Nutrient Balance Without Hair Algae

[larrylandes]

I too have been struggling with SPS STN. I have been chasing numbers and trying to attack this from all angles. It keeps coming down to this: If I try to balance the nutrients, I get a hair algae outbreak.

Here are my numbers:
alk 8.6
CA 390
MAG 1470
PO4 .ZERO
NO3 5
SALINITY 1.022
TEMP 78.2

The only thing that keeps the GHA in check is daily dosing of NYOS Zero, and changing my GFO weekly. My phosphates are reading at zero, but that may be masked by the GHA. Currently, most of the existing GHA looks like it's browning and dying off, but if I turn my back on the tank.....bloom!

Other info:
60 Gallon cube (24x24x24).
7 powerheads. 6 Koralias and 1 MP10. I've been replacing the Koralias with MP10s when I can since the MP10s seem more powerful.
Feeding fish every other day (alternating LRS and frozen mysis). Again, more food = more GHA.

15 gallon sump, one compartment used a s a refugium. Not seen much growth in refugium as of late.

Thanks in anvance for any and all advise.
Larry

 

[ashr]

Your salinity is a little low. I would try and raise that up towards the 1.026 mark. I am having the same issues as you with Sps STN but no hair algae.. my issue is bubble algae. An on going chase of numbers and such Gonna do a large 50% water change soon and then 30% once a week and see how the system does.

 

[Paul B]

Your nutrients are not what causes hair algae. My nitrates are 160 and my PO4 is 2.0. Hair algae can grow with almost no nutrients or very high like mine. The hair algae and high nutrient connection is a myth.
You can try to get your nutrients very low which would be healthier for SPS corals, but may not help with hair algae although almost everyone will disagree with me.

 

[larrylandes]

Thanks for your replies.

As for salinity, I purchase my RO and Salt Water from a reliable source. Their tanks are beautiful. I have another 30 gallon tank, which maintains salinity at 1.025. Every tank responds differently.

For the nutrients, I've always been told that GHA masks the actual phosphate level. It is also probably out competing the corals and macro algae for food.

 

[bif24701]

How long have you had the system up and running? Do you have a ATS or cheato refugium?

 

[brandon429]

Paul is correct such that in 200 pages of my algae correction threads we needed to know tank nutrients to get a clean looking after pic about four times total, and three of them were using tap as topoff.

We just cheat killed all the algae with no permission asked. It was unnatural, nothing that would ever happen in nature, yet turned out a thousand fantastic-looking tanks so I like it and we enjoy being independent of nutrients just the same. In my own algae free tank I have no idea what any of the nutrients are

We know that nutrients have an interplay with algae but aren't the final say. It's not like my tank would be algae free if I stopped all maintenance, but we discovered with very basic maintenance and very exceptional cheats anything but abnormal nutrient situations don't matter if we just Target and kill algae.

Not everybody takes the kill step either it's true you can manage algae leaving it alone to natural plant cycles if you want to take that ride/ there's many ways to work it we just got hooked on the fast turnaround especially for really wrecked tanks.

 

[bif24701]

I think that having stable parameters, appropriately matched nutrient export, mature system and live rock all play a part.

After a year my GHA and other pest algae were no longer a problem. I have a big skimmer, cheato, lots of LR, MarinePure, and water changes.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed. We always have the abnormal challenges such as uncured Marco rocks, po4 pumps, where that substrate alone if moved to our tanks would grow green. The most stable tanks have live rock with competing growth... coral flesh number one, coralline number two.

We had the early farmers scraping and nuking algae to keep real estate open just for that kind of growth! In time the work lessens and for some people with good lucky variables the work lessens and sustains fast.

I think that nutrients matter or we wouldn't have ATS users and I wouldn't have sandbeds blasted back to crystal clear cleaned. Where I differ on nutrients is adjusting params to any other param vs what corals need.

Give me a set of coral acceptable params, a set a dental plaque tools, some 35% bubblewater, that algae will cease and desist times 1001

Pick any reef we can reasonably travel to: it's grazer modulated algae growth. A physical action modulates the algae it wasn't water column driven modulation.

I dove caymans for weeks once in lucky 90s and saw algae, and algae grazers, and balance.


I cannot locate one natural reef that doesn't rely on grazers to moderate algae in fact though I'm sure an article exists somewhere. My only point there is for twenty years or better it's been solely chasing po4 and no3 in the aquarium hobby as the means for control, the direct action is downplayed.

People throw in grazers and if they don't work, it's onto param chasing. We make people into grazers since our reefs lack truer diversity. In nature, if Joe crab skips a patch of brush algae that grew despite zero phosphate on an API kit, Mr parrotfish certainly will not. It's not that one way or another is better, it's that we gain quick strong control over algae problems making hand grazing priority and then good nutrients as evaluated in terms of coral maximums. We can force a tank to run algae free under any parameters corals will accept, if we will that. It's all in quarantine and action taken in my opinion. Nutrients are third position imo

 

[Paul B]

I recently took this off a very remote Island in Hawaii. OMG, could that be Hair Algae? Who would have thought!

 

[brandon429]

They'll (skeptics of control outside nutrients) claim it was farm runoff causing that... Nutrients

We need to know no3 and po4 at the time of that pic

Paul would you pls pls take a nutrient measure using hobby kits at your own locations? It would be neat if they registered zero

 

[brandon429]

hey I see in an old thread I already asked you that and the nitrate reading was zero

in a place where runoff is as expected as heavy snow winters, yep that confirms at least one assumption I was making. I find it hard to think HI would be higher than where you are at.

 

[Paul B]

We need to know no3 and po4 at the time of that pic

Paul would you pls pls take a nutrient measure using hobby kits at your own locations? It would be neat if they registered zero

I would need a test kit for that.
But that hair algae pic I took out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean far from any civilization.

 

[bif24701]

I was away from my take for 4 weeks, and my wife turned the skimmer nearly all the way down. NO3 @16ppm and PO4 @.13ppm take two days after I returned. There isn't a single spot of algae in the display. Just don't look in the refugium.

 

[dankreef]

I'm not sure about the hair algae solution . I've seen some bacteria in a bottles do work on hair algae and also that same med that works on bryopsis ? I think does hair algae too. Your sps are dieing from GfO most likely.

 

[larrylandes]

Thanks everyone for the replies. My tank is 15 months old. I have a temperature controller and a doser to help keep all parameters as stable as possible. My light is a Radion G3, running the SPS+ program.

I've been told to continue using GFO to help with the GHA problem. After treating the tank for every possible bug, I've come to the conclusion that my STN issue is must be relater to flow or starvation. Again, my PO3 reading is zero, but not sure if it's masked by the algae.

I have a refugium in the sump, but of late, the macro algae hasn't been growing. I just cleaned it out, and found a dead cheato ball.