Marine aquarium driving me round the bend!

[shannonlaird]

Myself and my fiancé got our first saltwater marine aquarium last May 2020 in lockdown as we had always spoken about one.
We did loads of research and got a 240L juwel rio, it has the 2 power heads, filter & protein skimmer.
Currently in the tank is live rock, live sand, 1 x blue tang, 2 x clown fish, a cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp and a few hermit crabs. We did have more CUC however I think the hermit crabs took them out …

my issue is, the tank never ever ever ever ever feels or looks clean. It gets filthy hours after we do anything with it and just can’t keep up with it, there is brown dark hair algae all over the live rock, grime on the glass and the sand turns brown a few minutes after we stir the sand.
I have attached photos of it, can anyone help me at all? Temp is fine, salinity is fine, lights are on for 8-9 ish hours a day. We are going to check the water parameters tonight as I suspect something is way off. But what do we do? What fish would feast on the algae?

 

[Uncle99]

Hopefully your making RODI water with 0 tds for making saltwater.
Looks like nutrients, nitrate and phosphate too high.
This would come with to much feeding and a very small hard surface area for ammonia, produced by fish, can be processed through the nitrogen cycle.
Doesn’t look like there’s enough rock.
Water changes can reduce nutrients fast.
You’ll need to scrub that algae off the rock and turn your lights off for 5 days. Make sure you suck that green out.
Nitrate should be kept from 5-10ppm and phosphate from 0.03-.1ppm for at least, the first year.

 

[shannonlaird]

Hopefully your making RODI water with 0 tds for making saltwater.
Looks like nutrients, nitrate and phosphate too high.
This would come with to much feeding and a very small hard surface area for ammonia, produced by fish, can be processed through the nitrogen cycle.
Doesn’t look like there’s enough rock.
Water changes can reduce nutrients fast.
You’ll need to scrub that algae off the rock and turn your lights off for 5 days. Make sure you suck that green out.
Nitrate should be kept from 5-10ppm and phosphate from 0.03-.1ppm for at least, the first year.

Thank you very much we will scrub the rocks and switch off the lights right away and hopefully it will help. What should we do after that? Or should that give it a kick?

 

[shannonlaird]

How much more rock should we add in? I’m not too sure where to put it!

 

[bReefedBaker]

How much more rock should we add in? I’m not too sure where to put it!

*If the link works, try it. It’s a LR calculator.

Liverock calculator

Calculate the amount of liverock you need for a given size of tank

www.ultimatereef.net

 

[shannonlaird]

Great thank you. We have some more live rock we will pop into the tank. Do we need to turn off the protein skimmer while the lights are off for the few days you reckon?

*If the link works, try it. It’s a LR calculator.

Liverock calculator

Calculate the amount of liverock you need for a given size of tank

www.ultimatereef.net

 

[Uncle99]

Thank you very much we will scrub the rocks and switch off the lights right away and hopefully it will help. What should we do after that? Or should that give it a kick?

Now I see the full rockwork, that’s enough.
You can significantly improve hard surface area if you can put any Marine pure blocks in your sump.
It’s going to take some time.

Clearly your problem is that your inputting more than your filter can export, I would assume that when you check nitrate it will be very high, maybe 40ppm or higher and phosphate will likely show zero as all that algae in the tank will consume it. Normally we keep phosphate in the 0.03ppm-.1ppm range. There are tools to help reduce both nitrate and phosphate.

Algae needs two things or it dies.

Light and Nutrients. Your going to deprive it of both.

Fish don’t need light.
When you do a 30% water change you remove 30% of the nutrients.

So after 3 changes, you’ve changed 90% of the water.

You must use RODI water with 0 tds to make saltwater. There’s nitrate and phosphate in tap water as well as a bunch of other stuff we dont want.

You can consider trying Vibrant to make a hit on that GHA.

 

[shannonlaird]

Now I see the full rockwork, that’s enough.
You can significantly improve hard surface area if you can put any Marine pure blocks in your sump.
It’s going to take some time.

Clearly your problem is that your inputting more than your filter can export, I would assume that when you check nitrate it will be very high, maybe 40ppm or higher and phosphate will likely show zero as all that algae in the tank will consume it. Normally we keep phosphate in the 0.03ppm-.1ppm range. There are tools to help reduce both nitrate and phosphate.

Algae needs two things or it dies.

Light and Nutrients. Your going to deprive it of both.

Fish don’t need light.
When you do a 30% water change you remove 30% of the nutrients.

So after 3 changes, you’ve changed 90% of the water.

You must use RODI water with 0 tds to make saltwater. There’s nitrate and phosphate in tap water as well as a bunch of other stuff we dont want.

You can consider trying Vibrant to make a hit on that GHA.

Hi, thanks. We only have the filter that the tank came with and not a sump as we have no idea how to install one The filter is on the right of the tank inside, it’s a juwel one that came with the tank and has the filter pads inside, I have googled the marine blocks, do we put this inside our filter also? And is this the right vibrant solution you’re meaning?

 

[t5Nitro]

My tank used to look almost the same as this. Its not clean clean by any means today, but I think actually dosing live phytoplankton has helped tremendously if you can find some or have it shipped in. 25 to 50mL a day seemed to help a lot. I ran out of phyto and my green hair algae is showing up more again.

Would either remove rocks 1 at a time to scrub off GHA, or if unable to remove like mine, then siphon the best you can. Then start dosing live phyto daily. Nutrients are always going to read artificially low. Don't bother spending your cash to buy more test kits if you don't have them already. The algae is soaking it up.

Edit: one thing I would add to my tank, if I had the room, is a large refugium with macroalgae lit for 12 hours a day. Id probably try to do something at least 20 to 30% of the size of the display and make the macro outcompete the GHA.

 

[captain_jimmy]

My tank used to look almost the same as this. Its not clean clean by any means today, but I think actually dosing live phytoplankton has helped tremendously if you can find some or have it shipped in. 25 to 50mL a day seemed to help a lot. I ran out of phyto and my green hair algae is showing up more again.

Would either remove rocks 1 at a time to scrub off GHA, or if unable to remove like mine, then siphon the best you can. Then start dosing live phyto daily. Nutrients are always going to read artificially low. Don't bother spending your cash to buy more test kits if you don't have them already. The algae is soaking it up.

Edit: one thing I would add to my tank, if I had the room, is a large refugium with macroalgae lit for 12 hours a day. Id probably try to do something at least 20 to 30% of the size of the display and make the macro outcompete the GHA.

I'd second this actually. I get algae when I stop dosing phytoplankton.

You could consider running a refugium with some macroalgae at some point. It can help consume nutrients that other nuisance algae in your DT need to survive.

 

[Uncle99]

Hi, thanks. We only have the filter that the tank came with and not a sump as we have no idea how to install one The filter is on the right of the tank inside, it’s a juwel one that came with the tank and has the filter pads inside, I have googled the marine blocks, do we put this inside our filter also? And is this the right vibrant solution you’re meaning?

Ok, no sump, I hear you.
Forget the marine pure in this case.
You’ll need to keep that filter very clean or it will add to nitrates.
You’ll need to aggressively skim to remove dissolved wastes.
Test for nitrates, you can carbon dose high nitrates down to day 5-15ppm with RS Nopox (or equivalent) but that does take some weeks. The new Hanna HR (high range) checker is super at testing nitrates. Again, fast, easy and IMO, accurate.
I’d start a bag of Rowaphos (or a GFO of your choice) in your canister as it’s likely phosphate is high and we need to mop up that organic and take it out.
I’d get a Hanna Phosphorus UL checker, IMM, a very easy, quick test but accurate at low levels and use the GFO until you reach 0.1ppm, then pull the GFO out.
Water change, every week, at least until mature.
By carbon dosing, you’ll be feeding bacteria increasing their population on your hard surfaces, thus increasing your export capacity which is what that system needs.
While you can reduce nitrate this way, it does little for phosphate.
Two ways to reduce phosphate, reduce/change food input.
Pull it out with GFO.
Works towards those targets over time and never let either or both zero out. Then corals starve and pest algae’s like Dinos and Cyanos come out to play.

 

[G Santana]

Hopefully your making RODI water with 0 tds for making saltwater.
Looks like nutrients, nitrate and phosphate too high.
This would come with to much feeding and a very small hard surface area for ammonia, produced by fish, can be processed through the nitrogen cycle.
Doesn’t look like there’s enough rock.
Water changes can reduce nutrients fast.
You’ll need to scrub that algae off the rock and turn your lights off for 5 days. Make sure you suck that green out.
Nitrate should be kept from 5-10ppm and phosphate from 0.03-.1ppm for at least, the first year.

All of the above. I just went through the exact same thing. 3 months of battling GHA. I 'vacuumed' the rocks daily with a siphon hose, I pulled all long strands by hand, I dosed Vibrant for 7 weeks straight out of desperation and I dosed hydrogen peroxide for 3 or 4 weeks and managed nitrates and phosphates to low levels.
At the end, the GHA was coming off in huge clumps. It wasn't easy and it wasn't fast. But finally I am free of algae.

Good luck. This is the worst of the process but there is a light at the end of the tunnel!!!

 

[iMi]

All good advice here.

I would caution you to strive for balance. Too clean will lead to dinoflagellates. It can happen very quickly (I've just recovered from an outbreak and it was not pretty). Too much nutrients and you'll get what you're having now.

Also, remember that most tanks don't look "clean" 100% of the time. Reefing is more of a journey rather than a destination. The tang by the way will likely need more room down the road. Something to consider.