After just six months (and only two with the lights on) I am well-entrenched in the ugly phase and could use some advice on how to get out of it. I’ve been searching the forums looking for similar problems, but nothing I’ve found so far mirrors my situation.
Check out the attached photo. I started with Marco rock on New Years Day 2022 and the rock stayed white until the lights came on mid-April. Now they’re mostly green with numerous patches of purple (Coraline??? I don’t know… looks like the rock is painted purple in some spots). In addition to that, there’s a lot of red/purple hairy, stringy-looking algae growing on the rock and in the sand. Obviously, when I vacuum the sand bed I’m not getting every speck and spore because it comes right back within a day. What is that stuff and how do I get rid of it?
I’m not dosing anything right now but weekly water changes are keeping the chemistry in check: Temp 79, SG 1.025, dKH 7.8, pH 8.1. I haven’t measured Ca or Mg lately (because there aren’t any corals in the tank just yet) but they were 416 and 1310 respectively a month ago. Nitrates slowly climbed week after week from about 5 in the beginning to 15 ppm by late April and started to decline in May. Nitrates have tested at 0.0 since the beginning of June. None. Zip. Nada. Phosphates were on the high side early on, averaging about 0.08 for several months with one peak at 0.19, but 4 of 6 times the last 6 weeks Phosphates read 0.00 (double-checked each time), and 0.02 and 0.05 the last two times. I ran GFO for a while back in April, but now run just activated carbon in a BRS mini reactor. And of course, Ammonia and Nitrites are zero.
I use Hanna checkers for almost everything except magnesium (AquaForest). I use API kits for ammonia and nitrites because they’re quick, easy, and inexpensive. I know they’re not the most accurate test kits on the market, but all I really want to know is if the toxin is present or not, and they do that well enough.
The bio load is fairly light. There are less than 10 fish in there right now, and the hawkfish is the only one larger than an inch. I don’t think I’ve been overfeeding, even early on when the nitrates were testing in the teens. There are also a few crabs, snails, and a fire shrimp in the tank. Consequently, with this light load in a 112 gallon system, the skimmer pulls only wet, watery, stinky skimmate, but it pulls at least a cup every day. I recently installed a UV sterilizer and plan to set up a refugium in the near future. Hopefully, I can clean up the algae and maintain stable water parameters so that I can start introducing corals soon.
Meanwhile, I’d appreciate any tips to help me clean up this mess (and identify that red stringy stuff waving in the current). On a positive note, that red stringy stuff is all over the place (I mean everywhere) and it happens to be a great indicator of the flow pattern in the tank. I can judge how to adjust each individual pump or power head by how it affects the algae.
Background info: I’m running a Red Sea Reefer 425XL, Vectra M2 return pump, a pair of Radion XR15 blue G5s, an MP-40, RS ReefWave 45, LifeReef skimmer, a BRS mini reactor with activated carbon, and a Pentair 25W sterilizer. The photo was taken under white light, no filters, and looks pretty close to a true color representation.
Check out the attached photo. I started with Marco rock on New Years Day 2022 and the rock stayed white until the lights came on mid-April. Now they’re mostly green with numerous patches of purple (Coraline??? I don’t know… looks like the rock is painted purple in some spots). In addition to that, there’s a lot of red/purple hairy, stringy-looking algae growing on the rock and in the sand. Obviously, when I vacuum the sand bed I’m not getting every speck and spore because it comes right back within a day. What is that stuff and how do I get rid of it?
I’m not dosing anything right now but weekly water changes are keeping the chemistry in check: Temp 79, SG 1.025, dKH 7.8, pH 8.1. I haven’t measured Ca or Mg lately (because there aren’t any corals in the tank just yet) but they were 416 and 1310 respectively a month ago. Nitrates slowly climbed week after week from about 5 in the beginning to 15 ppm by late April and started to decline in May. Nitrates have tested at 0.0 since the beginning of June. None. Zip. Nada. Phosphates were on the high side early on, averaging about 0.08 for several months with one peak at 0.19, but 4 of 6 times the last 6 weeks Phosphates read 0.00 (double-checked each time), and 0.02 and 0.05 the last two times. I ran GFO for a while back in April, but now run just activated carbon in a BRS mini reactor. And of course, Ammonia and Nitrites are zero.
I use Hanna checkers for almost everything except magnesium (AquaForest). I use API kits for ammonia and nitrites because they’re quick, easy, and inexpensive. I know they’re not the most accurate test kits on the market, but all I really want to know is if the toxin is present or not, and they do that well enough.
The bio load is fairly light. There are less than 10 fish in there right now, and the hawkfish is the only one larger than an inch. I don’t think I’ve been overfeeding, even early on when the nitrates were testing in the teens. There are also a few crabs, snails, and a fire shrimp in the tank. Consequently, with this light load in a 112 gallon system, the skimmer pulls only wet, watery, stinky skimmate, but it pulls at least a cup every day. I recently installed a UV sterilizer and plan to set up a refugium in the near future. Hopefully, I can clean up the algae and maintain stable water parameters so that I can start introducing corals soon.
Meanwhile, I’d appreciate any tips to help me clean up this mess (and identify that red stringy stuff waving in the current). On a positive note, that red stringy stuff is all over the place (I mean everywhere) and it happens to be a great indicator of the flow pattern in the tank. I can judge how to adjust each individual pump or power head by how it affects the algae.
Background info: I’m running a Red Sea Reefer 425XL, Vectra M2 return pump, a pair of Radion XR15 blue G5s, an MP-40, RS ReefWave 45, LifeReef skimmer, a BRS mini reactor with activated carbon, and a Pentair 25W sterilizer. The photo was taken under white light, no filters, and looks pretty close to a true color representation.