algae problem

alfieferenzo84

alfieferenzo84

Member
Hi everyone. Been along time sense last post. I have been doing this for years but only kept fish only. I just started adding corals and im having issues with algae. I have always had algae due to high nitrates but now its different. I have been keeping my tank at zero nitrates and the algae is kinda getting worse and covering my corals. before fish only didnt care but now its killing them.
Tank is 120gal 48x24x24. 3 korall power heads. 3in live sand, about 100lb of alor live rock. few fish, crabs, snails, starfish ect. Some soft corals. Lights are cree with optics 120watt x 2 panels running at 25% for 12hrs a day now only 10 hrs. The tank was setup a year ago but the rocks i have had for over 5years. sand was new. Im changing about 20-40 gal a mo.
perm. 1.025, 76f, ph 8.4, 5.4dkh,1.93alk, no ammonia or nitrite, Nitrates stay under 2. I use a few test kits just to make sure there good. Nitrate i use 3 api, red sea, salifert. I dont test for anything else or dose the tank.
The algae grows back in a few days. its brown hair like.
pics are from different times so you all can see. Any help on id or what to do would be great. Thanks
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also the pics at the end are current pics i just changed water and cleaned some sand out...
http://s278.beta.photobucket.com/use...4/library/tank
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Hi,
You have high phosphates and nitrates, and the reason you have 0 readings is because the algae is feeding on it, giving you false negative and low test results. macroalgae (the kind we want) grows and feeds on nitrates and phosphates, as we remove the over growth (harvesting) we remove the bad stuff from the water makng it pristine. Your brown hair algae is doing the same thing, except it will cover over the corals and smother them to death, not to mention very ugly..
Step up the water changes, and only use RO never tap water. A phosphate reactor will help.
P.S.
A reef tank needs more tests than fish only:
Phosphate (PO4)
Calcium
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
Your lighting length of 10 hours is way overkill......You can cut that lighting to all but in half......
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
Why not set your light schedule when you can actually enjoy viewing pleasure of the tank and fish......Needless 8-12 is way overkill, and you could do 6 hours and not have any ill affects.....To get the algae issue possibly under control try lights out for a couple days.....Might see a little relief, but the nitrate and phosphate issue still needs to be addressed.....
Macros are a good source for removal, but water changes alone will do very little for your phosphate control.
 
alfieferenzo84

alfieferenzo84

Member
Nitrates and phosphate test zero with 3 different kits that I bought 2 days ago
Salifert
API
Red Sea
Are you saying its false reading?
A few other sources are saying its Dinoflagella and if that's true I guess from what I'm reading it dont feed from water and grows best in new/ clean water...
 
rael

rael

Member
I will echo what someone else has been saying. Get a dolabella sea hare. I had a stubborn algae problem. Put the sea hare in and within a week, not a speck. I then gave him to a friend who had a bad algae problem and it has been 6 weeks without him and still no algae has recurred. It is a whole lot easier keeping it under control than it was getting it under control. I do use RO water and a phosphate absorber to keep it under control.
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
So your really not sure what it is......Again I refer back to Flowers post.....Yes your getting false readings.....The algae is consuming faster than you can test......It seems to me that you've always had an algae issue, and it's only gotten worse with the addition of the new lighting...(I'm guessing since LEDs have become popular as of late), and your lighting schedule is feeding;fueling it as well......Smaller more frequent water changes might be more beneficial.....
Do you perform any maintenance on your sandbed.......
 
alfieferenzo84

alfieferenzo84

Member
Okay so is there anyway to get a true reading. Funny corals n everything look great but I see your point.
What would cause so much nitrate n po4?
I use ro/di
120gal how much or often do you suggest?
As for sand I have been removing top layer with wc. Other then that got a few snails, starfish to stir it. What else should I be doing?
Thanks for helping so far
 
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