Green/Brown algae problem

Stelioshah · Apr 20, 2019

Greetings, for the past few months i have been facing a huge algae spike. It mostly affects tank's glass because coraline algea is fighting it out of my rocks but it definitely still manages to get on my rocks. The thing is that the "spectacular problem" is that this type of algea has somehow managed to grow on the surface of my tank. If i leave it for long in enough to grow, i can even scoop it with a fish net. I have tried to fight it by doing water changes every other week even though my water parameters are not out of reasonable boundaries and also by cleaning the glass and getting the algae out of the tank. Does anybody have any ideas? I recently read about dosing H2O2 but as i saw in a video the dosage was ment to happen on the rocks in contact with the algae, in contrast my tank is infested with this algae overall (as i said earlier it has even managed to grow on the tank's surface blocking the light).
Water Parameters:
Salinity: 1.026
Phosphates: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 0 ppm
Magnesium: 1300 ppm
Calcium: 430 ppm
Alkalinity: 10 dkh
My lights are maxspect razor r420r and run from 7:30 am to 9:30 pm with the max intensity of 72%.
What you see in the net is what comes off the surface of the tank using the net.

Ron Reefman · Apr 21, 2019

Do you use a skimmer? And how does the skim-mate look? Do you skim wet or dry?
Do you have a refugium? Is the macro algae growing well?
Do you use any mechanical filtration (filter socks or filter floss in the sump)?
You run your lights for 14 hours a day. IMHO that too much unless a big chunk of those hours are ramping up and down. And what is the mix of blue vs white in terms of time and power settings?

Stelioshah · Apr 21, 2019

Ron Reefman said:
Do you use a skimmer? And how does the skim-mate look? Do you skim wet or dry?
Do you have a refugium? Is the macro algae growing well?
Do you use any mechanical filtration (filter socks or filter floss in the sump)?
You run your lights for 14 hours a day. IMHO that too much unless a big chunk of those hours are ramping up and down. And what is the mix of blue vs white in terms of time and power settings?

Thanks for the reply, Yes i do use protein skimmer and i skim wet the skimmate is a liquid with a brown-ish color. Unfortunately i do not have a refugium nor macro algae (i already know that macroalgae is pretty much necessary to any successful tank but it is really hard for me to get a piece where i live). I do have an external water filter but i do not use filter socks or a filter floss. I dose active carbon in my water filter.
And my light schedule is the following
Whites/Blue
Starting at 7:30 am at 0%/0%
at 10:00 am 55%/65%
at 13:30 pm 60%/72% (which is the peak of the light cycle)
at 17:00 pm 53%/67%
at 18:30 pm 48%/63%(they pretty much almost stay from 17:30 to 18:30
and they go back to 0% 0% at 20:30, no i do not use any moon lights.
I have read lots of articles saying that the ratio should be 2 blues/1 white and i have already tried this but it seems way too blue to me. I have seen other people's aquariums and they are definitely not that blue.

Ron Reefman · Apr 21, 2019

Stelioshah, I just noticed that you only joined R2R yesterday! Welcome to the group.

As for your light. You're right about a lot of reefers running a 2:1 ratio. I run 3:1 for 6 hours of midday which is when most of the Zooxanthellae in the coral does it's photosynthesis. For 4 hours of ramp up and 5 hours of ramp down I'm even more like 4:1 and for the first 2 hours and the last 3 hours I'm all blue. But then I built my tank around having the zoas and rock flower anemones that fluoresce the best under blue leds.

You do realize that most algae is like terrestrial plants and use the red and yellow spectrum which your algae gets from the white light. I'd start by making your ramp up and down either shorter or more blue.

I'm not a fan of the 3 day black out, so I tried a variation and it's worked well a couple of times for me. I cover the tank with big towels or a blanket so no outside light gets in. Then I run just the blue leds for 6 hours a day. The corals open up and look quite normal, but the algae fades away. I just had some dinos develop in my tank and I did this variation for 9 days while we were away on vacation. When we came home the dinos were gone and a month later I still have no algae issues.

dwest · Apr 21, 2019

Yes welcome!

Do you have a magnet glass cleaner?

Stelioshah · Apr 21, 2019

Ron Reefman said:
Stelioshah, I just noticed that you only joined R2R yesterday! Welcome to the group.

As for your light. You're right about a lot of reefers running a 2:1 ratio. I run 3:1 for 6 hours of midday which is when most of the Zooxanthellae in the coral does it's photosynthesis. For 4 hours of ramp up and 5 hours of ramp down I'm even more like 4:1 and for the first 2 hours and the last 3 hours I'm all blue. But then I built my tank around having the zoas and rock flower anemones that fluoresce the best under blue leds.

You do realize that most algae is like terrestrial plants and use the red and yellow spectrum which your algae gets from the white light. I'd start by making your ramp up and down either shorter or more blue.

I'm not a fan of the 3 day black out, so I tried a variation and it's worked well a couple of times for me. I cover the tank with big towels or a blanket so no outside light gets in. Then I run just the blue leds for 6 hours a day. The corals open up and look quite normal, but the algae fades away. I just had some dinos develop in my tank and I did this variation for 9 days while we were away on vacation. When we came home the dinos were gone and a month later I still have no algae issues.

Thank you very much for the reception and for the tip as well! I am going to try the "blanket and all blues" way to kill the algae then and hope it is going to work, becuase this algae spike is for real devastating.