Help Please! - Beginner - Algae Issues in 6 Month Old Tank

[JPCommenter]

Hi All,
I currently have a 6 month old tank that is going through an algae outbreak. I know this is to be expected in a newer tank, but need advice on what I should be doing to mitigate. I know 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates is not good, but I don't know if feeding the tank more will make the algae problem worse. I've seen many different opinions about whether or not the tests are reading false zeros since the algae is consuming the nutrients.

-20 gallon IM Nuvo
-Caribsea Life-Rock
-Hygger Mini Wave Maker
-Filter floss & Red Sea Reef-Spec Carbon
-IO Reef Crystals salt
-2 clowns
-1 Tailspot Blenny
-3 Trochus Snails
-2 Nassarius Snails
-2 Cerith Snails
-1 Tiger Conch
-1 Porcelain Anemone Crab
-1 Duncan coral (staying mostly closed the past month)
-1 Toadstool (seems to be doing fine)

Parameters (Salifert tests):
Nitrates: 0
Phos: 0
Calc: 425
Alk: 7.5
Mag: 1290

In the past I was doing 20% bi-weekly water changes, but have been doing 15% weekly for the past 2 weeks since the algae got worse. Below is a pic of the tank before I manually removed most of the algae, which I do when I do water changes. I never run white lights, but I turned them on for the photos. I guess the other question is how people manually remove this type of algae without changing the water, if the WCs hurt the tank by taking nutrients out. It's always easier for me to just remove while I'm doing my WC. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[HardyG]

I replaced the filter sock with the InTank caddy that you mentioned. Thats on the right side. Nothing but filter floss in it now. No issues with buying Chemi Blue. Again, the biggest dilemma that I've seen on R2R is that beginners (me), see contradictory opinions about if nutrients are 0, should you stop doing water changes vs doing more.. There doesn't seem to be a consensus. I really appreciate your input though.

You did the right thing to post! This discussion is often had on more mature tanks that may have demanding bio-loads/high filtration in different forms that are ridding the tank of certain elements like nitrates. In those cases dosing nitrates is necessary. In your case the more nitrates you add, the worse your algae is going to get. Your 0 nitrates are not caused by over filtration or high coral consumption. It’s the algae consuming it and licking their lips with forks in hand waiting for more

 

[JPCommenter]

I appreciate everyone's feedback so far.. if i add 1 more trochus, 2 more Nassarius, 2 turbos, is that good enough? Do I need to add Chemi-pure Blue since I already have Reef-Spec? I have like a year supply of Reef-Spec since my tank is so small. I don't want to scrap the Reef-Spec unless I have to. But I dont know the difference between the two.

 

[JPCommenter]

Update. Maybe Dinos?

 

[randomfishdude]

Dosnt look snotty engough to be dinos.

 

[JPCommenter]

Dosnt look snotty engough to be dinos.

Thanks for your quick response, I dont want it to get to the snotty air bubble stage. I have a microscope but no slides. I will do that in the next few days.

 

[randomfishdude]

Thanks for your quick response, I dont want it to get to the snotty air bubble stage. I have a microscope but no slides. I will do that in the next few days.

If it's not alrety snotty woth air bubbles it's not dinos.
But I would still do a check because you can identfy what that stuff is.