I am about to quit

[JACKS REEF]

Pics will help.

What size tank?
What livestock do you have in it?
What food do you feed?
How much food do you feed?
How often do you feed?
What lights do you run?
How long do you keep the lights on?
Does sunlight hit the tank?
What filtration do you use?
Do you use any additives?
Do you use gfo?
Do you use carbon?
Do you carbon dose?
Do you have a sump?
Do you have a refugium?
How long has the tank been up and running?


These are just some question to answer that can get us pointed in the right direction of what you might have going on.

Okay so I have a 29 gallon
Livestock yellow tang, 3 clownfish, goby and pistol shrimp pair
I feed a little sliver of frozen every day
I run AI primes 7-8 hours a day
My filtration is a cheap hang on back filter with some carbon and bio media and a skimmer
No I do not use gfo
No sump and no refugium
Tank has been running for 10 months

 

[Hincapiej4]

Also, keep in mind that corals and refuge take up phos and nitrate. You don't seem to have a refug and little to no coral. So, who is left to take up all that food?? Algae. Honestly, I'm surprised with how little Algae you have.

Relax man, you're doing fine. And to me, it looks like you know how to reef with as little algae you have. I can show you my tank, and it's packed with things, and it's def not perfect lol

 

[Pistondog]

Get ONE Fighting conch for the sand bed. See how that goes. Then add nasasrius snails. Asteria Snails. That should do you.

If you want algae eating fishies, a blenny. If you ABSOLUTELY WANT A TANG, get a small BABY Fox face lol. At least it's not aggressive, and will eat ANY (Pretty much) algae you might get...bubble..etc.. In other news, I have both a fox face and convict tang in my tank..I caught my tang sifting the sand for algae..what a little piggy. But it's awesome he has that appetite lol

Ops tank is 29 g, won't baby fox face get too big?
Those are the best for algae though.

 

[JACKS REEF]

Are you cleaning your fake rock on occasion?

Yes on water changes I do

 

[JACKS REEF]

Okay so I have a 29 gallon
Livestock yellow tang, 3 clownfish, goby and pistol shrimp pair
I feed a little sliver of frozen every day
I run AI primes 7-8 hours a day
My filtration is a cheap hang on back filter with some carbon and bio media and a skimmer
No I do not use gfo
No sump and no refugium
Tank has been running for 10 months

Guys read this. This is everything I do with my tank.

 

[JACKS REEF]

Also this is my filtration here is a pic

 

[Hincapiej4]

Ops tank is 29 g, won't baby fox face get too big?
Those are the est for algae though.

Yea it definitely would. But would take some time, and it'd help him stay in the hobby. By the time it's too big, he'll prob be upgrading!

See what I did there?!? Hehehe

 

[JACKS REEF]

Also this is my filtration here is a pic

 

[BeMoto]

How is your water flow? I can only see 1 power head.

 

[JACKS REEF]

How is your water flow? I can only see 1 power head.

Myra my power head is blowing directly on the rock

 

[ThePickeledReef]

Yes on water changes I do

That can totally destroy your beneficial bacteria population, prompting your algae blooms

 

[JACKS REEF]

Here is some more pics

 

[JACKS REEF]

Here is some more pics

 

[JACKS REEF]

Also currently I am dosing microbracter 7

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Okay so I have a 29 gallon
Livestock yellow tang, 3 clownfish, goby and pistol shrimp pair
I feed a little sliver of frozen every day
I run AI primes 7-8 hours a day
My filtration is a cheap hang on back filter with some carbon and bio media and a skimmer
No I do not use gfo
No sump and no refugium
Tank has been running for 10 months

Jack, again I am not an expert, but I think you will have problems with 3 clownfish in that size tank. I would check/post a thread in the fish area, check other threads and do more research.

 

[brandon429]

Jack

nice job on having incredibly high standards, that reef looks great. I have about twenty comparative pics from other tanks just like that, looking far worse, youre acting way earlier than most.

you sure can clean that system and clean the sand, without a recycle. And it’ll be bone white. Or, get a $80 turbo twist uv sterilizer and thatll cheat burn it out. Congrats on taking action early, before a big job builds up.

you can practice direct action if you want, and it’ll work, or you can cheat burn it out, or wait for more tank maturation to drive it out.


that light substrate growth would also likely respond to reduction of white lights and going hard blue on the tank.

direct cleaning doesn’t hurt any reef, a 35 page thread is kicked up here showing direct cleaning action it’s called the sand rinse thread and we do tank surgery as fast as I recommended it to you first post. My goal was to tony little your tank 1997 style, but it’s such an easy growth you have other options too. Cleaning a sandbed directly is never, ever harmful it extends the life of any reef, our massive thread shows. Nice tank here. Take out a rock and set it in your sink as a test.

use a knife to detail scrape off targets, rinse in saltwater, don’t scrape good stuff. Rinse in sw, put back, that’s direct care reef dentistry and we dont need to know any param to do that work. I can see you have an accessible reef with an open scape, therefore your job is not hard. Nice job acting early, most pre-leave jobs are forests of work needed. This tank looks as it should, for its age, we just need to meet the looks standard you want, I like my reefs clean and hate algae similarly. After seeing pics of low growth clean open scape I’ll strongly urge direct cleaning over any other algae / diatom control here, you don’t want to cause dinos messing with params.

our direct cleaning never causes dinos. We don’t need to ID the pest, or take a reading, we need to sit down in the dentists chair is how I make large work threads for reefs.

 

[ThePickeledReef]

Also currently I am dosing microbracter 7

Stop cleaning the rock maybe add microbracter clean for a bit. It will do wonders

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yes a window is near my tank

I suspected so , and it will be an ongoing issue. There is direct and indirect lighting and the UV will penetrate blinds that are closed. Consider using black construction paper ( 92 cents at walmart for a 30' x 30" ) to block the light from window altogether.
Stuff on sand easy to work with - diatoms which will eventually go away. Adding a few of each snail will help keep your tank clean- Turbo, astrea, nassarius, trochus and nerite snails and about 6 blue leg hermits.

 

[Hincapiej4]

I suspected so , and it will be an ongoing issue. There is direct and indirect lighting and the UV will penetrate blinds that are closed. Consider using black construction paper ( 92 cents at walmart for a 30' x 30" ) to block the light from window altogether.
Stuff on sand easy to work with - diatoms which will eventually go away. Adding a few of each snail will help keep your tank clean- Turbo, astrea, nassarius, trochus and nerite snails and about 6 blue leg hermits.

oooorrrrr... one fox face!! hahah

 

[One Reefing Boi]

just pour in a gallon of bleach

(this is a joke... please don't actually do this).

i am pretty new to this all and went through the same thing as you for a bit.

my issue is that i tend to dive in head first into these things and I don't have patience which is partially an issue, especially in this hobby.

a few things:

1. too many fish. I have a 15g with a pair of clowns and a CUC (2 nassarius, 1 turbin, 1 astrea, 6 blue legged hermits (originally had 2 but when i got 'empty' shells from my LFS for them a handful had more in them.. oh well, getting a 90g in a few weeks))

2. How much do you feed? I feed pellets to my clowns and I really only put in 1/2 at a time and make sure that they get eaten. When they seem full (they let the food sink by them) Ill take one pellet and crush it to let the CUC get some. I do this 2x a day

3. corals definitely help imo. My tank is about 3mo old and I have 14 different coral frags in there (like I said.. I dive in head first which is sometimes an issue) Half zoas, a massive 5 polyp frogspawn my LFS had marked for $40 by accident but honored it, hammer, 2 clove polyps, and GSP. I test my levels and do my maintance when applicable on Sundays and I can notice week over week the phos and calcium and magnesium dropping (meaning my corals are absorbing nutrients) and I can see them growing

4. get some pods too. got mine on algae barn and was pretty happy... a good micro fauna population can also help and IMO are a great part of the CUC (but don't rely on just them to address the problem)

5. Make sure no direct sunlight really. I have to keep the blinds in my room shut during the day now and it helps

6. most importantly.... Take it slow. your algae wont disappear overnight (unless you go the bleach route which will kill virtually everything in the tank and is a joke) and it took me about a month to go from what you have to pretty spotless.