Film algae

[Radicalrob1982]

Hi all. Thanks for reading

I've had my tank up and running close to two years. I use to run a 75 tidal hob filter. But I removed it and now just have my live rock doing all the work. It's doing a great job on its own. It takes 3 to 4 weeks for the nitrate to go up to about 8ppm in which I do a water change.

My issue is that I'm constantly getting film algae. It's a dark brown algae that coats my glass and sand. Kinda looks like diatoms in a way. I test for phosphates and usually never get a reading. I lately run a small hob aquaclear with chemipure thinking it would help but it hasn't done much. My alk, calc and mag are all kept at good levels. I have two clowns, a small coral beauty and a tiger goby in my 20 long. All fish are happy and eat well. I don't over feed either.

Is it just too much bio load for the tank? My nitrates take forever to rise so I know my bio filter seems to be working. Just wondering which way to go. To try a protein skimmer or to run a reactor with gfo? Has anyone had a similar problem?

Tank,fish,corals all seem to be doing well. It's just pesky algae. I almost have to scrape daily.

All in all I do my testing to keep my water parameters good for my fish and corals.

 

[Dkmoo]

Its an excess nutrient issue, your test kits are not showing high no3 / po4 and it takes forever to raise because its being absorbed by the brown algae

Need to increase nutrients export - skimmer, fuge, etc..

 

[Radicalrob1982]

Its an excess nutrient issue, your test kits are not showing high no3 / po4 and it takes forever to raise because its being absorbed by the brown algae

Need to increase nutrients export - skimmer, fuge, et

Its an excess nutrient issue, your test kits are not showing high no3 / po4 and it takes forever to raise because its being absorbed by the brown algae

Need to increase nutrients export - skimmer, fuge, etc..

Would a water change bi weekly help? Or am I better off just getting a skimmer first and seeing how it goes? I was looking at the tunze 9001 . It has a lot of good reviews. What you said makes perfect sense. Like the same way phosphates never

 

[Radicalrob1982]

Would a water change bi weekly help? Or am I better off just getting a skimmer first and seeing how it goes? I was looking at the tunze 9001 . It has a lot of good reviews. What you said makes perfect sense. Like the same way phosphates never rise because they all get absorbed. I don't mind doing water changes. I just try to do the minimum for the environments sake. I'm welcome to entertaining a fuge. But ive read that it takes a sump size ballnof chaeto to make a big enough difference to nutrients. But I've also read people running hob ones and having good results lol

 

[Dkmoo]

Would a water change bi weekly help? Or am I better off just getting a skimmer first and seeing how it goes? I was looking at the tunze 9001 . It has a lot of good reviews. What you said makes perfect sense. Like the same way phosphates never

Yeah all that should help but please keep in mind the below

1) skimmer helps pull out the waste/organics before they break down to no3/po4. It does not directly pull out no3/po4.
2) only algae/coral/bacteria can consume no3/po4 directly. This is where fuge can help to soak up the left over no3po4 that the skimmer misses
3) water change can directly pull out no3po4 but only in proportion to the %, where it helps more is actually the sand vacuuming that pulls out more detritus
4) no3po4 will always be in your water bc your fish is a constant source of it (via poop/pee break down, and missed by skimmer). Since the no3po4 does not discriminate where its going, it really becomes an issue of "surface area exposure". So, any surface area that does not have the biodiversity to compete and absorb the no3po4 against the nuisance algae will also be prone to the nuisance algae growing, bc typically the nuisance algae is one of the easier organism to establish themselves in a new free area. This aspect is why new dry rocks go thru the ugliest but is eventually fixed via maturation. Glass pane, on the other hand, is always kept clean so will always be more prone to film algae where the only way to mitigate is to make the rest of your surface area as big and as mature as possible so that proportionally, you minimize the no3po4 thats exposed to the glass panes to minimize film growing

 

[Radicalrob1982]

Does it make sense then that when I had my tidal 75 running I had less algae? I had it jammed to the top with matrix and shook/rinsed it out in the display water I was removing to protect the bacteria. Is it because there was more surface area in the filter that it helped with nitrate export?

 

[Radicalrob1982]

Yeah all that should help but please keep in mind the below

1) skimmer helps pull out the waste/organics before they break down to no3/po4. It does not directly pull out no3/po4.
2) only algae/coral/bacteria can consume no3/po4 directly. This is where fuge can help to soak up the left over no3po4 that the skimmer misses
3) water change can directly pull out no3po4 but only in proportion to the %, where it helps more is actually the sand vacuuming that pulls out more detritus
4) no3po4 will always be in your water bc your fish is a constant source of it (via poop/pee break down, and missed by skimmer). Since the no3po4 does not discriminate where its going, it really becomes an issue of "surface area exposure". So, any surface area that does not have the biodiversity to compete and absorb the no3po4 against the nuisance algae will also be prone to the nuisance algae growing, bc typically the nuisance algae is one of the easier organism to establish themselves in a new free area. This aspect is why new dry rocks go thru the ugliest but is eventually fixed via maturation. Glass pane, on the other hand, is always kept clean so will always be more prone to film algae where the only way to mitigate is to make the rest of your surface area as big and as mature as possible so that proportionally, you minimize the no3po4 thats exposed to the glass panes to minimize film growing

I just remember when it was running I had barely any algae and my nitrates were always around the 8 to 10 mark lol