Tank advice

Perfecto_Fiesta · Nov 28, 2022

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum so I'll provide a little background. I was given a biocube 32 for free with rocks and fish in it in July of this year. Not sure how long it has been running for. I have zero experience with reef tanks prior to this, my friend has been helping me whenever I have issues. This forum has also been incredibly helpful. I have definitely made mistakes (like adding a bunch of coral without doing research) but it's been running reasonably well (no crashes or major loss of life) but I have an issue that I can't figure out. It's got pretty significant green hair algae or bryopsis on the rocks and probably diatoms on the sand bed. Hair algae also grows on the sand that I manually remove every couple months. Twice I've had to use chemiclean for cyano outbreaks.

I do 20% water change every three weeks with water purchased from my LFS. Added copepods from algae barn a few months back.

My nutrients always test around the same using API reef master kit, most recent:
Ca 420
Kh 7 (125.3 ppm)
Phosphate 0
Nitrate between 0 and 5 ppm, very hard to tell

Any idea on the cause of the algae and why I can't seem to get rid of it? I run floss, a charcoal bag, and ceramic cones in the back chamber, mainly because that's what it came with when I got it. I feed TDO chromaboost pellets every other day. Any major issues that anyone can see?

Fish:
Clown fish
Royal gramma
Yellow coris wrasse
Fire goby

CUC:
Cleaner shrimp
Tiger conch
Turbo snail x2
Astrea snail x2
Emerald crab

Tldr: have green hair algae or bryopsis that I can't get rid of, any ideas? Let me know if there's any major issues with how it's set up in the attached pictures.

Fish Think Pink · Nov 29, 2022

Perfecto_Fiesta said:
Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum so I'll provide a little background. I was given a biocube 32 for free with rocks and fish in it in July of this year. Not sure how long it has been running for. I have zero experience with reef tanks prior to this, my friend has been helping me whenever I have issues. This forum has also been incredibly helpful. I have definitely made mistakes (like adding a bunch of coral without doing research) but it's been running reasonably well (no crashes or major loss of life) but I have an issue that I can't figure out. It's got pretty significant green hair algae or bryopsis on the rocks and probably diatoms on the sand bed. Hair algae also grows on the sand that I manually remove every couple months. Twice I've had to use chemiclean for cyano outbreaks.

I do 20% water change every three weeks with water purchased from my LFS. Added copepods from algae barn a few months back.

My nutrients always test around the same using API reef master kit, most recent:
Ca 420
Kh 7 (125.3 ppm)
Phosphate 0
Nitrate between 0 and 5 ppm, very hard to tell

Any idea on the cause of the algae and why I can't seem to get rid of it? I run floss, a charcoal bag, and ceramic cones in the back chamber, mainly because that's what it came with when I got it. I feed TDO chromaboost pellets every other day. Any major issues that anyone can see?

Fish:
Clown fish
Royal gramma
Yellow coris wrasse
Fire goby

CUC:
Cleaner shrimp
Tiger conch
Turbo snail x2
Astrea snail x2
Emerald crab

Tldr: have green hair algae or bryopsis that I can't get rid of, any ideas? Let me know if there's any major issues with how it's set up in the attached pictures.

Third photo may be offering insight... sunlight is plant/algae fuel... and that looks like natural light reflecting off your kitchen floor, cabinets and fridge... and all that seems very close to your tank...

Green hair algae isn't an every couple weeks tackle, its usually more like daily. You can run an algae scrubber or planted refugium or something to outcompete.

Also please realize that your algaes are uptaking your nitrates and phosphates, so those numbers you think you have would be higher if you didn't have that algae you are trying to tackle.

All in all, I think your photos look GREAT! During a water change, I'd take those rocks out of tank more frequently for a scrubbing, rinse down with used tank water that was getting tossed as part of water change, then add rock back in. Toothbrush seems too soft and scrub brush too wide so using a scrap of tube and super glue we build our own little rock algae scrubber by cutting off scrub brush bristles using exacto knife.

Davileet · Nov 29, 2022

Having algae on the sand bed tells me that you could probably benefit from more flow. I would run some PhosGaurd in a small reactor to try and starve off what you have. I would also setup a refugium with macroalgae to outcompete the green hair algae in the future. Lastly, I think you could benefit from picking up about 20 decent sized blue/red legged hermit crabs to eat some of it.

You could also flip the rocks over and face the algae into the sand so you starve it of light. I have resorted to taking rocks out and bleaching them in the past to get rid of gha.

I might also be weary of the water being purchased from the LFS. Test it for phosphates before dumping it in next time.

jabberwock · Nov 29, 2022

You got about a $1500 set up for free! Stay the course.

nothing_fancy · Nov 29, 2022

Ya, gonna have to keep cleaning it and wait it out. It might be a good idea to add a jar of pods if you haven't already. One thing though, If you're buying your pre mixed saltwater at your LFS, you might want to test its salinity. Every LFS is obviously different, but I was doing the same for a while and at a point I tested their water and noticed it was coming in a little low for me at its lowest 1.021. It could have been sitting around for a while or being used to fill their own systems at whatever balance they were after. If you're like me and do not have the ability to make your own RODI at home, just buy the RODI from your LFS and get some instant ocean and mix it yourself, it will be cheaper to buy the RO and you will know for sure what you're mixing at as far as salinity. This might help stabilize your tank moving through this phase.

Perfecto_Fiesta · Nov 29, 2022

Wow, thank you all for the advice so far, this is very helpful!

Fish think pink: Scrubbing the rock outside the tank is possible but will be exceedingly difficult. I epoxied/cemented the rocks together to get the formation like that, it was very unstable just set on top. My corals are also glued down but I could probably get those off without much trouble. I might pull it all out and give it a shot though, great idea about the mini scrubber.

Davileet: I do have a second power head (hydor nano) on the front right pointed towards the back wall. The main pump is in the back left pointed towards the front to create what I imagine is a circular flow. Should I change the way this is set up? I didn't have a great reason for doing it that way, just that I read you shouldn't point it directly at the rocks. I've thought about starting a refugium with chaeto as I've heard this can help greatly. As far as the suggestion on the hermits, are those the best CUC for this? I was thinking of adding a tuxedo urchin or even getting a lawnmower blennie just to help keep it controlled while I figure out a more long term fix, are the hermits a better option?

Jabberwock: yes I was extremely lucky, it's been an experience being new to this but it's a very fun hobby.

Nothing_fancy: that's actually a really good idea, I didn't really think about the water potentially being an issue, I just got it from my LFS because I didn't want to mess everything up (and I don't have the ability to do my own RODI Setup). This would also solve any phospate issues from their water, if any. I added a jar of pods about 3 months ago.

Again, thank you all for the advice so far, I've definitely got some things to figure out.