Do I REALLY need an algae reactor?

[RC88]

Hello fellow reefers and happy holiday season to all,

I wanted to consult the forum as I have been debating this for a while.
I have a 22gallon reef tank and recently installed an algae reactor.
I haven’t had any growth for over a month and when I inspected the reactor today I noticed the algea was starting to brown and turned slimy. So I have ordered a new batch to replace and give another go. But whilst doing all this I wondered... do I even need an algae reactor in a 22gallon tank? The reason I installed one was for my nitrates. They are always at 25ppm. Everything else has been in line. I also liked the fact of not having to vodka dose etc to bring my nitrates down and saw this as a natural solution to keep my nutrients in check. Given that 25ppm of nitrates isn’t too bad. Should I continue to pursue this algae reactor idea? Any thoughts?

 

[RC88]

I forgot to add my filtration. My tanks filtration is at the back of tank. The first compartment I have some filter floss, then a bag of ceramic bio rings, a carbon media bag and lastly a skimmer.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Plenty of people don’t have algae reactors/refugiums on much, much bigger tanks. Dosing NoPox or a similar carbon is another method to control organics.

 

[RC88]

Plenty of people don’t have algae reactors/refugiums on much, much bigger tanks. Dosing NoPox or a similar carbon is another method to control organics.

Yeah I know what you mean regarding the dosing. I wanted to have a tank that didn’t need manual intervention. Specially as I could mess up the dosing etc. But perhaps that’s an easier route given the size of the tank. Regarding NOPOx - don’t I also need high phosphate levels for it to work?

 

[lavoisier]

How old is your tank? Are you planning on increasing the bio load and feeding?

An algae reactor or a refugium is the choice for many of us in helping to control NO2/NO3 and PO4, though as Legendary said many don't.

 

[RC88]

How old is your tank? Are you planning on increasing the bio load and feeding?

An algae reactor or a refugium is the choice for many of us in helping to control NO2/NO3 and PO4, though as Legendary said many don't.

The tank is about 6 months old now. I’m expecting to increase the amount of corals but no more fish. I currently have a clown fish, a candy hog, a canary blenny and 2 yellow belly damsels. And some clean up crew. I think the reason why my algae reactor never got going was because of the amount of cheato I added. I don’t think there was enough of it.

 

[lavoisier]

How much did you add? Golf ball size? Less? More? Do you have a pic of your reactor you could share? Normally, the more chaeto you have the more nutrients get pulled out. If nutrients are already low adding more chaeto would mean quicker die off. What is your PO4?

 

[RC88]

How much did you add? Golf ball size? Less? More? Do you have a pic of your reactor you could share? Normally, the more chaeto you have the more nutrients get pulled out. If nutrients are already low adding more chaeto would mean quicker die off. What is your PO4?

 

[RC88]

How much did you add? Golf ball size? Less? More? Do you have a pic of your reactor you could share? Normally, the more chaeto you have the more nutrients get pulled out. If nutrients are already low adding more chaeto would mean quicker die off. What is your PO4?

About a golf ball size yeah. The reactor itself is rather tall. My PO4 is at 0.2. I have been using my return pump to push water through at that’s a 160 g/h pump.

 

[lavoisier]

I don't think adding more chaeto will help. I might try increasing the flow through the reactor. Add a separate pump maybe something around 400gps. I don't know if this is available to you:



You should be able to find a relatively inexpensive pump and give it a try.

 

[RC88]

I don't think adding more chaeto will help. I might try increasing the flow through the reactor. Add a separate pump maybe something around 400gps. I don't know if this is available to you:



You should be able to find a relatively inexpensive pump and give it a try.

Thanks. I actually have this pump in my cupboard. I was hesitate to add it because it won’t look great in my tank display and I also read in other threads that cheato does well in slower currents? I’m tempted to try and leave the reactor out and try to lower the nitrates another way. Do all dosing methods take months before you start seeing the nitrates fall off? Should I be worrying about 25ppm nitrates given all my corals and fish are doing well?

 

[fish farmer]

I've never used a reactor so I can't help with that, but maybe take the chaeto and spread it out a bit in the reactor so the clump would get more light from the beginning.

I have a 29 gallon tank. My nitrates were around 30 ppm and phos much higher around 1 ppm. I put a fist sized piece of chaeto in a small section of my sump, put a cheap grow light from Home Depot directly above it and it grew. Maybe doubled the size in a month. I did have it tumbling a bit or I flipped it every few days. It took several months to get my numbers to fall.

I still have a ball of chaeto in the sump, grapefruit sized, stronger light lit from the side. I don't harvest as much now, nitrates and phosphates are practically zero.

 

[lavoisier]

I have had chaeto grow in both a low flow refugium (trickling) and a high flow (return pump) section of my sump, so either can work. I was suggesting a higher flow to see if that would help your uptake. I was thinking you had a sump (my bad) and get the aesthetic concern though! I probably wouldn't add that pump either.

Dosing methods should see pretty quick results but I would want the tank to stabilize again after a change. Do too many things at once makes it difficult to determine what is working for your tank and what isn't.

The health of our tanks is the ultimate decision maker. If your tank is doing well, I wouldn't change anything!

 

[RC88]

I have had chaeto grow in both a low flow refugium (trickling) and a high flow (return pump) section of my sump, so either can work. I was suggesting a higher flow to see if that would help your uptake. I was thinking you had a sump (my bad) and get the aesthetic concern though! I probably wouldn't add that pump either.

Dosing methods should see pretty quick results but I would want the tank to stabilize again after a change. Do too many things at once makes it difficult to determine what is working for your tank and what isn't.

The health of our tanks is the ultimate decision maker. If your tank is doing well, I wouldn't change anything!

I agree. I think I’ll monitor the tanks for the next two weeks without the hang on the back algae reactor. If nitrates increase I’ll re introduce it with more flow, spread across the reactor and see if that makes a difference. I’ve read in the past people claiming that for a small size tank like this, weekly water changes are sufficient to keep nitrates down but I do weekly water changes about 12% and my nitrates have always been around 25ppm. Seeing as my corals are growing and fish seem happy, I’ll leave things as they are for now. But love the idea of low nitrates haha. Very jealous of you guys.

 

[fish farmer]

I agree. I think I’ll monitor the tanks for the next two weeks without the hang on the back algae reactor. If nitrates increase I’ll re introduce it with more flow, spread across the reactor and see if that makes a difference. I’ve read in the past people claiming that for a small size tank like this, weekly water changes are sufficient to keep nitrates down but I do weekly water changes about 12% and my nitrates have always been around 25ppm. Seeing as my corals are growing and fish seem happy, I’ll leave things as they are for now. But love the idea of low nitrates haha. Very jealous of you guys.

Another thing to ask.

Do you any algae in your display or are you just trying to get numbers down because everyone says so?

In my situation I had lots of GHA and other macroalgaes I wanted to get rid of in the DT, so I employed chaeto in the sump to help with this.

 

[RC88]

Another thing to ask.

Do you any algae in your display or are you just trying to get numbers down because everyone says so?

In my situation I had lots of GHA and other macroalgaes I wanted to get rid of in the DT, so I employed chaeto in the sump to help with this.

Hey - no algae in tank, apart from the usual green tint on the bottom of the glass. I introduced the reactor to bring the nutrients down. Or at least to have something that controls them.

 

[garbled]

Chaeto is very sensitive to light. It is grown under a specific light amount, and becomes accustomed to that quantity. You will kill it just like any coral if you suddenly blast it with more light, or less, in some ways, it's even more sensitive than coral.

My first ball was from Algae Barn. Died in 2 weeks. My second one was from a local hobbyist, and grew like madness. I don't blame Algae Barn for this. Instead, his lights were more similar to mine, and I think it adapted easier.

My advice is to get different balls, from different sources, and one of them will work. It's frustrating at first.

 

[RC88]

Chaeto is very sensitive to light. It is grown under a specific light amount, and becomes accustomed to that quantity. You will kill it just like any coral if you suddenly blast it with more light, or less, in some ways, it's even more sensitive than coral.

My first ball was from Algae Barn. Died in 2 weeks. My second one was from a local hobbyist, and grew like madness. I don't blame Algae Barn for this. Instead, his lights were more similar to mine, and I think it adapted easier.

My advice is to get different balls, from different sources, and one of them will work. It's frustrating at first.

Thanks. Good advice and I was just about to order a new batch before posting on here. I guess I’m at the stage of thinking whether I should persevere with the algae reactor or ditch it. Although it’s a good idea and would stabilise my nutrients in the long run, I also wonder if it’s necessary for a 22gallon tank. I wonder if I can easily manage my nutrients other ways. I may try a NOPOx or vodka dose to bring my nitrates down as that’s the only thing that’s high atm. And just see how the tank develops? Sound sensible? Could I replace the algae for the bio pallets? Need to do some more research on those. But I think they also manage po3 and po4’s.