Coralline Everywhere!

shawnhardy

shawnhardy

Member
Anyone have recommendations for controlling coralline algae? It is growing on everything in my tank...even the substrate. Are there any snails, crabs or fish that eat it? I am hoping to find a way rather than manually cleaning it off of things that will help control it.
 
bigarn

bigarn

Active Member
I've never heard of coralline growing on substrate. Are you sure it's not cyanobacteria? :D
 
shawnhardy

shawnhardy

Member
I did a few searches and I think it is cyano...i thought i was finally getting some good coralline growth and it turns out it is not. It really started when I changed bulbs to a 50/50 bulb from the one that came with my tank. Could that be a cause for teh growth? I am going to cut my lighting hours down to try to get it under control.
 
reefnut

reefnut

Active Member
Check your phosphate levels along with nitrates. Let us know what they are. Also, additional flow will help.
 
shawnhardy

shawnhardy

Member
There was a time when I let my nitrates get way too high (long story) and I think this is probably what caused the bloom. I have been much better at water changes lately so I have been bringing the level down.
I am forced to do these water changes with tap water so I am sure it is loaded with phosphates, another cause of the growth. How can I lower my phosphate levels? Do phosphate sponges help that much?
I physically removed a lot of the cyano today, added a few powerheads and lowered the hours my lights are on per day. Am I on the right track for getting this under control?
 
mjmpinsky

mjmpinsky

Member
YEP....
You are on the right track.
I "cured" my outbreak by less light for two weeks + a nitrate scrubber (course granules that you can add to you filter) + a phosphate scrubber (tiny pellets/granules - start off white and three days later are yellow!.. again that you can add to your filter).
I have been told the cause for a cyanobacter outbreak is:
overfeeding (leaving debris to break down)
over 12 hrs/day of lighting
too much nitrates and phosphates for it to feed off of.
Relieve the above, and you will relieve your problem.
 
reefnut

reefnut

Active Member
What is your feeding schedule??
How can I lower my phosphate levels? Do phosphate sponges help that much?
Don't overfeed... add a refuge to grow some macro algae...
Test your tap water to see what kind of levels you're dealing with. Why are you "forced to do these water changes with tap water"?? If you tap does have phosphates a major way to lower them would be to use clean water. Distilled or RO/DI water is usually a LOT better than tap.
Phosphate removers do work. Again, if you're adding a lot of phosphates with water changes and top off water I would recommend fixing that before using phosphate removers... that said. PhosBan or ROWAphos both work well. I wouldn't use anything other than one of these. Both PhosBan or ROWAphos are iron oxide based. Other media are aluminum oxide based so if they leach, you're adding aluminum to your system. If the iron oxide leaches iron, it is readily taken in by algae so it's not as big of a deal.
 
shawnhardy

shawnhardy

Member
I say I am forced to do the water changes with tap water because I live in an apartment and I don't have the space to put a 30 gallon trash can that I can hook up to an RO/DI system. I do top off with RO water that I am able to buy from the LFS.
My attempt to set up a refugium is what I believe caused such high nitrates and maybe phosphates. I bought some Chaeto off ---- and placed it in a little bucket in the corner of my tank. It had slits in so water can flow through. I then purchased a PC light to go over this bucket. It had 2 9W 6500K PC bulbs that I was told was great for growing plants. The macroalgae seemed to mostly die off. Was this enough light? I think this decay is what caused such high nitrates. Was there something I should have done differently? My original plan was to place this under the tank and have it overflow back to my wet/dry but I could not find a container to fit under my tank before the algae arrived in the mail.
I only feed once a day. Combination of flake, pellet and frozen.
After reading some of the responses, I believe that I had my lights on too long. I wll get a phosphate test kit and check the level and continue to lower nitrates through water changes.
 
reefnut

reefnut

Active Member
Sounds like a good plan but don't forget to test the water change water for nitrates also. If the tap water has nitrates then water changes may not help much. But test the water and find out!!
How much of a water change are you doing??
 
shawnhardy

shawnhardy

Member
I actually thought of testing the nitrates in the tap water myself :)
The water does read 0 nitrates out of the tap so at least I have that going for me.
I have two 5 gallon buckets that I use for water changes. I am going to try to do a 10 gallon change every night this week, allowing 24 hours for the water to lose its chlorine and chloramine of course. As soon as I put the new water in, I will start a new 10 gallons for the next night.
I went out and got a phosphate test kit tonight. My water reads around 2.0 ppm. I also tested the tap water. It is somewhere between 0 and 1. So it looks like water changes will really help here.
I will never let my water quality get this bad again. Routine water changes!
Any theories as to why my chaeto wasn't growing well? Was the lighting sufficient? Was there too much flow? I did have it in a flow area. It seems like there were plenty of nutrients for it to grow...
 
reefnut

reefnut

Active Member
2.0 :eek: that is extremely high... even the 1.0 out of the tap is extremely high... your phosphates should be .03 or under.
Have you considered distilled water?? or buying 10g of water from your LFS??
 
shawnhardy

shawnhardy

Member
I retested the tap and it is somewhere between .25 and .5
It is hard to read. When you said .03 did you mean 0.3? How could you test it so accurately? Most test kits I saw said they were for 0 to 5 mg/L
Is ppm and mg/L different? Maybe we are talking about different measurements.
Maybe I will just have to make room for a RO/DI system. What are your recommendations on equipment?
 
reefnut

reefnut

Active Member
The Salifert kit measures in PPM... and measures down to .03. It is tough to determine the colors though.
 
shawnhardy

shawnhardy

Member
I think I found a major cause for the nitrate and phosphate levels. I was looking under my tank last night, and decided to look up through my overflow. There is a bunch of stuff sitting in the bottom of the overflow near the bulkheads. I believe this is decaying macroalgae. From what I have read, algae uses phosphates to grow and when they die and decay, they release it back into the water. I am going to drain the overflow tonight and clean all that crap out of there. Hopefully this helps. I also ordered some PhosBan and another powerhead to increase the flow in my system.
 
shawnhardy

shawnhardy

Member
I just ordered an RO/DI unit. The more I think about it, I think it is the only way to combat this problem.
I also did an intense cleaning last night of my overflow. Do people clean these often? I think it is probably something that is often overlooked. But I think it is probably rare that a lot of junk builds up in the bottom of them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top