my 40b, so I'm wondering how you have such a bad algae problem? What livestock do you have, how much do you feed? You don't mention the nitrate phosphate level so its hard to comment on that, but algae is caused by high doc's and low clean up crew. What kind of flow do you have in the tank?

This is a great article to understand why algae grows:

DOC is The Most Important Parameter For A Healthy Reef Tank: Here’s a New Method to Manage It | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

In this article, I will provide an overview of my take on the current zeitgeist of reefing and explain why the entire industry is ignoring a critical aspect of coral care. I will explain what issues…

reefbuilders.com

 

[Dou g]

Also still have hob filter running from before adding sump. Weekly/semi weekly water changes (5 gal). I'll post nitrate and phosphates tonight after I test. I generally feed a half or whole (if spot feeding coral) cube of frozen hikari brine or mysis. Current stock is as follows

2 clowns
Yellow watchman goby
Tiger pistol shrimp
Royal gramma
Purple firefish
Lawnmower blenny
Blood shrimp
8 astrea snails
2 trochus snails
8 bumble been snails
2 cerith snails
2-3 nassarius snails
1 Halloween hermit
2-3 blue legged hermits

I also have an abundance of vermited snails, pineapple sponges, other potential sponge/tunicates, spirobids. Also a random tucked away bivalve I only recently found.

Not sure if my clean up crew should be sufficient. 5 of those astrea snails are recent and really helped clear the majority of hair algae in the tank that wasn't manually removed.

 

[Dou g]

Here is the tank currently under whites

 

[damsels are not mean]

Here is the tank currently under whites

Needs more coral, simple as that

Mother nature will not waste a resource so precious as light. If you provide it she will use what she has on hand to harvest it. If her only option is algae then so be it.

This is not bad skill on your part or a problem with your tank setup. It's just what's going to happen when a system lacks other things to grow there. It may help to increase the amount of herbivores, especially urchins or maybe even one of those lettuce nudibranchs. Turf algae is unpalatable to most fish and snails afaik.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

That doesn't look bad at all, I agree with above, get some turbo snails in there to eat that algae, and more corals to shade the rocks and increase biodiversity.

 

[Dou g]

Okay, thank you all for the input. More coral is a work in progress. Four of the frags (montipora digitata, Clove Polyps, and 2 hammers) were purchased within the last month or two and then the Turf Algae started to appear all over. I was worried I'd start to have an issue with it taking over the existing and new coral and wanted to get algae under control before adding more. More coral coverage casting shade on rocks is an interesting concept. i didn't think about as it relates to algae. I'll try and make an additional investment later this month.

I did try and buy a tuxedo urchin today, but out of stock. I gave away my longspine urchin after it was consistently snacking on coral. Hoping a tuxedo will be more reef safe and help mow through the Turf algae.

 

[Doctorgori]

No Urchins?

 

[VintageReefer]

if turf algae and hair algae is growing out of the sand it is very likely the sand is phosphate bound, chemically.

As you remove phosphate form the water - through whatever means you use, phosphate is released in an equal amount from whatever it is bound to. This forms an equilibrium or balance between the levels in the water and on the surfaces

Ex - your tank is currently a .08 for phospate on a water test. You add food today. Your fish poop today. Your water increases to a .09

But you run gfo or some means that absorbs .01 a day. You are back to your .08 tomorrow. No progress is made

However. If you are adding .01 a day let’s say, bu you increase phosphate removal methods to remove .03 a day, then…
You are at .08. You add .01 and become a .09. But your media increase brings you down to a .06, yay! But next day…you measure a .08. The media increase didn’t work? Wrong

You reduced that day down to .06, but the phosphate bound surfaces reacted and released enough to bring you back to the equilibrium level of .08.

On a test kit it appears nothing happened. Or if your quick you can measure the drop, but the next day it’s back up. That’s exactly the pattern / sign you want. A measurable drop that reverts. That is extracted phosphates from the surfaces they are bound to

Eventually. Eventually the surfaces will run out, or become very very low, and that is when they are cleaned and no longer binding up excess phosphate.

How does this all relate to your sand turf algae? As phosphate is released, it becomes exposed to new things:
Water current and Light. These elements grow algae. Combine that with a rough surface - sand…rock…and the algae has something to root onto. And thus, as you pull phosphate out of sand and rock, you will get algae forming on the areas that had it bound up the most.

You need to remove this algae and the sand that is clumped to it. And continue extracting phosphates. You are not stripping the tank to zero even if you measure zero. The algae growth is a sign you have phosphate. The excess algae is consuming phosphate in the water just like corals are. You continue extracting phosphate and removing algae clumps and one day…it stops. And when that algae stops growing, the amount of phosphate it consumed, will instead remain in the water for corals.

Gfo is a method. Phosguard is another. Algae scrubbers are my choice as there is no media to replace and they are great at sucking up excess phosphate. And work 18 -20 hours a day.

The process can take weeks or months depending how bad the problem is. This is really the only method.

Herbivores will eat it, but it will continue to grow. Herbivores also may not eat it. It’s a band aid not a solution. I’ve seen so many people told to get an urchin or get tangs. Then they are next complaining about how they got one and it doesn’t touch it. It all depends on the type of algae.

My tanks sand and rock are 10 years old. No algae growth. But, 8 years ago I had this issue - algae growing right from the sand. And I cured it in 4 months with an algae scrubber. The problem got worse before it got better. As I extracted more and more over time. New algae patches would form in the sand. And after a few months…it turned pale, then white, then disintegrated, And it has never returned

 

[Sdbuehler1]

@VintageReefer you are using the Surf algae scrubber correct? I have a chaeto refugium on one of my tanks and while my nitrates have always been fine, my phosphate is always high and I use GFO to keep it from getting too high. I’m setting up a new tank and going to give the SURF 4 a try to see how it does. Will be interesting to see if it does a better job at controlling phosphates.

 

[VintageReefer]

Surf 2

I hooked it up side by side with a healthy cheato fuge. The surf 2 killed all the cheato and then controlled nutrients better

RIP