Losing my tank to alge

[The_Skrimp]

Hi folks...
I could really use some help. I feel like every step forward is two steps back with my battle against hair algae and I'm in need of some advice.

Some background:
my tank is 50 gallon display with a small sump and is about one year old now. The tank was started with dry base rock and live sand. I've been struggling with hair algae for some months now. Back in Feb, I dosed vibrant for a few weeks and most of it went away however what replaced it was a nasty rusty brown cyano (I think?) outbreak. Fast forward to today and now everything is covered in brown especially the substrate, some on the rocks, and some on the back wall. The hair algae is coming back with a vengeance. There are spots on the rock with hair algae that also have quite a bit of brown cyano(?) inside of the hair algae.

I've been running UV at night - just a Green Killing Machine.

Things Ive been dosing for the algae:
I've been dosing 3% hydrogen peroxide at night (1ml per 10 gals). I am also dosing microbacter7 and microbacter clean every morning. (usually 2 caps of MC and 1 cap of M7) I skip a couple of days here and there with the dosing just because I'm really afraid of over doing it. I've also been making my own phytoplankton and dosing about 30 ml a day hoping to out compete some of this. (I went out of town for a few days recently and didn't dose anything, just had someone feed for me, and the algae was a lot worse when I got home)

I have beefed up my clean up crew.
Currently in my fifty gallon tank I have:
4 Trochus snails, 8 atraea snails, 12 nassarius snails, 7 cerith snails, 1 emerald crab, 1 brittle star, 5 golf ball sized mexican turbo snails, 8 blue leg hermits, 2 yellow tip hermits, 2 scarlet reef hermits, 2 orange and black hermits, 1 tuxedo urchin, and one pistol shrimp

Livestock is:
2 clowns, 1 melanurus wrasse, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 black spot fox face

I use a 5 stage liquagen RODI to filter my water and use Reef Crystals salt. I've been experimenting with more or less water changes to see what works but I'm changing 10 gallons every three weeks currently.

lighting:
I'm running a Radion XR15 at 68% schedule intensity using the RMS mount. I'm using Coralab's AB+ spectrum. The lights run from 11am to 10pm. Full lights are on for 7 and a half hours with the rest being sun set and sun rise on either side of that.

I've been using phosguard in a mesh bag in my filter sock. I use 6 tablespoons and usually leave it in for about a week (Maybe I should use more or swap it out more frequently?)

I run a refugium with Chaeto. No problems growing the chaeto at all. I run my fuge lights for 14 and a half hours which seems to be the sweet spot for my tank to keep nitrates stable at around 5.

Feeding (and I think this might be the issue... I don't know how much to feed)
I feed about a cube of frozen a day and leave a small strip of nori in the tank for the foxface every day.
If I feed them pellets instead it's usually two or three pinches.

I feed the corals twice a week
I feed: fuel (1/2 cap), reefroids (1/4 teaspoon), and coral frenzy pellets (a pinch or two) for the LPSs

My parameters as of yesterday are:
Sal - 1.026
Nitrate - 4
Phos - 0.1
Cal - 465
Mag 1500
Alk - 9
PH - 8.2
Temp - 78

If I don't get in there and turkey baste it, by 1pm today the substrate will be covered in rusty brown again and the hair algae keeps swaying in the flow taunting me!
I'm doing a 10g water change later today and will hopefully pull the rocks that I can get out to scrub the hair algae off.

Any other ideas? Should I probably feed less? More phosguard?
I really want to beat this! Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Rids , fuel and pellets all contribute to phosphate which may be your issue especially if elevated
Test that and you didn’t mention color of algae
Please post a couple of pics under white lights

 

[Daniel92481]

Hey, sorry for your troubles. Are you positive it isn’t dinos? They seem to go away and come back.

 

[The_Skrimp]

I’m not positive it isn’t dinos. They aren’t snotty or bubbly but that might just be due to the flow in the tank. They are a rusty brown color and spread like a mat once lights come on. It’s a thin dusting on the rocks. Is it possible to have dinos and hair algae at the same time? I thought one thrived in low phosphates and the other high phosphates?

the hair algae is a brownish green. I will take pics before the water change today once lights come on and the rusty brown substrate algae reappears.

 

[The_Skrimp]

here's a few pictures I just shot with the whites on. It basically gets worse as the day progresses. Some pictures show how some spots are a combination of hair algae and the rusty brown stuff at the base and mixed in.

I'm going to switch to feeding nothing but frozen for a while and maybe feed less to see if that will help lower phosphates. should I worry about dinos taking over if I do that? would it be a better strategy to tackle one problem at a time?


Thanks for the help!

 

[Aldrinlights]

Pulled this from a friends post; "So, I gave this peroxide dip for hair algae a try. I used a ratio of 10:1 (Saltwater : 3% Hydrogen Peroxide). For example, I used a small container and placed a coral in it. Using a 100 ml measuring cup, I filled the container until the coral and algae was completely submerged with my tank's saltwater. It took 400ml saltwater. Next I measured out 40ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide to make my 10:1 ratio. I picked the coral up just above the container and poured the peroxide directly onto the algae being sure it would run off back into the saltwater. After holding it there for a few seconds, I lowered the coral back into the saltwater and started a timer for 6 minutes. Afterwards, I rinsed the coral under freshwater from my sink (more saltwater would probably be better but idk, this however has worked) and placed into my tank. 24-36 hours later... The algae is TOTALLY GONE. I have also tried an 8:1 ratio. It's been safe! As well as accidentally let coral sit in this concentration for 10 minutes with no loss. However, ere on the safe side at first. You can always dip longer or more concentrated later. I have now done this on my gold torch that is now happier and more out than ever, a purple chalice, trumpets and channel lobo. 100% success with no loss. The coral actually looks better."

I did this in my tank a long time ago and it's the ONLY thing that let me get it in control. I did half my rocks one week then the other half a week later.

Pics for proof.

Before

Half after (Big rock on the right)

 

[TriggersAmuck]

There is never a golden single solution, but rather it is a matter of optimizing a bunch of small items. Since the phosphates are a little high, you could reduce your fish feeding to 2 or 3 times a week (they will be fine). Regards the GFO/Phosguard, you would be much better off getting a small reactor so that you could really control the flow through it. (It is supposed to be very slow flow, just enough to gently ripple the surface of the media). Also, with regards to making a large adjustment to the nutrients, a few sizable water changes (I'm talking larger than 50%) would help.

Other general husbandry tasks: clean filter sponges daily (yes, daily) as well as wipe the neck of the skimmer daily (the part that is in constant contact with the water column that accumulates a nasty film). Make sure one of your weekly coral/fish feedings is just a couple hours before your water change. Perhaps increase the frequency of your changes to weekly. Before performing the water change, make sure you sift your sand bed to get detritus into the water column and filters (out of the sand) and blast your rock work with a powerhead to do the same (so as to capture as much as you can in the water change). Performing manual algae removal is better aided by doing so at water change time (letting the hose suck up what you are pulling off).

I certainly don't think I have any magic answer, as in my current tank's case I had a horrible case of long hair algae in spite of doing just about all of the above. The only thing that swung things past the tilting point was the introduction of some cleanup crew (purple pincushion urchin and 5 turbo snails).

 

[kalel454]

Hi folks...
I could really use some help. I feel like every step forward is two steps back with my battle against hair algae and I'm in need of some advice.

Some background:
my tank is 50 gallon display with a small sump and is about one year old now. The tank was started with dry base rock and live sand. I've been struggling with hair algae for some months now. Back in Feb, I dosed vibrant for a few weeks and most of it went away however what replaced it was a nasty rusty brown cyano (I think?) outbreak. Fast forward to today and now everything is covered in brown especially the substrate, some on the rocks, and some on the back wall. The hair algae is coming back with a vengeance. There are spots on the rock with hair algae that also have quite a bit of brown cyano(?) inside of the hair algae.

I've been running UV at night - just a Green Killing Machine.

Things Ive been dosing for the algae:
I've been dosing 3% hydrogen peroxide at night (1ml per 10 gals). I am also dosing microbacter7 and microbacter clean every morning. (usually 2 caps of MC and 1 cap of M7) I skip a couple of days here and there with the dosing just because I'm really afraid of over doing it. I've also been making my own phytoplankton and dosing about 30 ml a day hoping to out compete some of this. (I went out of town for a few days recently and didn't dose anything, just had someone feed for me, and the algae was a lot worse when I got home)

I have beefed up my clean up crew.
Currently in my fifty gallon tank I have:
4 Trochus snails, 8 atraea snails, 12 nassarius snails, 7 cerith snails, 1 emerald crab, 1 brittle star, 5 golf ball sized mexican turbo snails, 8 blue leg hermits, 2 yellow tip hermits, 2 scarlet reef hermits, 2 orange and black hermits, 1 tuxedo urchin, and one pistol shrimp

Livestock is:
2 clowns, 1 melanurus wrasse, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 black spot fox face

I use a 5 stage liquagen RODI to filter my water and use Reef Crystals salt. I've been experimenting with more or less water changes to see what works but I'm changing 10 gallons every three weeks currently.

lighting:
I'm running a Radion XR15 at 68% schedule intensity using the RMS mount. I'm using Coralab's AB+ spectrum. The lights run from 11am to 10pm. Full lights are on for 7 and a half hours with the rest being sun set and sun rise on either side of that.

I've been using phosguard in a mesh bag in my filter sock. I use 6 tablespoons and usually leave it in for about a week (Maybe I should use more or swap it out more frequently?)

I run a refugium with Chaeto. No problems growing the chaeto at all. I run my fuge lights for 14 and a half hours which seems to be the sweet spot for my tank to keep nitrates stable at around 5.

Feeding (and I think this might be the issue... I don't know how much to feed)
I feed about a cube of frozen a day and leave a small strip of nori in the tank for the foxface every day.
If I feed them pellets instead it's usually two or three pinches.

I feed the corals twice a week
I feed: fuel (1/2 cap), reefroids (1/4 teaspoon), and coral frenzy pellets (a pinch or two) for the LPSs

My parameters as of yesterday are:
Sal - 1.026
Nitrate - 4
Phos - 0.1
Cal - 465
Mag 1500
Alk - 9
PH - 8.2
Temp - 78

If I don't get in there and turkey baste it, by 1pm today the substrate will be covered in rusty brown again and the hair algae keeps swaying in the flow taunting me!
I'm doing a 10g water change later today and will hopefully pull the rocks that I can get out to scrub the hair algae off.

Any other ideas? Should I probably feed less? More phosguard?
I really want to beat this! Any advice would be appreciated.

look up dosing tank with vodka it will take care of this trust me.

 

[kalel454]

Hi folks...
I could really use some help. I feel like every step forward is two steps back with my battle against hair algae and I'm in need of some advice.

Some background:
my tank is 50 gallon display with a small sump and is about one year old now. The tank was started with dry base rock and live sand. I've been struggling with hair algae for some months now. Back in Feb, I dosed vibrant for a few weeks and most of it went away however what replaced it was a nasty rusty brown cyano (I think?) outbreak. Fast forward to today and now everything is covered in brown especially the substrate, some on the rocks, and some on the back wall. The hair algae is coming back with a vengeance. There are spots on the rock with hair algae that also have quite a bit of brown cyano(?) inside of the hair algae.

I've been running UV at night - just a Green Killing Machine.

Things Ive been dosing for the algae:
I've been dosing 3% hydrogen peroxide at night (1ml per 10 gals). I am also dosing microbacter7 and microbacter clean every morning. (usually 2 caps of MC and 1 cap of M7) I skip a couple of days here and there with the dosing just because I'm really afraid of over doing it. I've also been making my own phytoplankton and dosing about 30 ml a day hoping to out compete some of this. (I went out of town for a few days recently and didn't dose anything, just had someone feed for me, and the algae was a lot worse when I got home)

I have beefed up my clean up crew.
Currently in my fifty gallon tank I have:
4 Trochus snails, 8 atraea snails, 12 nassarius snails, 7 cerith snails, 1 emerald crab, 1 brittle star, 5 golf ball sized mexican turbo snails, 8 blue leg hermits, 2 yellow tip hermits, 2 scarlet reef hermits, 2 orange and black hermits, 1 tuxedo urchin, and one pistol shrimp

Livestock is:
2 clowns, 1 melanurus wrasse, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 black spot fox face

I use a 5 stage liquagen RODI to filter my water and use Reef Crystals salt. I've been experimenting with more or less water changes to see what works but I'm changing 10 gallons every three weeks currently.

lighting:
I'm running a Radion XR15 at 68% schedule intensity using the RMS mount. I'm using Coralab's AB+ spectrum. The lights run from 11am to 10pm. Full lights are on for 7 and a half hours with the rest being sun set and sun rise on either side of that.

I've been using phosguard in a mesh bag in my filter sock. I use 6 tablespoons and usually leave it in for about a week (Maybe I should use more or swap it out more frequently?)

I run a refugium with Chaeto. No problems growing the chaeto at all. I run my fuge lights for 14 and a half hours which seems to be the sweet spot for my tank to keep nitrates stable at around 5.

Feeding (and I think this might be the issue... I don't know how much to feed)
I feed about a cube of frozen a day and leave a small strip of nori in the tank for the foxface every day.
If I feed them pellets instead it's usually two or three pinches.

I feed the corals twice a week
I feed: fuel (1/2 cap), reefroids (1/4 teaspoon), and coral frenzy pellets (a pinch or two) for the LPSs

My parameters as of yesterday are:
Sal - 1.026
Nitrate - 4
Phos - 0.1
Cal - 465
Mag 1500
Alk - 9
PH - 8.2
Temp - 78

If I don't get in there and turkey baste it, by 1pm today the substrate will be covered in rusty brown again and the hair algae keeps swaying in the flow taunting me!
I'm doing a 10g water change later today and will hopefully pull the rocks that I can get out to scrub the hair algae off.

Any other ideas? Should I probably feed less? More phosguard?
I really want to beat this! Any advice would be appreciated.

look up dosing with vodka.i was in the same boat 4 years ago an havent seen it since.100% will work just be patient.

 

[MartinM]

Starting with dry base rock is always the problem.

1) replace with actual live rock, as fresh as possible
2) feed well and often, and a variety of micron sizes and types (phyto, zoo, 1-100 micron range)
3) Have a sand bed and DO NOT vacuum it
4) Have a variety of different snails

I’m on 25 years of reefing and by doing the above, haven’t battled nuisance algae in any system. My systems are always full of all kinds of invertebrate and macroalgae life, no one organism can take over because there’s always competition from everything else. You know you’re feeding enough when the tunicates, feather dusters, and sponges are growing and multiplying all over.

Following the usual ‘feed less and use base rock’ just means you end up with the toughest single organism that can handle those conditions…which is…you guessed it…undesirable organisms.

 

[Daniel92481]

here's a few pictures I just shot with the whites on. It basically gets worse as the day progresses. Some pictures show how some spots are a combination of hair algae and the rusty brown stuff at the base and mixed in.

I'm going to switch to feeding nothing but frozen for a while and maybe feed less to see if that will help lower phosphates. should I worry about dinos taking over if I do that? would it be a better strategy to tackle one problem at a time?


Thanks for the help!

Hey, yea that is definitely GHA I’m seeing, but I’m not sure about it getting worse throughout the day. That sounds like dinos to me. Hmm. Maybe someone can offer some insight here. I would personally do some manual removal, feed a tad bit less, add some trochus and turbo snails, stay on top of maintenance, continue with testing phosphates, and reevaluate after a couple weeks.

 

[TriggersAmuck]

Following the usual ‘feed less and use base rock’ just means you end up with the toughest single organism that can handle those conditions…which is…you guessed it…undesirable organisms.

I recommend everyone review this (somewhat long) video, as you will find where in the very large spectrum each person's experience and views fall:

Please note that the amount of food input should be based on the demand, that is how sizable the base of lifeforms is. In a newer tank, that isn't much. In a five year old tank, it is considerable. Nutrient export can be accomplished via three means (going back decades): chemically, mechanically, and biologically. A resilient approach will attempt to weigh on these equally and not on one more than the other. Once again, the maturity of the system can dictate to what degree each of these is effective. It takes time to establish biological equilibrium. Chemical and mechanical, not so much time.

So starting with a 100% dry sterile system, yeah, it is going to take quite a bit longer. To Martin's point, this can be sped up with live sand and rock. But nutrient control (export) is still the name of the game.

 

[The_Skrimp]

You’re all always super helpful. Thank you! I never considered carbon dosing with vodka. I’m definitely going to look that up. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

 

[Daftendire]

In my tank I used all dry rock in the display but had a few lbs of cycled rock in the sump. My initial hair algae outbreak lasted about a month. I was also dosing phytoplankton to try and keep all the filter feeders on the rock thriving.

Maybe before you dose any other chemicals to the tank try to get some cycled rock from a LFS with some nice life on it.

 

[MartinM]

I recommend everyone review this (somewhat long) video, as you will find where in the very large spectrum each person's experience and views fall:

Please note that the amount of food input should be based on the demand, that is how sizable the base of lifeforms is. In a newer tank, that isn't much. In a five year old tank, it is considerable. Nutrient export can be accomplished via three means (going back decades): chemically, mechanically, and biologically. A resilient approach will attempt to weigh on these equally and not on one more than the other. Once again, the maturity of the system can dictate to what degree each of these is effective. It takes time to establish biological equilibrium. Chemical and mechanical, not so much time.

So starting with a 100% dry sterile system, yeah, it is going to take quite a bit longer. To Martin's point, this can be sped up with live sand and rock. But nutrient control (export) is still the name of the game.

The point I was making was that by feeding a variety of sizes/types of food, you allow the organisms that compete with the nuisance organism to flourish and outcompete them. This requires feeding and it requires the organisms. It won’t work starting from dry rock, and it won’t work without the food.

In my systems, when I feed more, I tend to see a lot more sponges, tunicates, and various macroalgae growth than nuisance species growth (except on the glass, which goes back to my point of dry rock vs live rock).

While you can ’starve out’ nuisance species, you’ll starve all the non-nuisance species much faster.

 

[The_Skrimp]

Update:
It's looking a LOT better already thanks so much for the help.

I have some questions about carbon dosing for those of you doing it:
I'm currently dosing .3 ml of vodka a day and already I'm seeing a drop in nitrates day by day (I'm at 1.5ppm nitrates now) however, my phosphates keep going up (Im only feeding frozen right now). Today is the day I'm supposed to up my dose from .3 ml to .7ml of vodka... my question is, since my nitrates are dropping fast should I go ahead and already cut my dose in half into a maintenance dose before I hit zeor? Or... Do I go ahead and up the dose to .7ml and start dosing neo nitro until I see a drop in phosphates and then cut to a maintenance dose?

What I've been doing....
I've taken every rock I could out of the tank and scrubbed it in water change water and did a big water change last week. I have been running GFO as usual. I've been dosing 3% h202 at night and a little bit of microbacter 7 or microbacter clean in the mornings along with some phytoplankton. I started the carbon dosing about a week ago. Occasionally throughout the day too I'll turn on the UV and use a turkey baster to blow up anything brown I see before it has a chance to really stick.

thats the same brown spot from the previous batch of photos. There's been a significant reduction in whatever that was. It still comes back but there's less and less of it each day.

Here's a tank shot. The sand looks really clean unless you really look up close. You can still see some brown and hair algae hanging on in the hard to reach spots but for the most part everything seems to be turning around.

Thanks again for the help everyone!