Cant rid myself of the nuissance algea

[DeMarcusR]

Okay - so in the past I stopped maintaining my aquarium; that said - I fully expected the GHA to grow out of control. About six months ago, I started trying to get it back under control. I loaded up the tank with algea eating animals - 4 tangs, foxface, snails, etc... Most all the snails have died off - which I somewhat expected.
In addition to the animals - I starged doing massive water changes; 100 Gallons bi weekly or once a month on a 210 gallon setup. Most would think this was excessive but I thought it was required... STILL no dent in the GHA. So three weeks ago I finally got tired of the battle and completely drained the tank, siphoned the sand, let the rocks soak for two days in fresh water, scrubbed, put back in tank then refilled the tank with fresh salt water. Two weeks later - the algea is back. I've added 20 astrea snails and 20 red leg hermits in addition to the few snails that were left.. I dont get it!

I took water to my favorite lfs to test nitrate, nitrite, amonia and ph.. All were in excellent standing. I've added more flow to using one of the new tunze powerheads and an additional closed loop.. Flow could still be an issue..??

Source water is reading 0 to 0.1 on two different tds meters..

I'm lost...

Any help, ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

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[msholmes]

What are your phosphates? What is your feeding like? For starters I would say your current clean up crew maybe inadequate for example reefscavengers.com recommends for a 180 gallon tank the following crew setup as an example:

180 Nassarius snails
90 Nerite snails
80 Blue leg hermits
32 Red Leg Hermits
8 Porcelin Crabs
8 Emerald Crabs
4 Serpent starfish
4 Peppermint shrimp

Do you run a reactor with GFO? TDS is 0, I assume from an RO/DI system as the source. What is your lighting schedule like? Have you thought about maybe doing complete darkness for several days? Excess Nutrients coming from somewhere. Have a refugium with macro algae?

 

[DeMarcusR]

@msholmes wrote:

phosphates have not been tested. I'm hoping to get a full test kit when I get paid next week.
As far as the cleanup crew - I'd love to purchase that many creatures but right now I'm a little hesitant due to the issue with the current cleanup crew.. of the 20 snails I added this week, 8 of them are still sitting in the same place they were on monday. They're not dead - I see then dancing around on each other's back and antennas moving around. Dont know if I got the group of drunken snails but they haven't moved yet

As far as the reactor question - no clue what gfo is. I run one reactor with carbon, I had the other running with rowaphos but didn't buy anymore and I'm running a UV steralizer...

And yes - the source water is an RO/DI. I just put into service a few weeks ago.. Brand new...

 

[msholmes]

Hey D,

I would suspect that your phosphates are probably elevated causing excess nutrients in the water column fueling the algae growth but need to get that tested to be sure. The Rowaphos is a phosphate and silicate remover so as long as you were using a sufficient amount of it and had a the correct size reactor for you tank it should have helped to keep phosphates in check. I am sure someone else will chime in with more info but need to test phosphates to get a good picture and get a larger clean up crew that doesn't hit the bottle. Maybe one of those fancy Sea Hares/Lettuce Nudibranchs to mow that stuff down!

Could also get Get 1 Mexican Turbo for every 5 gallons and pull as much of the GHA pieces out by hand do lights out if possible for 3 days. But need to get at the root of the problem which is nutrients.

 

[TexasDude]

i am battling the exact same crap. been doing weekly water changes. running uv sterilizer and beefed up my circulation with some new powerheads. i barely make a dent in it every time i go to clean it. have u been using the arctic pods by chance to feed ur fish? i'm about to be going 3 days lights out and going crazy with my CUC. really didnt have one to start with but just put some new stuff in today and hopefully i will be able to get some more this wknd. let me know what works for u. i will do the same for u.

 

[Saltpro]

First off i would say adding the four tangs and the foxface arent helping matters at all...POOP MACHINES! This is at a time when your tank was already in a major algae bloom. Dont add anything else and maybe even look to harbor some of your tangs else where for sometime if possible. You said you drained the water and had rock in freshwater for two days. Thats not long enough to kill anything but im sure it made the problem worse as you already know. Im sure you having a major recycling event due to that, with the added bio-load of the fish and snails it will take time to recover. If you dont have a skimmer get one. If you do then use a filter sock for a long time with water changes and repeated scrubbing of rocks and then more scrubbing and more regular weekly water changes. Be persistant and you will prevail in the end. Also lower your lighting schedule for awhile and that should help some. Dont get a CUC or an urchin or any more fish. Slow feedings too the bare minimum. Gfo in my opinion equals high cost and slow results at best. You will get better results with water changes and a fuge full of macro. Make sure your using good quality zero TDS ro/di water for topoff and for salt mixing. Try some Trochus snails they work better then astrea's ever will or maybe even a turbo snail or three. Start by removing as much of that crap from glass and rocks as you can and put some of those trochus snails to work and put them where you want them all the time when they just goofing off doing nothing. Overtime they kick some butt. Im telling you if your not using a filter sock and you have a sump then you should be doing that for now until this gets resolved. That will stop alot algae from re-entering your display. Scrub scrub ..weekly water changes and low feeding. Soon your tank will be sparkling clean and picture perfect again. Good luck to you.

 

[TexasDude]

hey demarcusr. from the pics u posted this stuff looks alot like what i have. is it kinda brownish and stringy at times where the strings can get pretty long? kinda slimy looking like cyano but more stringy? and after a day of light are there little bubbles all over everything? the reason i'm asking is because i'm trying to identify what i have and when i beat this thing (and i will) i can help u out with what i have done. and i would hope u would do the same for a fellow reefer in distress. thx

 

[Saltpro]

@TexasDude wrote:

Do what i say above and your problems will go away too.

 

[ctaylor81]

I'm battling a similar situation as well in my 90-gal right now. About a month ago I had an outbreak, so I did a water change and siphoned the top layer of the sand bed. Did a 3-day lights out, and boom, algae gone. For a short time that is. 2 weeks later, it's back again and has spread worse than before. I'll be doing a big water change this weekend and reducing my light schedule. I'm only at 8 hrs right now, but will reduce it to 5 or so to see if it helps. I added the LED's a little over a month ago and I figure the huge step up in lighting may have had something to do with the first outbreak, but I figured that my system was getting used to it? I've thought about chemicals, but it's not really something I want to risk and I'm not positive its the best route to take. My clean up crew has been worthless and has done nothing to help, so I'm not convinced adding more would even help my situation. I've got a foxface, kole tang, 2 clowns and a regal angel in there right now, all under 3.5",so the bio-load is not overboard at the moment. I've cut down on my feeding as well and hope all of this will help. It is a frustrating process. Sucks also when people come over and see your tank, with an ugly rug covering so much of what can be pretty. We understand that it is something that most people fight at some point, but for people not in the hobby, they don't understand that.

Let's hope we can all get over this hump and back to having decent looking tanks...

 

[TexasDude]

Amen.

 

[coralreefer]

I'm not saying this is gonna fix your problems, but I had bad cyano (not gha) and dosed chemi-clean. Followed ALL instructions with dose and water changes. Cyano was gone in two days. That was 3 months ago.

Also, what kind of salt are you using?

Google chemiclean and read reviews.

 

[msholmes]

http://dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=78402

You should look into this

 

[zed102]

I had a very similar problem a year ago in my tank. It was soo bad that the rock almost looked like a grassy knoll. Anyway, it is crystal clear now. I fixed it with several things. First, I immediately started skimming wetter, and then I added a bigger skimmer when I found one. Second, I added snails to eat the algae. Third, I picked any of the really big clumps out by hand. Fourth, I removed/repaced anything that can turn into a nitrate factory. (i.e. old filter socks, old carbon, etc...) With these changes, things started clearing up. It also made the tank crystal clear. I couldn't believe how much clearer the tank was. Even today, I am still amazed at how intense the colors are in the tank and how much brighter everything is. It took about 2 months for all the algae to dissapear, but it slowly go away as things ate it, and without the nutrients it couldn't grow back. Some other things I learned along the way are: 1. When you have algae your test kits are worthless. The algae consumes the nutrients in the water, and makes the water parameters look like they are good. The fact that the algae is growing proves that there is a nutrient problem. 2. None of the temporary tricks will work permanently. If the algae grew before it will grow again. You need to make permanent changes to your setup to permanently fix the issue.3. The most important part of the fix is to upgrade the skimmer.

 

[bimmerzs]

You mentioned in a post before that your bulb's were two years old....is this still the case??

Cheers,

 

[DeMarcusR]

@bimmerzs wrote:

Nope... I'm running all LEDs now..

As far as current bio-load; I have one yellow tang, royal gramma, flame angel, and a few snails...

 

[DeMarcusR]

@Saltpro wrote:

I'm sorry that I wasn't too clear about the livestock.. I added the tangs and such when I started originally battling the problem. The only tang in there now is the yellow that managed to survive the latest die off..

@Saltpro wrote:

As far as the skimmer - the one I got was an upgrade, so I thought. Its rated for a 300g setup however, I've now gone through 3 impellers and a whole pump. I got the whole skimmer replaced however, I was immediately concerned when I opened the new box and saw their "next gen" skimmer came with TWO impellers.. Apparently they know their product has a problem.. Anyways - Off that soap box- the skimmer isn't working so now I'm doing even more aggressive water changes to try to make up the difference until I can afford to buy a better skimmer.

@Saltpro wrote:

I've gone a full week with only turning the lights on to check the status of things. I keep the house fairly dark so theres little to no ambient lighting from the windows..

@Saltpro wrote:

- Check. [smilie=wink.gif]
@Saltpro wrote:

[smilie=wink.gif] Check... One cube every other day since there are only three fish in there.

@zed102 wrote:

When my skimmer is working (long story.. DONT BUY ESHOPP products!) I skim pretty aggressively. The collection cup gets dumped daily and has a horrid smell. It's so bad that I have to leave the front door open for about 30 minutes after opening the aquarium room...

Nitrate factory - Well, I change the carbon bi weekly, I dont run filter socks because I'll likely forget to change and or clean them..


@coralreefer wrote:

I live and die by chemiclean although I hadn't had to use it in a while.. As far as salt, I've moved back to the old faithful and affordable Instant ocean.. With the quantity of water changes I do in a month, I had to switch back to the cheap stuff until I got the problem back under control.. I go through 2 to 3 buckets a month @ $50 per.. I was previously using red sea at $60-70 per bucket

 

[bimmerzs]

Hi,
It still sound's like you have a phosphate source somewhere. Can you also post your water parameters, I know you said they were good but good is a subjective term. [smilie=smile.gif] Most interested in nitrate, ph, alk, salinity, phosphate(when you get it) also include ca and mag(when you get it). I would say prior to you switching to led's recently, the older bulb's you were running excerbated your GHA issue as they had likely shifted spectrum towards red(which is not seen by our eyes). A phosphate check may not show anything as the GHA will be using it as fast as it's being introduced so my suggestion would be to re-start the phosphate reducing medium. If you really failed to maintain your tank like you mentioned for a long period then any high phosphate level could be bound up in your LR as well as your LS and now it is slowly leeching out. As you have found out, the super large waterchanges are not cutting it which point's to either your source water having high phosphates, you are adding food's etc., with high phosphates or your LR/LS is leeching phosphates. Not having a skimmer is also not helping and even when working, it may not be properly sized for your system as previously mentioned. A lot of the skimmer rating are worthless as they do not take bioload into consideration and there is no industry standard for rating skimmer capacity.

Cheers,

 

[DeMarcusR]

Ron -So, assuming the phosphates are higher than expected; you say that they could be build up in the sand and rock.. What would the best course of action be? Replacing the sand is no big deal but replacing the rock would be a rather large expense considering I've had most of it for several years and from multiple systems....

 

[bimmerzs]

It's 100% certain that you have phosphates somewhere and a lil' nitrates feeding the hair algae or it would'nt be able to grow, keep in mind that the phos test kit may not read anything. You will need to temporarily house your fish and coral at your favorite lfs then do a bleach and then an acid dip on the LR. The bleach will kill the GHA and remove any organic's within the rock and the acid will strip the outer layer of the LR, removing any bound phosphates. Of course this will kill everything in the rock so you will have to refill and recycle with the new LS and rejuvenated LR. Read thru this before starting so you fully understand everything involved with this process.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1587539

Cheers,

 

[thoedestmex]

VODKA DOSING!! [smilie=clapping.gif] it works, got to make sure you got a good protein skimmer though.. read this might be helpful http://www.aquariumslife.com/saltwater-101/dosing_vodka/