New Reef Tank Issues

[surferguy]

Hey all, I have a 13 gallon reef tank that has been running for a few months now with no issues. I've had the water tested at the local aquarium shop regularly and there has never been any issues until this weekend. Unfortunatley the local shop is closed for a few days so I can't go in and ask for help in person. From Saturday to today there has been a green algae bloom starting to form on the live rock. One of my two nassarius snails won't bury himself under the sand. Both of my astaea snails have fallen on the sand and needed help getting back on the rock, and lastly my toadstool coral won't open up and turn green during the day. Ph is 8, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, ammonia 0, and the salinity is 1.025. The other tank inhabitants are two clowns and 1 shrimp which do not appear to be in any distress. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[00W]

Hey all, I have a 13 gallon reef tank that has been running for a few months now with no issues. I've had the water tested at the local aquarium shop regularly and there has never been any issues until this weekend. Unfortunatley the local shop is closed for a few days so I can't go in and ask for help in person. From Saturday to today there has been a green algae bloom starting to form on the live rock. One of my two nassarius snails won't bury himself under the sand. Both of my astaea snails have fallen on the sand and needed help getting back on the rock, and lastly my toadstool coral won't open up and turn green during the day. Ph is 8, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, ammonia 0, and the salinity is 1.025. The other tank inhabitants are two clowns and 1 shrimp which do not appear to be in any distress. Any thoughts or suggestions?

How about some pictures under white light and we'll see what we can do.

 

[surferguy]

How about some pictures under white light and we'll see what we can do.

Hey thanks for the reply. The algae was almost non existent until Saturday, and now its rampant

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hey all, I have a 13 gallon reef tank that has been running for a few months now with no issues. I've had the water tested at the local aquarium shop regularly and there has never been any issues until this weekend. Unfortunatley the local shop is closed for a few days so I can't go in and ask for help in person. From Saturday to today there has been a green algae bloom starting to form on the live rock. One of my two nassarius snails won't bury himself under the sand. Both of my astaea snails have fallen on the sand and needed help getting back on the rock, and lastly my toadstool coral won't open up and turn green during the day. Ph is 8, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, ammonia 0, and the salinity is 1.025. The other tank inhabitants are two clowns and 1 shrimp which do not appear to be in any distress. Any thoughts or suggestions?

This is normal for a new tank.

It settles down by the 12 month mark.
Time to get a toothbrush and start scrubbing the algae.

If you have a Phosphate test you should try to keep it under 0.1ppm

 

[00W]

Fish look good water looks good.
Test for phosphate?
Most likely higher, might want to test.
Always should test yourself don't know if your LFS is using quality kit's or not (no disrespect intended).
I'd think nitrate probably isn't at zero, phosphate a tad high.
Manually remove what you can, water change,nothing drastic there please but you are going to have to be your own clean up crew for a bit.
Algae won't hurt anything but don't let it suffocate those corals.

 

[Jekyl]

Looks like a mix of dinos and hair algae. Remove what you can using your gravel vac and a toothbrush at the end. Dosing live phyto can help also. Make sure to get your nitrates up. Zero is not a good thing. Aim for around 10.

 

[brandon429]

it's light driven

that's too bright and intense, needs to be turned down or it will just remain

lift out the rocks and set on the counter, it won't hurt them or the coral.
use a knife tip to slowly/with precision dig and scratch out the algae from each curve and holdfast, next time don't want so long to take action, do it when the algae is the size of a dime. this is allowed takeover so it will take a while to scrape clean

rinse off with saltwater, make the rock clean via your knife precision dentistry on the counter don't alter the water parameters to fight it, or add anything to the tank.

put some peroxide on the cleaned section of rock and let sit a minute and rinse that off, set the rock back cleaned and with a reduction in overall lighting power -25% off current power level, no longer than 8 hour duration. prepare for a couple touchup runs, that's how to fix it. don't alter tank parameters around the matter.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Looks like a mix of dinos and hair algae. Remove what you can using your gravel vac and a toothbrush at the end. Dosing live phyto can help also. Make sure to get your nitrates up. Zero is not a good thing. Aim for around 10.

I'd suggest that the Nitrates are only reading zero as they're being consumed by the algae.
Once that is cleaned away, the Nitrates will probably rise quickly

 

[Jekyl]

I'd suggest that the Nitrates are only reading zero as they're being consumed by the algae.
Once that is cleaned away, the Nitrates will probably rise quickly

Not going to argue there. However the result is still the same. Even with algae present nitrate should not bottom out. As mentioned it can lead to dinos and also nitrate is basically representing the food available to coral.