What am I dealing with? What am I doing wrong?

[Benoit Martin]

My tank is a bit over 3 years old and I have been battling algae for pretty much the last 2 years with very little success. I can get the situation to improve a bit by keeping the lights off for a while and/or by using GFO but it's always coming back.
I thought it was a case of over feeding but I lowered the amount of food without success. I may have reduced it even a little too far because I am starting to see a bit of aggression.

I have tried using this forum to try figure this out on my own but after 2 years, I think it's pretty clear that I am not able to so I'm reaching out for help. I have not been enjoying this tank one bit for the last 2 years.

The tank is 120G, FOWLR, and I do a 10% water change every 2 weeks. I have a gyre and 2 Koralia 1500GPH powerheads in the tank and a Reef Octopus Classic 152-S 6" Protein Skimmer in my 40G sump with 3 sock filters.

My current parameters are 0.2 Ammonia, 0 Nitrate, 0 Nitrite, 0.06 Phosphate, 8.2 pH and 1.022 salinity.
I had 7 fish (banggai cardinal just died and I can't find it, hence the 0.2 ammonia) and a cleaner shrimp.

The pictures and video below show the tank before my water change today and the GFO has been turned off about 2 months ago.

I want to replace those marco rocks with some pukani I was given but I don't want to put the clean rocks in there until I get a handle of the situation.

Any help to name the algae I am dealing with and advice on getting rid of it permanently will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Video

 

[REEFER-RICK]

I had the same problem so I went total black out for 3 days covered all the glass no lights, still feed my fish and after 3 days of black out no sign of algae, now the sump has it`s chance to take over added a new grow lux bulb and seem to be doing fine

 

[Woodyman]

I could be wrong, as I'm not looking in person and I don't know what it is under a scope, but I believe your dealing with a variety of dinos, so raising your nutrients should start tipping the scales in your favor.

What do you have for cleanup crew?

Did you ever look at the material under a scope?

Do you have access to a scope?

Is it snotty?

 

[Lavey29]

Looks like dinos to me also. You don't need lights with a fowler so that will slow it down. Some have success with UV if you can turkey blast it into the water column and change filtration daily. Siphon out what you can. If you positively ID dinos then perhaps adding silica and inducing a diatom bloom will help because it out competes dinos.

 

[CoralB]

Looks like you have a bad case of Dino’s . Wish u wouldn’t have waited so long for help or advice . This is a result of zeroing out your nitrates and although they are fine now, maybe your phosphates . Since no coral I would darken your tank as others have suggested for three days , add a good bacteria like microbactor 7 daily during the three days , run a UV light , feed your fish daily. But you have to raise your nitrates and get the ammonia to zero . Get a good CUC with a few Mexican turbo snails , maybe a tuxedo urchin or two . And if everything thing looks good after three days do a 10% water change . Test your water parameters weekly after you get back on track and adjust water accordingly . In the future so this doesn’t happen again don’t let you nitrates or phosphates zero out . I would hold off on new rock until your tank is under control as well

 

[Benoit Martin]

I had the same problem so I went total black out for 3 days covered all the glass no lights, still feed my fish and after 3 days of black out no sign of algae, now the sump has it`s chance to take over added a new grow lux bulb and seem to be doing fine

Are you suggesting just having the grow light in the sump, or do you already have a refugium with chaeto or something else? I do have a grow light from when I attempted and failed to grow chaeto but I don't use the light anymore because I was worried about causing more issues

 

[Benoit Martin]

I could be wrong, as I'm not looking in person and I don't know what it is under a scope, but I believe your dealing with a variety of dinos, so raising your nutrients should start tipping the scales in your favor.

What do you have for cleanup crew?

Did you ever look at the material under a scope?

Do you have access to a scope?

Is it snotty?

It is snotty. I do not own a scope.

My CUC right now is only the shrimp and a trochus snail. I have been struggling to keep snails alive

 

[Benoit Martin]

Looks like you have a bad case of Dino’s . Wish u wouldn’t have waited so long for help or advice . This is a result of zeroing out your nitrates and although they are fine now, maybe your phosphates . Since no coral I would darken your tank as others have suggested for three days , add a good bacteria like microbactor 7 daily during the three days , run a UV light , feed your fish daily. But you have to raise your nitrates and get the ammonia to zero . Get a good CUC with a few Mexican turbo snails , maybe a tuxedo urchin or two . And if everything thing looks good after three days do a 10% water change . Test your water parameters weekly after you get back on track and adjust water accordingly . In the future so this doesn’t happen again don’t let you nitrates or phosphates zero out . I would hold off on new rock until your tank is under control as well

Thank you for the detailed response. I was under the impression that with FOWLR I had to keep all the parameters at 0. How do I get my nitrates above 0? Do I just start feeding a little more and space out the water changes a bit? Or is it done with some additive?

 

[REEFER-RICK]

Are you suggesting just having the grow light in the sump, or do you already have a refugium with chaeto or something else? I do have a grow light from when I attempted and failed to grow chaeto but I don't use the light anymore because I was worried about causing more issues

No now I have my cheato in and glow light on so it takes ove the job no more hair algae in my display your display tank is out doing your refugium so after black out your refugium will start doing it1s job worked for me display clear as a bell. When all said and done ramp your lights up very slowly like 5% per day

 

[CoralB]

Thank you for the detailed response. I was under the impression that with FOWLR I had to keep all the parameters at 0. How do I get my nitrates above 0? Do I just start feeding a little more and space out the water changes a bit? Or is it done with some additive?

Yes feeding more can help but right now your issue with what I believe is Dino’s they are eating all your nitrates so I would address them first . And get your ammonia to zero

 

[Woodyman]

Thank you for the detailed response. I was under the impression that with FOWLR I had to keep all the parameters at 0. How do I get my nitrates above 0? Do I just start feeding a little more and space out the water changes a bit? Or is it done with some additive?

Can be done by increasing feeding, reducing water changes, turning off skimmer, or by dosing.

 

[Lavey29]

Thank you for the detailed response. I was under the impression that with FOWLR I had to keep all the parameters at 0. How do I get my nitrates above 0? Do I just start feeding a little more and space out the water changes a bit? Or is it done with some additive?

Your good bacteria gotta eat something. Dosing phytoplankton plankton helps low nutrients tank. Look at PNS probio it's a natural bacteria supplement also. You need to have good biodiversity and microfauna even in a fowler tank to balance things out.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Bad case of dino- Keep it simple
Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

 

[Benoit Martin]

Looks like you have a bad case of Dino’s . Wish u wouldn’t have waited so long for help or advice . This is a result of zeroing out your nitrates and although they are fine now, maybe your phosphates . Since no coral I would darken your tank as others have suggested for three days , add a good bacteria like microbactor 7 daily during the three days , run a UV light , feed your fish daily. But you have to raise your nitrates and get the ammonia to zero . Get a good CUC with a few Mexican turbo snails , maybe a tuxedo urchin or two . And if everything thing looks good after three days do a 10% water change . Test your water parameters weekly after you get back on track and adjust water accordingly . In the future so this doesn’t happen again don’t let you nitrates or phosphates zero out . I would hold off on new rock until your tank is under control as well

When you say "run a UV light", are you talking about a grow light so other types of less nuisible algae grows or are you referring to UV steralizers?

 

[CoralB]

UV sterilizers of 25 watts or more if you have one , but yes to kill any free floating algae and or spores in the water column