Help with algae overrunning my tank

[Shilpan Patel]

Hey guys! Need some help with this particular algae I’m finding it very hard to get rid of it. I’ve attached pictures.
I have a 100 gallon mixed reef tank with 5 fish and one shrimp. The herbivores i have area foxface and a sail fin tang (the sail does an excellent job eating my bubble algae which now only lives in my sump). All 3 of my snails died 2 months ago, no idea why. I dose Red Sea foundation. I have a aquaone skimmer which removes around 300mL of skimmate a week. I have a refugium with chaetomorpha lit by a cheap LED light but since this algae outbreak it’s been growing slower. I water change 10% a fortnight. I feed my twice 2 cubes of food over 3 days and a two by one inch seaweed every third day. I also got brand new hydra LED 26 lights x 2 a few months ago. For flow I have two tunze pumps but I think they are those mini ones probably a bit small for my tank.

there is so much algae it’s crazy, growing all over the rocks and choking out my corals, this bloom started a few months ago. So I started manually picking it out once a week. it’s been a week and now everything just grew back.

Any suggestions?? For some reason my foxface and tang dont eat this kind of algae, they eat others. Currently I’m thinking 1. Get a lawnmower blenny 2. Consider trying vibrant or 3. Just keep doing what I’m doing and it’ll go away??

what do you think?

 

[Sosuke]

That is hair algae, how heavily are you feeding? If you are feeding a lot maybe reduce the amount of food you add. You can also get an urchin or a CUC member that feeds on hair algae. A lawnmower blenny will not be able to eat all of that alone but couldn't hurt.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Hey!
Feeding as above in the post. Do you think with only 5 fish I should be feeding less?

ok maybe I need to buy more snails too?

 

[Sosuke]

Hey!
Feeding as above in the post. Do you think with only 5 fish I should be feeding less?

ok maybe I need to buy more snails too?

Sorry I didn't see the part about food. That seems fine for the amount of fish you have I would check your nitrates and phosphates as they could be the reason for all the algae growth. Why did the snails die?

 

[Shilpan Patel]

That’s ok! Thanks for the help
Hmm I’m not sure they have been alive for 3 years and suddenly died within a span of about 1 week. All 3 of them. I had wildly fluctuating and low Ca Alk because I wasn’t dosing properly. Could that have done it?

 

[X-37B]

Get your parameters "Stable". It is the key to reefing. Vibrant is a good choice! Be consistent and go slow. With that much algae you will need water changes when the algae starts to grow. I would remove as much of the algae as you can then dose Vibrant.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Ok thank you! I will give that a go I will add a small clean up crew too but they need to go through quarantine so that’ll take a while.
Yeah I’ve just started Red Sea foundation and I’ve found that my corals are doing why better now that I’m dosing daily.

 

[X-37B]

Ok thank you! I will give that a go I will add a small clean up crew too but they need to go through quarantine so that’ll take a while.
Yeah I’ve just started Red Sea foundation and I’ve found that my corals are doing why better now that I’m dosing daily.

Great! Sounds like your on the right track. Here is a before and after algae pic using Vibrant. Once you get coralline growing I have found the algae stays at bay. Make sure you test no3 and po4 before dosing Vibrant so you will have a baseline. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[lapin]

Skip getting the lawnmower. It will not eat that long hairy stuff. When it gets long it, gets bitter.
When doing vibrant watch your oxygen levels. Fish breathing hard ....ect
Some dying algae will release things that can be toxic to livestock.

 

[Sosuke]

Great! Sounds like your on the right track. Here is a before and after algae pic using Vibrant. Once you get coralline growing I have found the algae stays at bay. Make sure you test no3 and po4 before dosing Vibrant so you will have a baseline. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Nice!

 

[Scrubber_steve]

H I have a refugium with chaetomorpha lit by a cheap LED light but since this algae outbreak it’s been growing slower.

what light is this "cheap LED light" ?
is it even predominantly in the red spectrum? Is it's intensity anywhere enough ? Are you running a long enough photo-period for your fuge ?
& why do you expect your cheaply illuminated chaetomorpha to optimally grow & out compete the algae growing in you display - under new hydra LED 26 lights ?

I also got brand new hydra LED 26 lights x 2 a few months ago.

Turn down the whites & red & just use the blues, violets & uv spectrums.
Also turn down the intensity.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Thanks for

Skip getting the lawnmower. It will not eat that long hairy stuff. When it gets long it, gets bitter.
When doing vibrant watch your oxygen levels. Fish breathing hard ....ect
Some dying algae will release things that can be toxic to livestock.

Thanks for the advice! Ok ill skip the lawnmower then. I guess adding livestock may just worsen the issue.

 

[Eve]

Hey guys! Need some help with this particular algae I’m finding it very hard to get rid of it. I’ve attached pictures.
I have a 100 gallon mixed reef tank with 5 fish and one shrimp. The herbivores i have area foxface and a sail fin tang (the sail does an excellent job eating my bubble algae which now only lives in my sump). All 3 of my snails died 2 months ago, no idea why. I dose Red Sea foundation. I have a aquaone skimmer which removes around 300mL of skimmate a week. I have a refugium with chaetomorpha lit by a cheap LED light but since this algae outbreak it’s been growing slower. I water change 10% a fortnight. I feed my twice 2 cubes of food over 3 days and a two by one inch seaweed every third day. I also got brand new hydra LED 26 lights x 2 a few months ago. For flow I have two tunze pumps but I think they are those mini ones probably a bit small for my tank.

there is so much algae it’s crazy, growing all over the rocks and choking out my corals, this bloom started a few months ago. So I started manually picking it out once a week. it’s been a week and now everything just grew back.

Any suggestions?? For some reason my foxface and tang dont eat this kind of algae, they eat others. Currently I’m thinking 1. Get a lawnmower blenny 2. Consider trying vibrant or 3. Just keep doing what I’m doing and it’ll go away??

what do you think?

I was having the same problem!! Same algae, but when I added the Foxface rabbitfish, it got better! Its eating it little by little.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

what light is this "cheap LED light" ?
is it even predominantly in the red spectrum? Is it's intensity anywhere enough ? Are you running a long enough photo-period for your fuge ?
& why do you expect your cheaply illuminated chaetomorpha to optimally grow & out compete the algae growing in you display - under new hydra LED 26 lights ?


Turn down the whites & red & just use the blues, violets & uv spectrums.
Also turn down the intensity.

It’s a chinese LED, the intensity definitely wont match my hydras. It’s blue and white spectrum, not much red. Photoperiod is 12hrs And reverse to the tank. I assumed it would outcompete the algae but I didn’t take the difference in intensity into account and I think that maybe a key issue. Even the red bubble algae in my sump is starting to die. Ok thank you for that advice I’ll turn down the intensity

 

[Scrubber_steve]

It’s a chinese LED, the intensity definitely wont match my hydras.

That's your first problem.

It’s blue and white spectrum, not much red.

Algae need predominantly red spectrum (660nm) to grow optimally

Photoperiod is 12hrs And reverse to the tank.

You can run a 24/7 photo-period in your fuge until the display algae is under control

Ok thank you for that advice I’ll turn down the intensity

no worries

Remember; for your fuge algae to optimally grow & out compete display algae for necessary nutrients & elements light spectrum, intensity & duration must be correct.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Thank you very much for the fuge advice. It has been working well for 3 years until I changed my lights. I can see that upgrading my fuge light and doing the other things you suggested will help a lot. Cheers!

 

[Scrubber_steve]

Thank you very much for the fuge advice. It has been working well for 3 years until I changed my lights. I can see that upgrading my fuge light and doing the other things you suggested will help a lot. Cheers!

You could continue using your present fuge light & add a 660nm light(s) which will also increase intensity.
Up intensity slowly (either via dimmer, distance, or duration) so as not to shock your chaeto too much. Good luck, update your progress.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Hey guys just some updates
I have dosed vibrant for 2 doses now. And I have added a red light to the fuge. I’ve also removed Half my chaeto to my second tank in vase vibrant kills it.

the algae has now stopped spreading. A few areas of algae are thinning. That was surprisingly fast. The large patches haven’tchanged much. I’m gonna pick the algae out by hand today and see how that goes. I was a bit busy last week and so started dosing vibrant without clearing the algae first.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Further update
4 weeks into vibrant. I cleaned off the hair algae manually and it’s growing back very slowly. Definitely turned the corner and my tank looks beautiful again. Thank you for your help team!

my green star polyp is dying though, is this a consequence of the vibrant?