Please Help VERY FRUSTRATED

tsdid

tsdid

Member
I am getting very frustrated please give me advice. I have a 40 gallon and have had it up for about a year and half. a few months ago I started seeing alot of hair algae, and red slime alge. Also buble alge is devleping etc. I bought a new skimmer a aqua c urchin pro. I have about 50lbs of live rock.
And a live sand bed, it is however only about 2-3 inchs deep. My stock is as followed
1 cardinal
2 ocelleris clowns
1 sixline wrasse
5 scarlet hermits
3 mexican turbos
1 urchin
1 cleaner shrimp
1 Bubble tip anemone
1 astrea turbo snail
6 nassarius snails
1 serpent star
2-3 hitchiker stars(they stay under rocks)
2 margarita snails
Please any advice would help just last week I scrubbed the rocks, and the alge is comming back already. The sandbed hasnt been clean in a long time as well with brown algae on top. My LFS said that I can vaccum my sand bed but I read allot on here that that is not something you want to do.
 
errattiq

errattiq

Member
Yes, if you stir up the live sand bed too much you can cause an ammonia/nitrate spike... Just be carefuly and you can siphon some stuff off, just don't create a sand storm... As for your algae issues, what are your water parameters? What type of water do you use for topoffs/ water changes? How often do you do water changes? How much watr do you change per water change? Do you dose anything? Are you overfeeding? How long are your lights on per day (also what type of lights do you have?).. It sounds to me like you have way too many nutrients in the water feeding these algae, and you may be fueling it by having a long lighting schedule... Let me know the answers to these questions and we can start from there. We need to find out how these nutrients are getting in there..
-Josh
 
tsdid

tsdid

Member
Thats what I can understand is I know there has to be nutrients in there but cant think of where there coming from.
My levels are
nitrates 2
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
phosphates 0
PH 82
I also use RODI water for waterchanges and topoffs. and I change my water at the longest every month. and I do about 12-15% around 7.5 gallons. My RODI is reading 0 TDS
 
errattiq

errattiq

Member
How long are your lights on per day and more importantly, how old are your bulbs? Also, you may want to crank water changes up to 10 gallons if your only doing it once per month, that could be a big help right off the bat.
 
tsdid

tsdid

Member
my actinics are on from 12 to 9 and my 10k are on from 2-8. I am definitly going to crank up my water changes, I changed it last week and Im going to change it agian this weekend. The bulbs are only about 4-5 months old.
 
errattiq

errattiq

Member
hmm... When you changed those bulbs, was that about the time you started seeing this algae pop up?? Anyway, I don't see a terrible problem with your lighting schedule, but what I would do is cut back on the lighting as much as possible. i.e. just give the tank what it requires for light for a few weeks... That should do a good number on your algae. Do you have good flow in the tank? Also, when you say brown algae that sounds to me like diatoms, have you changed filtration equipment or anything of that sort in the last few months?
 
vivioo7

vivioo7

Member
whats your alk? organic phosphrous can feed hair algae but cant be tested for, having a proper level of carbonate hardness will help bond the organic phosphorus so that it cant be used by the algae
 
bill109

bill109

Active Member
do Water changes more often.
i have a 90 anf do about a 7 gallon wtater change every friday.
also if your bulbs are close to a year, change them.
use a phosphate remnover
 
geoj

geoj

Active Member
Originally Posted by vivioo7
http:///forum/post/2789630
whats your alk? organic phosphrous can feed hair algae but cant be tested for, having a proper level of carbonate hardness will help bond the organic phosphorus so that it cant be used by the algae
Aw very good, this is part of the cause of alk dropping so fast in older tanks. Waste builds up and is not exported out of the system.
 
quakstar

quakstar

Member
my advise:
increase the flow in your tank make sure your return is strong and maybe add a new tunze power head or 2 to increase the flow
2nd your lights are not on that long so that shoujld not be a big problem
if it is near an outside window make sure that window stays closed or blocked bc natural sunlight will make the algae grow alot as well
finally things to add
if you have an over flow on your tank setup a small refugium if you do not have an over flow get a hang on the back refugium and put some chaeto in it
if you do not want to spend 30 or 40 dollars on that go out and get a shower container that you would hang on the tile with suction cups and put that in your tank with some chaeto
finally a pretty way to do it is get some xenia they are nitrate eaters
hope this helps
 
tsdid

tsdid

Member
Right now I have my main return pump split in two, its is producing about 450gph and I have a maxijet with a rotating wavemaker on it it is producing 230gph. what is a good way to aim the water.
 
btwk12

btwk12

Member
it could be phosphates. just because they are testing at 0 doesnt mean theyre not there the algae feeds off of phosphates therefore they will test low or even at 0. i was having the same problem recently i scrubbed off all my lr and added phosguard in for 4-5 days and its been 2 weeks and no hair algae. maybe u can try that it only costed me 7 dollars at lfs.
 
paintballer768

paintballer768

Active Member
Go to the LFS next time youre there and get a SeaChem PhosGuard. Its like $7, takes 4 days to be done, leaves you with pretty much no phosphates/silicates. A lot less trouble than buying a tester or finding someone with one.
 
thauro77

thauro77

Member
You know, you ,ay want to try the power nitrate remover filter is posted on the reef blog. I have the same problems and after 2 months using it; I can really see the difference and the algae has decreased a lot.
 
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