Losing the year long battle with algae

[brandon429]

Coralline and corals attached to quality living surfaces are bioexcluding to algae

 

[rtparty]

Anecdotally live rock and live sand (TBS or Gulf) seem much harder for hair algae to root on compared to mined aragonite. Not sure why exactly, might be some “Microbiome” magic going on…

There is very little available real estate. Biofilms, slimes, micro fauna, and other things shave already developed much of the available real estate. Hair algae doesn’t have a spot to take root and win the battle

 

[KrisReef]

@AJ_Daubz What kind of rock is underneath this algae growth? Your earlier posts had other funk growing on this rock. Is it arragonite or fossil coral or?

If it is not coral rock it will benefit you to replace it with arragonite, otherwise it needs to be scrubbed well.

 

[AJ_Daubz]

@AJ_Daubz What kind of rock is underneath this algae growth? Your earlier posts had other funk growing on this rock. Is it arragonite or fossil coral or?

If it is not coral rock it will benefit you to replace it with arragonite, otherwise it needs to be scrubbed well.

It's DD reef rock from what I can remember (the purple version of it)

 

[Lyzze]

Hello all!

I've had my reef tank up and running for coming up on 2 years now, and have pretty much had constant hair algae for the last year.
I'm really running out of ideas on how to stop this so would really appreciate some advice.

All my rocks are completely covered in algae, it's all over the sand bed, all over the glass and back of the tank, and it keeps blocking up the water return.

My nitrate and phosphate are pretty much where they need to be at 10ppm nitrate and 0.1ppm phosphate.

I'm doing weekly 10% water changes using my own RO water with 0tds.

Pretty much daily I try to scrub the rocks and siphon excess algae out, but it seems to return almost instantly.

I have a decent clean up crew consisting of various shrimps, snails, urchins and hermit crabs but they barely make a dent. I also have a tomini tang who doesn't seem too keen on eating the algae.

I'm really at my wits end now and don't know what else to do, I feel like I spend hours and hours trying to remove the algae for it to just instantly return again. Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this? I'm getting desperate now haha! I'd really appreciate any advice you guys have!

I solved my aggea issue with 12 large mexuxan turbo snails

Took out my Rock s and sprayed them with peroxide their fused together so it was fairly easy
Cut my lights down by 50 percent
It took about 6 months buts it's all gone and hasn't come back

 

[Dburr1014]

100% age on beefing up the CUC and doing water changes.
But after my year long battle and doing everything that was natural, I threw in the towel and dosed reef flux at 10% of full dose every 3 weeks. It took 3 doses and it was done. Didn't shut off anything while I was dosing.
Best approach? Nope.

 

[KrisReef]

Keep harvesting.

The rocks you have are going through a normal, ugly, transition from being dead into rocks that went through biome sucessions until they resemble aged reef substrate. Limit nutrient input to speed up the win.

 

[Tangdora]

My filtration system consists of a filter sock and skimmer- nothing too fancy! I also add copepods and phytoplankton every 2 weeks or so. I feed a sprinkle of pellets every day, and some frozen shrimp every 2 or 3 days which gets eaten up completely. In terms of fish I have a clown pair, a dusky wrasse, 3 azure damsels, starry blenny and a tomini tang.

Sinking or floating pellets. If sinking id be looking into your powerhead size and playment. If those pellets are getting into the rock work and not getting eaten, they will just break down in the crevices and feed algea growth. Look to make sure your getting enough gph and water from powerhead and that you don’t have dead spots. You want all that blowing off.

 

[chickendirt]

I see about 8 fish in this tank? 55 gallon?

Thats the first thing that came to mind.

I have a 75 and was stocked with about 10-12 fish. I'm relatively new at this and the tank now sits at 2 years old. It's one of those things where if the bio load is that high, you slip on a water change or nutrient control for a week or so, the whole thing goes down hill.

I had one fish die and didn't notice. Then two more died. When all was said and done I had a massive GHA bomb. All my corals went with it. Sometimes life happens (See Steward Hospital fiasco) and your routine changes. I used to do maintanance at night after work.

I scrubbed everything in the tank and am now down to 5 fish, 1 peppermint shrimp and about 5 snails. Just started adding two Duncans. The GSP was the only thing that survived.

Its hard to resist the urge to overstock starting out. I think we all have done it. Its possible but its never considered what happens if we miss a week or a day doing something when starting out.

 

[CHSUB]

Thats the first thing that came to mind.

I have a 75 and was stocked with about 10-12 fish. I'm relatively new at this and the tank now sits at 2 years old. It's one of those things where if the bio load is that high, you slip on a water change or nutrient control for a week or so, the whole thing goes down hill.

I had one fish die and didn't notice. Then two more died. When all was said and done I had a massive GHA bomb. All my corals went with it. Sometimes life happens (See Steward Hospital fiasco) and your routine changes. I used to do maintanance at night after work.

I scrubbed everything in the tank and am now down to 5 fish, 1 peppermint shrimp and about 5 snails. Just started adding two Duncans. The GSP was the only thing that survived.

Its hard to resist the urge to overstock starting out. I think we all have done it. Its possible but its never considered what happens if we miss a week or a day doing something when starting out.

Yes. Problem is, imo, new hobbyists read and get advice that includes running nutrients high (no3@10+ and [email protected]+, for example) which goes against proper husbandry. These parameters are generally fine for an experienced hobbyist, however a newbie would likely be overwhelmed with nuisances algae.

 

[chickendirt]

Yes. Problem is, imo, new hobbyists read and get advice that includes running nutrients high (no3@10+ and [email protected]+, for example) which goes against proper husbandry. These parameters are generally fine for an experienced hobbyist, however a newbie would likely be overwhelmed with nuisances algae.

I dont know if I ever got that one LOL. I do kinda side more on the " Nature is gonna do what nature is gonna do" side of care. I don't start chasing numbers during algae break outs. I dont dump tons of chemicles in the tank to fix things. I try to let things run its course as much as possible and focus on keeping clean filtration, pumps and to only feed as much as they eat.

When you overstock things get out of hand very quickly. From experience fish also die and dissapear before you notice it cause there's so much going on as well.

As far as high nutrients go I've only heard that about freshwater tanks that are planted. In reef tanks its basicly just the bare minimum level to not crash the tank. Also, from my understanding, in this hobby a 2 year old tank is still considered a young tank. So that also may play an issue into the overstocking problem.

 

[PlayDoh]

I struggled with all kinds of Algae issues. The one thing that has REALLY worked is an urchin. That 1 animal absolutely plows through everything on my rocks usually at least 3 times a week.
You just really need to watch those dudes though as they will also rip out some corals.

 

[CHSUB]

As far as high nutrients go I've only heard that about freshwater tanks that are planted

So I use constant maintenance and parameters between all my tanks. This summer I started a planted FW. Plants aren’t growing, so going to start dosing nutrients…haha!