Long term algae woes...what am I missing here?

[hannernanner]

Hey friends,
My tank has been set up almost 2 years exactly. The first year, I had dinos. When I finally figured out what I was dealing with, I started dosing and finally got rid of them. Since then, I've been dealing with algae. I feel like I've thought of everything, and it's still just taking over. The main method I'm using currently is to beat it back by hand (usually takes 2-3 hrs and I do it every few weeks). It helps, but this isn't sustainable and I spend way more time than I'd like with my hands in the tank. So, here's all the tank info, along with a few before/after photos of the cleaning this morning. Can you help me figure out what I'm missing?

Parameters:
dKH 8.1
NO3 3ppm (I try to keep it up to 5 but have been experimenting with dosing and not dosing to see how algae responds. Doesn't seem to make a difference)
PO4 0.01 (I have a hard time keeping this above 0.02ppm, but then I'm sure the algae is "using" it so it doesn't show up on test. Not currently dosing.)
pH 8.14
Ca 440
Mg 1320
Temp 79.5

Water changes as needed, since my nutrients never seem to be high and the livestock load is light.
Small bag of carbon, changed monthly
I've had both RODI water (home made 0 TDS) and tank water tested, nothing out of the ordinary.
Skimmer
Chaeto in sump, run on opposite and longer cycle than main lights
Livestock:
- Pair of clowns
- Melanarus wrasse
- Cardinal
- Two spot bristle tooth tang
- Pistol shrimp
- Blue tuxedo urchin
- Corals, all softies at this time
- Assorted hermits and snails including turbos

Fish Diet:
Frozen mysis and spirulina brine shrimp mostly, but I'll add TDO Chroma boost pellets once or twice a week.

I have one tiny spec of coraline algae that I've been waiting on to grow. For a two year old tank, I'm surprised I don't have more. Nothing seems to be using dKH or calcium, the values stay consistent. I feel like I've thought of everything. Corals look pretty happy, but growth rate isn't crazy. I've been hoping that just giving it time and stability will make a change, but it's been a year and I'm disheartened. Hand cleaning makes it better, but still not great, as you'll see in the photos..so what am I missing?? The only other thing I haven't done is a blackout. Any reason to try that in this situation?

 

[Garf]

Hey friends,
My tank has been set up almost 2 years exactly. The first year, I had dinos. When I finally figured out what I was dealing with, I started dosing and finally got rid of them. Since then, I've been dealing with algae. I feel like I've thought of everything, and it's still just taking over. The main method I'm using currently is to beat it back by hand (usually takes 2-3 hrs and I do it every few weeks). It helps, but this isn't sustainable and I spend way more time than I'd like with my hands in the tank. So, here's all the tank info, along with a few before/after photos of the cleaning this morning. Can you help me figure out what I'm missing?

Parameters:
dKH 8.1
NO3 3ppm (I try to keep it up to 5 but have been experimenting with dosing and not dosing to see how algae responds. Doesn't seem to make a difference)
PO4 0.01 (I have a hard time keeping this above 0.02ppm, but then I'm sure the algae is "using" it so it doesn't show up on test. Not currently dosing.)
pH 8.14
Ca 440
Mg 1320
Temp 79.5

Water changes as needed, since my nutrients never seem to be high and the livestock load is light.
Small bag of carbon, changed monthly
I've had both RODI water (home made 0 TDS) and tank water tested, nothing out of the ordinary.
Skimmer
Chaeto in sump, run on opposite and longer cycle than main lights
Livestock:
- Pair of clowns
- Melanarus wrasse
- Cardinal
- Two spot bristle tooth tang
- Pistol shrimp
- Blue tuxedo urchin
- Corals, all softies at this time
- Assorted hermits and snails including turbos

Fish Diet:
Frozen mysis and spirulina brine shrimp mostly, but I'll add TDO Chroma boost pellets once or twice a week.

I have one tiny spec of coraline algae that I've been waiting on to grow. For a two year old tank, I'm surprised I don't have more. Nothing seems to be using dKH or calcium, the values stay consistent. I feel like I've thought of everything. Corals look pretty happy, but growth rate isn't crazy. I've been hoping that just giving it time and stability will make a change, but it's been a year and I'm disheartened. Hand cleaning makes it better, but still not great, as you'll see in the photos..so what am I missing?? The only other thing I haven't done is a blackout. Any reason to try that in this situation?

I think you need more coral to shade the rock and add the all important coral related bacteria.

 

[hannernanner]

I think you need more coral to shade the rock and add the all important coral related bacteria.

That was definitely my thinking when I filled it with softies like xenia and hairy mushrooms, hoping they would "take over" because anything would be better than the algae...but even the corals I did add aren't taking off. The manual removal is hopefully giving them the advantage, but I also don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on corals that might not live. Over the past year I've lost zoas, mushrooms, ricordea, duncans, acans, and some others. So until I see some stability and some of the hardier corals actually thriving, I'm not up for throwing more $ at it :/

 

[Garf]

That was definitely my thinking when I filled it with softies like xenia and hairy mushrooms, hoping they would "take over" because anything would be better than the algae...but even the corals I did add aren't taking off. The manual removal is hopefully giving them the advantage, but I also don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on corals that might not live. Over the past year I've lost zoas, mushrooms, ricordea, duncans, acans, and some others. So until I see some stability and some of the hardier corals actually thriving, I'm not up for throwing more $ at it :/

Why have got cheato in the sump if your having trouble keeping nutrients up?

 

[hannernanner]

Why have got cheato in the sump if your having trouble keeping nutrients up?

Well, I figured if the algae is consuming the nutrients fast enough that they aren't showing up on the test (which I only thought after months of low nutrients paired with abundant algae growth which doesn't make sense), then it meant that likely the nutrients are there. In which case the chaeto would help in theory. I also tried it because I didn't know what else to do.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

For a tank that size I don't see any snails on the glass or rockwork . What is your cuc consists of?

 

[EricR]

Maybe get some close-up pictures of the algae,,, and microscope shots if you have one,,, for the experts (not me). *looks kinda wiry to me but I don't know enough

I'm at a little over a year (since tank transfer) and went through:
lack of maintenance -> GHA -> nutrients bottomed out -> dinos -> dosing phos ...etc.
I feel like I'm all good now with just manual pulling of algae every week or two but nothing as "full" as what you're dealing with.

Your alk/Ca/Mg is way better than mine, FWIW
Keep at it and good luck...

 

[FSP]

Tuan beat me to it

"A few" snails/hermits/urchins are more pet than functional. You need quite a few snails if you're using them for pest control, and you will have to trim back the long stuff before they'll eat it.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

My sand is never the same. 2 hungry conchs tracks around the tank at night and leave it spotless before the lights come on. I have at least 15-20 different varities of cuc on my only 53G tank.

 

[hannernanner]

For a tank that size I don't see any snails on the glass or rockwork . What is your cuc consists of?

There are two large turbos at the moment. I have had poor luck with a lot of CUC. I've added countless trochus snails, nerites, ceriths, etc and there have been many casualties. I know some probably starved to death when I had dinos, but I'm hesitant to dump in a bunch more because what I have added just hasn't lived. Which might indicate that what I have growing they won't eat. I hadn't thought about conchs though, that might be a good addition.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

I wonder if the algae you have is chrysophytes

 

[hannernanner]

I wonder if the algae you have is chrysophytes

I have wondered this myself, except that it's not really slimy. I do have a microscope from the Dinos that I could use to get a closer look. But even if it is chrysophytes, most of the advice for dealing with it lines up with other photosynthetic algae so I wonder what I could really do differently. Except a blackout, which I don't love the idea of but I'm willing to try if it would make a difference and not kill off my livestock...

 

[landlubber]

I battled this for the first 2 years of my system as well and in my circumstance resolved it fairly easily but not without a little input on my end.
The top lying liverock on your structure is going to have the majority of the gha as it gets the best lighting. What flipped the battle in my favor was filling a mist sprayer with peroxide and one by one removing the liverock pieces, scrubbing the heck out of the pieces removing as much as possible, using a saltwater filled pail to dunk the rock in then generously spraying the peroxide on the areas the gha was growing and letting it sit for a minute to set in before returning the pieces back into the tank.
You need to have a decent cuc in the tank to keep it maintained like this for the first few weeks but with good feeding habits and possibly a second treatment on bad spots you should be able to get ahead