HELP!

JurisHP

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I have been battling brown and green algae for months now....NOTHING I do gets rid of it. I am wiping down my glass twice a day....I wake up and it needs cleaning and especially at the end of the day when the lights were running, MAJOR algae EVERYWHERE. And this is relatively recent. These are the details of my tank.

180g mixed reef that has been up and running for over 10 years.

Ecotech Radion G5 Blues that run about 11 hours/day on the LPS/Soft Coral template.

Parameters are:

Salinity: 1.026
Temp. 78
pH: 8.0
Ca: 422
P04: .69
dKh: 9.6
Nitrates: Not sure today

I have been battling Nitrates and Phosphates for YEARS...I have tried everything, the latest of which is a refugium where my Chaeto is growing nicely.

In the past 2 weeks, I have changed 25g/day every day, and it seems to be getting worse!

I came home today after wiping down the glass this morning, and there was so much algae on the glass I could barely see into the tank!

I also noticed that red slimy algae is on a lot of my corals, in addition to yellow (sponge?) on a lot of the rocks.

What explains all this algae which is choking out my VERY easy to keep softies and requiring me to clean the glass 2 x/day?

HELP!
 

thewedge

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Sorry to hear about this. Must be incredibly frustrating in a tank that has been stable for so long. Only things I can suggest, which will probably be repeated many times, to dial back the photoperiod and get the PO4 down under 0.1. I only have my own tank to go by, but my lights run from noon to 10pm. But my peak lighting only goes from 2pm to 6pm. You may also want to invest in a bunch astrea snails and a few emerald crabs, if your CUC is low. Mine was recently and beefing it up eliminated my turf alge issue in a matter of days. I used to be somewhat dubious to suggestion around building up the CUC, but this recent experience made me a believer.
Wish I had more novel suggestions. If you've been running your tank for that long, you probably already thought of all this.
 

Cali Reef Life

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I was having an issue with algae and I found out I had so much detritus in my return pump area after just a year of running the tank. I went to town with a turkey baster. I also wasn't cleaning my sand bed so I decided to slowly start the process of vacuuming it in small portions. I also am starting a refugium. The greatest clean up crew is yourself but having a good amount of snails and hermit crabs help. This is not an over night fix but a marathon. Get the P04 down and start working on it. I manage to rid most of the algae in one month even though mine never got that bad. If all else fails get some phosphate RX and get it down and then maintain it after you cleaned the tank up. I've used it on previous tank.
 

sixty_reefer

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I have been battling brown and green algae for months now....NOTHING I do gets rid of it. I am wiping down my glass twice a day....I wake up and it needs cleaning and especially at the end of the day when the lights were running, MAJOR algae EVERYWHERE. And this is relatively recent. These are the details of my tank.

180g mixed reef that has been up and running for over 10 years.

Ecotech Radion G5 Blues that run about 11 hours/day on the LPS/Soft Coral template.

Parameters are:

Salinity: 1.026
Temp. 78
pH: 8.0
Ca: 422
P04: .69
dKh: 9.6
Nitrates: Not sure today

I have been battling Nitrates and Phosphates for YEARS...I have tried everything, the latest of which is a refugium where my Chaeto is growing nicely.

In the past 2 weeks, I have changed 25g/day every day, and it seems to be getting worse!

I came home today after wiping down the glass this morning, and there was so much algae on the glass I could barely see into the tank!

I also noticed that red slimy algae is on a lot of my corals, in addition to yellow (sponge?) on a lot of the rocks.

What explains all this algae which is choking out my VERY easy to keep softies and requiring me to clean the glass 2 x/day?

HELP!
Can we see a picture of the algae under whites?
 
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