Help with algae!!

[GothFishKeeper]

I posted a thread not too long ago about this but it’s gotten a lot worse since then. I’ve cut down on feeding, and I’m scraping and picking out as much as i can every day but it just keeps growing!! Any suggestions pls lmk!

P.S. I will be upgrading to a 65g soon so the larger body of water hopefully won’t get as much algae but I’m gonna be keeping this setup with my corals for 6 months before putting them in the new tank. And those are what I’m worried about with the algae.

 

[splunty]

Honestly, that looks pretty typical for a tank your age. Algae is growing because there are nutrients to be consumed and not much currently to compete for those nutrients. Welcome to the uglies. :D Just a couple of comments and questions:

- What is your water changing schedule?

- What are your nutrients at currently?

- What is your CUC?

- How much are you feeding, and what fish are in the tank?

- Can you describe the long algae at the top of the tank and/or get a clear picture?

- Consider covering the AIO chambers when you aren't doing maintenance so you don't get nuisance algae growth in there too.

- It may just be the picture, but the filter floss looks a bit too filthy IMO. The floss should be serving as a nutrient export for you.

It's all about nutrient balance. In a tank this young, you don't have a lot of helpful/wanted nutrient exports like coralline algae, sponges, corals, etc. You probably still have excess silicates too, hence the diatoms clinging to the rocks. If you try to clean or kill all of that algae, what do you have left to consume the nutrients? Especially with the diatom phase, you pretty much have to let it go. Clean enough algae to keep your nutrient levels where you want them. Don't let the algae grow enough to get any nutrients to zero.

 

[GothFishKeeper]

Honestly, that looks pretty typical for a tank your age. Algae is growing because there are nutrients to be consumed and not much currently to compete for those nutrients. Welcome to the uglies. :D Just a couple of comments and questions:

- What is your water changing schedule?

- What are your nutrients at currently?

- What is your CUC?

- How much are you feeding, and what fish are in the tank?

- Can you describe the long algae at the top of the tank and/or get a clear picture?

- Consider covering the AIO chambers when you aren't doing maintenance so you don't get nuisance algae growth in there too.

- It may just be the picture, but the filter floss looks a bit too filthy IMO. The floss should be serving as a nutrient export for you.

It's all about nutrient balance. In a tank this young, you don't have a lot of helpful/wanted nutrient exports like coralline algae, sponges, corals, etc. You probably still have excess silicates too, hence the diatoms clinging to the rocks. If you try to clean or kill all of that algae, what do you have left to consume the nutrients? Especially with the diatom phase, you pretty much have to let it go. Clean enough algae to keep your nutrient levels where you want them. Don't let the algae grow enough to get any nutrients to zero.

Thank you so much for your in depth reply!!

I change the water 25% every sunday

My nutrients are at 5 nitrates, 0 phosphates
(It’s odd to have any nutrients in this tank considering i have a fuge in the second chamber)

For CUC i have 5 nassarius snails and 4 of the laziest turbo snails you’ve ever seen

I have 3 fish (2 clowns & 1 pygmy wasp)
Feeding is a fifth of a hikari mysis cube for the clowns every morning, and then one 1.7mL pipette full of brine shrimp for the wasp on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Oh and then reef roids every monday morning (target fed to all corals)

The long algae is dark brown with a greenish tint, it waves with the flow of the tank, and it clumps when pulled off. It is also very slimy. I’ll try to pull some more off in a bit and show a picture of that clump with the flash on.

I’ve looked into getting a cover for the chambers but I’ll be upgrading tanks and getting rid of this one in about 6 months so I’ve hesitated to spend the money on it.

The filter floss is what I was using in the top shelf of the first chamber up until last weekend but now I’m using a sponge and then filter floss under that because the top shelf filter floss got clogged within about 6 hours and if I didn’t want my ATO to overflow my tank then i had to switch it three times a day or change the setup like i did.

Up until I moved my tank last month I had little to no algae growth for a good 3-4 months. I had already been through the ugly phase. I also had dosed a bottle of coralline algae about 3 months into the tank being set up, so maybe it died during the move and the nuisance algae took over?

 

[timmyrules]

Honestly, In one of my tank, when it had really bad algae, I found that (if your tank is big enough) a lawnmower blenny works AMAZING! Snails and crabs never would eat the algae very effectively in my tanks.

 

[sixty_reefer]

You need to raise phosphates to detectable levels as a start and look at some decent herbivores for the tank.

 

[splunty]

Thank you so much for your in depth reply!!

I change the water 25% every sunday

My nutrients are at 5 nitrates, 0 phosphates
(It’s odd to have any nutrients in this tank considering i have a fuge in the second chamber)

Water change and nitrates are both good.

You really, really don't want to let phosphates stay at zero especially if what looks like diatoms actually is diatoms. When they are reading that low, it could be testing error, but true zero phosphate increases dinos risk.

(see end of response)

For CUC i have 5 nassarius snails and 4 of the laziest turbo snails you’ve ever seen

Turbos seem to like hair and turf algae. Your photos and description below make it seem more like you have diatoms and maybe green cyano on the top.

I would personally add a few Florida ceriths and at least one or two trochus snails. WIth that said, my clownfish murdered my trochus snails. lol.

I have 3 fish (2 clowns & 1 pygmy wasp)
Feeding is a fifth of a hikari mysis cube for the clowns every morning, and then one 1.7mL pipette full of brine shrimp for the wasp on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Oh and then reef roids every monday morning (target fed to all corals)

The long algae is dark brown with a greenish tint, it waves with the flow of the tank, and it clumps when pulled off. It is also very slimy. I’ll try to pull some more off in a bit and show a picture of that clump with the flash on.

Sounds like green cyano to me. It could be dinos but let's just hope it isn't. If you get a good pic some of the experts on here can probably identify it for you.

I’ve looked into getting a cover for the chambers but I’ll be upgrading tanks and getting rid of this one in about 6 months so I’ve hesitated to spend the money on it.

It's not fancy, but I cut up a $1 plastic cutting board to shape and just leave it over the top when I'm not doing maintenance.

The filter floss is what I was using in the top shelf of the first chamber up until last weekend but now I’m using a sponge and then filter floss under that because the top shelf filter floss got clogged within about 6 hours and if I didn’t want my ATO to overflow my tank then i had to switch it three times a day or change the setup like i did.

Up until I moved my tank last month I had little to no algae growth for a good 3-4 months. I had already been through the ugly phase. I also had dosed a bottle of coralline algae about 3 months into the tank being set up, so maybe it died during the move and the nuisance algae took over?

Coralline spores pretty much will just stay dormant until your conditions are exactly what they need to grow.

I am not an expert, but this forum is full of them.

Your big risk here is letting nutrients bottom out and getting a dinos explosion. What you have *looks like* diatoms and cyanobacteria. If you have already gone through the diatom phase and didn't introduce new sand, dead coral, rock, etc., then it may be something else. Regardless, it's still just a balancing game. Get those Phosphates up, probably just by pulling out as much of the cyano or whatever is on the top that is stringy and harvest your fuge if you have to. And add a bit to your cleanup crew something that will attack cyano and diatoms. (I really do like ceriths.) You're better off with high nitrates and detectable Phosphates than where you are now. Keep the nutrients balanced and give it time. The ugly phase doesn't just come once and go. It comes back over and over as your conditions and nutrient balances get in and out of whack.

 

[GothFishKeeper]

You need to raise phosphates to detectable levels as a start and look at some decent herbivores for the tank.

Why do I need to raise phosphates? Isn’t that what makes algae grow more?

 

[Sumbub]

Why do I need to raise phosphates? Isn’t that what makes algae grow more?

Phosphates is needed to balance the nature of the tank. Yes it can contribute to algae but true 0 on phosphates can bring on a dino outbreak. Animals and bacteria in the tank should consume some of the phosphates as well.

@splunty is right. Get some florida ceriths and more clean up crew. Trochus or astrea snails would eat a lot of the stuff youre pulling out. I'd add some hermits but that's a preference for people.

How long was the tank set up? The ugly stage can be long or short depending on husbandry. And going through it doesn't mean it can not return with parameters go out of balance.

 

[ZoWhat]

25yrs in the hobby. Most algae problems are a Phosphate problem.

Research how to stabilize PO4 at 0.01pm to 0.03pm and your algae will die off.

For me... no algae problems in the last 5 years. I dose my own phytoplankton everyday and I use Blue Life PhosRX

 

[splunty]

Phosphates is needed to balance the nature of the tank. Yes it can contribute to algae but true 0 on phosphates can bring on a dino outbreak. Animals and bacteria in the tank should consume some of the phosphates as well.

@splunty is right. Get some florida ceriths and more clean up crew. Trochus or astrea snails would eat a lot of the stuff youre pulling out. I'd add some hermits but that's a preference for people.

How long was the tank set up? The ugly stage can be long or short depending on husbandry. And going through it doesn't mean it can not return with parameters go out of balance.

This.

Keep in mind also that only a barely measurable trace of Phosphates in your tank are in the water column. The vast, vast majority of Phosphates are in your rocks. If your water column drops near zero, the Phosphates will just leach out of the rocks into the tank and be immediately consumed by whatever made the Phosphates drop to zero on the first place.

If you want your tank to survive long-term, that will need to be reversed. You need to keep Phosphates measurable while they are absorbed back into the rocks until you reach a healthy equilibrium for your ecosystem.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Why do I need to raise phosphates? Isn’t that what makes algae grow more?

It has a adverse effect trying to battle Nuisance algae by depleting phosphates, you only considering the algae needs although they can use other forms of nutrient that will still be available in the system, the main organism you affecting is you biological filter by depleting them from being able to multiply this allowing Nuisance to take their place.
By raising phosphates the algae won’t disappear although you are giving an essential nutrient back to the microbes that will compete with the algae for nutrients and eradicate it by adding herbivores.
try and raise phosphates and you will observe that for yourself, the algae won’t disappear although you should see a stall in the outbreak.

 

[GothFishKeeper]

Water change and nitrates are both good.

You really, really don't want to let phosphates stay at zero especially if what looks like diatoms actually is diatoms. When they are reading that low, it could be testing error, but true zero phosphate increases dinos risk.

(see end of response)



Turbos seem to like hair and turf algae. Your photos and description below make it seem more like you have diatoms and maybe green cyano on the top.

I would personally add a few Florida ceriths and at least one or two trochus snails. WIth that said, my clownfish murdered my trochus snails. lol.



Sounds like green cyano to me. It could be dinos but let's just hope it isn't. If you get a good pic some of the experts on here can probably identify it for you.



It's not fancy, but I cut up a $1 plastic cutting board to shape and just leave it over the top when I'm not doing maintenance.



Coralline spores pretty much will just stay dormant until your conditions are exactly what they need to grow.

I am not an expert, but this forum is full of them.

Your big risk here is letting nutrients bottom out and getting a dinos explosion. What you have *looks like* diatoms and cyanobacteria. If you have already gone through the diatom phase and didn't introduce new sand, dead coral, rock, etc., then it may be something else. Regardless, it's still just a balancing game. Get those Phosphates up, probably just by pulling out as much of the cyano or whatever is on the top that is stringy and harvest your fuge if you have to. And add a bit to your cleanup crew something that will attack cyano and diatoms. (I really do like ceriths.) You're better off with high nitrates and detectable Phosphates than where you are now. Keep the nutrients balanced and give it time. The ugly phase doesn't just come once and go. It comes back over and over as your conditions and nutrient balances get in and out of whack.

Hi! Sorry for the late reply, I did read everyone’s responses. My phosphates are at 0.25ppm and I did add 3 cerith snails last night. My lfs doesn’t sell trochus snails but the service team brought in an “astrea” snail from a broken down tank that might have been a trochus so i took him in hopes that he was. His shell is dyed green from algae over time so i couldn’t tell. Anyways, here is a picture of what I just now pulled off my rock.

 

[Sumbub]

Hi! Sorry for the late reply, I did read everyone’s responses. My phosphates are at 0.25ppm and I did add 3 cerith snails last night. My lfs doesn’t sell trochus snails but the service team brought in an “astrea” snail from a broken down tank that might have been a trochus so i took him in hopes that he was. His shell is dyed green from algae over time so i couldn’t tell. Anyways, here is a picture of what I just now pulled off my rock.

Trochus snails have purple and white bands near the bottom of the shell where the new growth comes. But a astrea is also fine. Scrub the snail of the algae if you can.

0.25 phosphates may be a bit high. Do your usual water changes and take a scrub to the rocks in the bucket if you can. Try not to scrub inside the tank to prevent spreading any more. Keep the feedings down a bit to reduce the phosphates.

 

[GothFishKeeper]

To anyone still willing to help, here is a better picture of the algae.

I’ve been dosing small amounts of hydrogen peroxide each morning this week to hopefully help. Between 1-3ml of it diluted in a cup of RO and targeted at the algae with a medicine syringe. Then I wait about 10 minutes and scrub the rocks with my hand, letting the filter take all of it from the water column. Then I rinse my sponge off about half an hour later once the water is clear.

 

[Scottiemac]

I posted a thread not too long ago about this but it’s gotten a lot worse since then. I’ve cut down on feeding, and I’m scraping and picking out as much as i can every day but it just keeps growing!! Any suggestions pls lmk!

I'm just now recovering from a terrible green hair algae outbreak in my tank. My early solution was to pick it out by hand, but that didn't really get me anywhere.

My first act was to cut down on feedings. The hope was that my tangs and rabbitfish would spend more time eating algae due to the lack of added food. That didn't work.

I then got an algae scrubber. This stopped the growth of the algae in its tracks. I also started dosing NOPOX, which has significantly cut down on my NO3.

Lastly, I got a sea slug, five tuxedo urchins, and five emerald crabs. The sea slug had to be removed from a powerhead after just one day, but the urchins are taking care of the algae. I think the crabs are, too, but I rarely see them. In fact, I only ever see three urchins, but am pretty sure there are at least four left based on where I've seen them. It's gotten to the point where I'll use the grabbers to pick one up and put it where there's still algae in there.

One key is to keep cleaning the scrubber. I fell behind on this a couple of times.

 

[Sumbub]

To anyone still willing to help, here is a better picture of the algae.

I’ve been dosing small amounts of hydrogen peroxide each morning this week to hopefully help. Between 1-3ml of it diluted in a cup of RO and targeted at the algae with a medicine syringe. Then I wait about 10 minutes and scrub the rocks with my hand, letting the filter take all of it from the water column. Then I rinse my sponge off about half an hour later once the water is clear.

I think you could probably dose h2o2 to combat it. But you need to fix the underlying issue together or else it'll come back when you do finally get it under control. I didn't ask earlier but are you doing water changes and if you do, do you use RO water?

 

[sixty_reefer]

Hi! Sorry for the late reply, I did read everyone’s responses. My phosphates are at 0.25ppm and I did add 3 cerith snails last night. My lfs doesn’t sell trochus snails but the service team brought in an “astrea” snail from a broken down tank that might have been a trochus so i took him in hopes that he was. His shell is dyed green from algae over time so i couldn’t tell. Anyways, here is a picture of what I just now pulled off my rock.

What’s your Nitrate now? Still the same?

 

[splunty]

To anyone still willing to help, here is a better picture of the algae.

I’ve been dosing small amounts of hydrogen peroxide each morning this week to hopefully help. Between 1-3ml of it diluted in a cup of RO and targeted at the algae with a medicine syringe. Then I wait about 10 minutes and scrub the rocks with my hand, letting the filter take all of it from the water column. Then I rinse my sponge off about half an hour later once the water is clear.

The green algae on top ... is it like a weed with fronds on the top of each stem? Or like a grass where every stem is perfectly straight? Or is it slimy and not like a grass at all?

If fronds (which it kind of looks like) that's bryopsis. Don't try to scrub that or treat it with anything other than Fluconazole or nutrient starvation. It will only spread.

If it's slimy it's probably cyanobacteria. You can scrub/remove that.

If it's hair algae, just keep upping your CUC until they keep up.

In every case, get your nutrients in balance. Water changes will lower nitrates but won't affect Phosphates at all. If you need help with that, just ask.

 

[GothFishKeeper]

I think you could probably dose h2o2 to combat it. But you need to fix the underlying issue together or else it'll come back when you do finally get it under control. I didn't ask earlier but are you doing water changes and if you do, do you use RO water?

Yes i do weekly 25% water changes, mixing my salt with RO

 

[GothFishKeeper]

What’s your Nitrate now? Still the same?

Yeah my nitrates have been at 0 this whole time