Feeling kinda defeated

[Australian_Reef]

Don’t be defeated mate

 

[Reefchik]

When I had a bit of a bryopsis issue once, some targeted peroxide seemed to help a lot, but it was really only a few isolated areas. I have tuxedo urchins as well and love them, but in my experience pincushion urchins will decimate most algae in a way the tuxedos just don't. Bit of a nuclear option because they do chew straight down to bare rock, but they've done a good job for me at getting rid of everything from algae to vermetid snails at various points over the years.

 

[allof fish]

One thing I haven’t seen talked about yet is your water and lighting schedule. You said 10% water changes. Are you using rodi water? And have the stages been changed recently? That can also contribute to a lot of algae. Hydrogen peroxide is a good move also. Add a large clean up crew and turn lighting schedule down and the amount of time

 

[fish_collector]

Is bubble algae really a cause for concern? I have it growing in my SPS tank and when it gets built up enough I just scrape it off and siphon it out. There is no harm in just popping them as well, nothing will become of that, they do not spread by doing so.

Reef Flux will kill bryopsis for sure if you follow the instructions word for word and leave it in the system long enough. You must also remove the cup from the skimmer and let it overflow back into the sump if you have one.

Don't feel defeated, you'll be a better, more educated hobbyist if you work through the difficulties one at a time. Awesome reef tanks weren't just filled with water and corals and them Bam! They were grown into what they are and have the same issues all of our tanks have.

 

[jadedog]

One thing I haven’t seen talked about yet is your water and lighting schedule. You said 10% water changes. Are you using rodi water? And have the stages been changed recently? That can also contribute to a lot of algae. Hydrogen peroxide is a good move also. Add a large clean up crew and turn lighting schedule down and the amount of time

My lighting schedule is about 11 hours long. I have a 6stage RODI BRS I change it out about every 5-6 months my TDS is always 0. I think its mostly the clean up crew doesn't touch bubble or Bryopsis so its kind of overruns the system. I dosed reef flux again last night for the Bryopsis and i am ordering some Pitho crabs for the bubble algae that's most of my problems so I'm hopeful it puts a dent in it.

 

[jadedog]

Is bubble algae really a cause for concern? I have it growing in my SPS tank and when it gets built up enough I just scrape it off and siphon it out. There is no harm in just popping them as well, nothing will become of that, they do not spread by doing so.

Reef Flux will kill bryopsis for sure if you follow the instructions word for word and leave it in the system long enough. You must also remove the cup from the skimmer and let it overflow back into the sump if you have one.

Don't feel defeated, you'll be a better, more educated hobbyist if you work through the difficulties one at a time. Awesome reef tanks weren't just filled with water and corals and them Bam! They were grown into what they are and have the same issues all of our tanks have.

Thanks for the encouragement! I order some crabs to help with the bubble algae and i re dosed reef flux last night! I think I will start manually removing the bubble algae too. I think last time when I ran reef flux it killed 90% of it but it left a small patch that didn't die. This time I will not do a water change until all of it is completely dead.

 

[davidm777]

Your fundamentals are good. The tank is young. The first advice from Reefer Matt is the route I would choose peronally. By adding a product you are adding something external instead of letting the tank do it's own thing. This would make your tank to take longer to settle and mature.
Patience and a good routine you can maintain every week and you will ride it out.
Whatever you do you will do fine since your fundamentals are fine. Your tank looks great. We as reefers sometimes tend to focus on the bad and stop enjoying the good.

 

[jadedog]

Your fundamentals are good. The tank is young. The first advice from Reefer Matt is the route I would choose peronally. By adding a product you are adding something external instead of letting the tank do it's own thing. This would make your tank to take longer to settle and mature.
Patience and a good routine you can maintain every week and you will ride it out.
Whatever you do you will do fine since your fundamentals are fine. Your tank looks great. We as reefers sometimes tend to focus on the bad and stop enjoying the good.

Thanks man! I hate to have to add reef flux but I've yet to find a invert that will eat Byropsis. I think some people have success with fox face or tangs but my tank is way to small to comfortable house those fish. I've tried turbos urchin hermits and variety of different snails nobody will touch it so it kinda forces my hand.

 

[Aframereef]

I had a purple tank that loved to eat bubble algae.

 

[caddnima]

Don't give up yet. Worst come to worst. Remove all the corals from the rocks, move rocks out of the main tank and then bleach them in a separate container. If you don't know how to bleach, then YT can help you. If you don't want bleach, you can also try 3% hydrogen peroxide. Also check YT for proper ratio.

Also if you're going to do this much, make sure you already bought all the corals you want, and after this, don't add anymore. Or have a second tank as observation tank.

 

[swiss1939]

I would argue not to dose with cures for all of this stuff. Do as minimal as possible. Add more cleanup crew including urchins which do the most damage to algae . Water changes, with adding gfo to sump for like a week or two just to help get ahead. Also get a refugium or an algae scrubber going ASAP. I have a small Santa Monica filtration algae scrubber going and it does I fine job once it gets growing... Takes a month or so to really ramp up. The macro algae in a controlled location is your long term nutrient reducer that makes it easier to maintain lower levels of algae you don't want. Definitely wouldn't remove rocks and power wash them. Doing all this other stuff chasing results only leads to more problems. I've taken this approach for over a year now with patience and one day you realize you don't have to scrape the glass much anymore, and you'll notice all the surfaces in the tank stop having overgrown algae but just the minimal amount that your fish and clean up crew can keep up with. Patience, willingness to live with the nuisance algae while the process works out and a light touch to prevent other problems. I still have bubble algae, but even that is not spreading as much, and what is there doesn't seem to be doing well. Add far as aptasia, like some have said.. Shrimp. Get a few peppermint shrimp. Reduce feeding in your tank for a week or two and they get hungry enough to clean the tank of aptasia overnight. You'll always have some, but peppermint shrimp do their job and once the aptasia gets big enough, they eventually get to it and remove it.

My first few tanks I did all this results chasing with quick solutions and those tanks never were able to settle down. Problems always popped up as a result of some heavy handed solution I used.

 

[swiss1939]

It takes a while to find the right balance of feeding, clean up crew, maintenance and lighting. Just keep moving forward making small subtle tweaks to things like how much you feed and eventually things settle down. The hardest part of this hobby is just accepting nuisance unsightly things while you slowly find solutions using those 4 basic inputs and outputs. Algae is food. As long as you aren't ignoring your tank and not doing maintenance, you are working slowly towards improvements. And when in doubt... Just add more snails, or hermits, or urchins (little more caution with urchins cause they will be so efficient they can run out of food and starve). More clean up crew never hurt anyones tank. And don't be afraid to stop feeding the tank for like 3-4 days at a time. Starvation is a strong motivator for all the inhabitants to start chipping away at all these things they ignore when food is ample.

 

[swiss1939]

Last suggestion and then I'll shut up.. get a brine shrimp hatchery going. Feed brine shrimp to your tank.. And if you have an lfs near which has adult brine shrimp get that like once a week or once every other week.

I get a bag of adult brine every other week and feed it to my tank over the course of three days. So every other week they get a feast. And you stop feeding dry or frozen for those days which reduces nutrients going into the tank.

I've recently tried hatching my own brine and feeding them right after hatching and everything in the tank loves it, even the adult fish you would think wouldn't notice the tiny brine. Even the feather dusters seem to be doing better and growing faster. So I decided to just start hatching brine a few times a week and feeding that instead of dry or frozen for as long as it lasts. All of this live feeding replaces dry or frozen feeding and my belief is that drastically reduces the nutrients going into the tank. Live brine doesn't rot and break down. And a much higher percentage of it gets eaten than dry or frozen. Hatching brine shrimp is cheap. Also a bag of adults from my lfs is like 10 bucks every two weeks.

I could raise them to adult and provide my own adult brine but just haven't bothered setting up a tank for that. $10 every other week is worth the savings in effort. But the effort involved in hatching baby brine is like zero, so I do that.

 

[craftycamper]

I have had bryopsis twice now. The first time it took over my tank when it was completely new and needed reef flux to get rid of it and it worked well. This most recent time I started noticing some small patches of bryopsis and bubble algae. I got some pitho crabs and I cannot recommend them more! I haven't heard of them picking at corals and generally seem to be better behaved than emeralds. They have been mowing down my hair algae and bryopsis and I saw them demolishing bubble algae within a day of being added. I do see them hanging out on my zoas sometimes but they are picking algae out from between them, they dont seem to pick at the zoas. If any of them become problematic then ill send them to the refugium but for now they are working quite well. I will probably have to start supplementing their diet because its pretty picked clean at this point.