My algae removal success story

[ScubaSkeets]

I Had been battling algae for a while.
2 orders from reefcleaners did not really work.
3 day black-out worked some but it didn't remove it all and alot of it just came back after a week or so.
Phosphate and Nitrates were 0 (being consumed by the algae)
I Didn't really want to try Vibrant, nopox, etc.
So, during a water change, I removed a few rocks at a time, sprayed them with 3% hydrogen peroxide, waited a few seconds, and then pressure washed the rocks with an electric power washer (gas ones might be too powerful for this).
I then dunked the rocks in one bucket of old water, then soaked them in another bucket of old water for a few minutes, shook the water off, and returned them to the tank. I left the few rocks that had coral or anenomes on them, alone.
It has been over a month and my tank is algae free!!
Even the rocks that I did not do this too are algae free. My tank has not looked this good in a long time!
I also built an algae scrubber from an old HOB filter, a grow light, a plastic screen, and a take-out container for a cover. I've been harvesting algae from that, but again, no algae in the DT!!
Phosphates are now 0.14 (Hanna)
Nitrates are 2.5 (Salifert)
Your results may vary if you try this, and it may seem a bit unorthodox, or alot of effort, or whatever, but it worked for me!

 

[Reefahholic]

The easier way to rid the algae is to keep your nutrients up.

Wait what? You’re telling me that by increasing my nutrients the algae will go away?

Yes in most cases, especially in young systems.

Wait, everybody says that when you have green algae growing in a tank, and nutrients are testing at zero that this is only because the algae is consuming all the nutrients.

Yes, but when the algae is consuming all the nutrients as it’s growing, it can and will “outcompete” your microorganisms and corals. Microbes need phosphate to thrive and multiply. When algae has outcompeted your microbial community it can freely dominate without much competition.

So what do I do in this situation? :-(

It’s very simple. It may seem counterintuitive, but the solution is to dose phosphate most of the time. (There are a few caveats I’ll talk about below) Ok, but the algae is consuming my nutrients and I can’t seem to feed enough.

Yes, So you need to supplement enough back to the system until you get past the consumption of the algae, and it starts to become available to your corals and microorganisms. Then you will start to observe your microbial environment changing even though you cannot see what is actually going on with the naked eye. You can still see, and appreciate changes on the rocks, snail shells, glass, sand, overflow box, etc. So even though your army is microscopic, the evidence of their work is clearly seen in the tank.

How do I know when I have enough? The short answer is experience. The longer answer is to get your nutrients off zero, and make sure you have some decent numbers on the board. Shoot for a range of about .06-0.1 initially. If you go too far the algae will also take advantage of the excessively high nutrients eventually. I’ve seen this in my own system when I’m getting north of 0.3, 0.4, etc., but every system is different and if acclimated over time you will be surprised what some systems can handle. Richard Ross is a prime example.

This will not work for all systems because it depends if the system is binding phosphate or if it’s being over filtered, skimmed, both, etc. In some cases bio-filtration may be excessive. One of my old systems below (50 liters of Siporax):

In my current system it took phosphate dosing as high as 0.16 ppm and PO4 levels in the upper 0.2 range to finally saturate the dry rock. That’s with no filtration other than rock and a smaller skimmer. However, on the way up I noticed the algae dying off. When the PO4 would get low again, it would come back and become more vigorous. Our initial instincts as reefers is to stop dosing phosphate when we see algae, but sometimes that’s exactly what you “shouldn’t” do most of the time. It also depends on system age and other variables, but typically you either see bad algae in younger systems under 1.5 years or older systems over 3 years. One system will have very low or depleted nutrients, and the other will have excessive nutrients. In almost all cases when I see it depleted, it needs to be dosed or elevated to get you out of the problem. I find a 100:1 ratio to be pretty darn good, but I’ve had good results with 50:1 all the way up past 200:1. Unless your Roberto Denadai, if you really want to jack up a young system, let the phosphate and nitrate become depleted. You’ll end up with all kind of issues most of the time.

If you want zero issues, just make sure to avoid rock like this:

Good luck!

 

[ScubaSkeets]

Hmmmm....
Thanks for the reply but
I'm not sure if I would consider that easier, but to each their own.

 

[ctopherl]

I Had been battling algae for a while.
2 orders from reefcleaners did not really work.
3 day black-out worked some but it didn't remove it all and alot of it just came back after a week or so.
Phosphate and Nitrates were 0 (being consumed by the algae)
I Didn't really want to try Vibrant, nopox, etc.
So, during a water change, I removed a few rocks at a time, sprayed them with 3% hydrogen peroxide, waited a few seconds, and then pressure washed the rocks with an electric power washer (gas ones might be too powerful for this).
I then dunked the rocks in one bucket of old water, then soaked them in another bucket of old water for a few minutes, shook the water off, and returned them to the tank. I left the few rocks that had coral or anenomes on them, alone.
It has been over a month and my tank is algae free!!
Even the rocks that I did not do this too are algae free. My tank has not looked this good in a long time!
I also built an algae scrubber from an old HOB filter, a grow light, a plastic screen, and a take-out container for a cover. I've been harvesting algae from that, but again, no algae in the DT!!
Phosphates are now 0.14 (Hanna)
Nitrates are 2.5 (Salifert)
Your results may vary if you try this, and it may seem a bit unorthodox, or alot of effort, or whatever, but it worked for me!

So your algae scrubber just grows hair algae? Or do you do some sort of macro in there? And how do you keep the light from spilling out into the rest of the sump so you don't get algae everywhere?

 

[ScubaSkeets]

So your algae scrubber just grows hair algae? Or do you do some sort of macro in there? And how do you keep the light from spilling out into the rest of the sump so you don't get algae everywhere?

It's turf algae. No other macro in there and it started with a clean piece of plastic knitting mesh. As far as light spillage, as you can see in the pic, there is light spillage, but there's no algae other than what's on the screen and part of the HOB filter. I can only guess that the light spillage is just not strong enough to cause any algae in the sump

 

[ctopherl]

It's turf algae. No other macro in there and it started with a clean piece of plastic knitting mesh. As far as light spillage, as you can see in the pic, there is light spillage, but there's no algae other than what's on the screen and part of the HOB filter. I can only guess that the light spillage is just not strong enough to cause any algae in the sump

Thank you! I guess you could always just throw some snails or an urchin in the sump if needed