HELP!!!

birddawg · Dec 9, 2022

Hello everyone, I have been struggling with this algae in my sand bed for close to 3 months now. I haven’t had much other problems with any other algae besides hair algae, but I got most of it gone. I have no idea how to get rid of it. It goes away for 2-3 days and shows up again. I do biweekly water changes, and I am getting my water tested tomorrow. I can not really find any info on what type of algae it is, or how to stop it. If you know anything or have had problems with this algae before please let me know!! I will provide the water results tomorrow.

sixty_reefer · Dec 9, 2022

It’s complicated to give you a id from the pictures, although is only algae most likely feeding on ammonia caused by detritus trapped in the sand bed.
I would advise you to get some granular activated carbon in the tank, vacuum the sand bed, I like the inexpensive battery operating ones that you can get online, they very useful at doing the job without the need of doing a water change. Lastly I would recommend you to get reef actif and follow the instructions this should help your beneficial bacteria to reduce the ammonia that the system is producing.

post your parameters once you have been to the lfs to see if anything further is needed mostly at this point you want to know po4 and no3.

birddawg · Dec 9, 2022

sixty_reefer said:
It’s complicated to give you a id from the pictures, although is only algae most likely feeding on ammonia caused by detritus trapped in the sand bed.
I would advise you to get some granular activated carbon in the tank, vacuum the sand bed, I like the inexpensive battery operating ones that you can get online, they very useful at doing the job without the need of doing a water change. Lastly I would recommend you to get reef actif and follow the instructions this should help your beneficial bacteria to reduce the ammonia that the system is producing.

post your parameters once you have been to the lfs to see if anything further is needed mostly at this point you want to know po4 and no3.

I still need to get a wavemaker for this tank. More than likely will get one tomorrow, also need to get some more CUC. I have not had any experience with Reef Actif, what does it do towards algae? I forgot to also mention that this tank is 6 months old so I know it is not very mature, but it has been a struggle for some time now with this specific sand bed algae. Would a lawn mower blenny be a good investment? I will post my results tomorrow! Thanks again!

sixty_reefer · Dec 9, 2022

birddawg said:
I still need to get a wavemaker for this tank. More than likely will get one tomorrow, also need to get some more CUC. I have not had any experience with Reef Actif, what does it do towards algae? I forgot to also mention that this tank is 6 months old so I know it is not very mature, but it has been a struggle for some time now with this specific sand bed algae. Would a lawn mower blenny be a good investment? I will post my results tomorrow! Thanks again!

A wave maker would be beneficial to keep detritus in suspense until being removed through mechanical filtration, reef actif promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria it comes in a powder and you just mix it with water at light out. I can tell from it that it’s not very old beneficial bacteria is still trying colonise the surface areas. You could get one if that’s a fish you desire I can’t see it being effective at sorting your algae problem. I would prefer to resolve the route cause of the problem instead of trying to patch it up.