algea help please.

[taftonomos]

Here is my take, but I'm a noob here (not to reefing).


You are doing water changes every week? Check the PPM on the water you are mixing, change salt, or IMHO, STOP DOING THE WATER CHANGES! Everytime you change the water you are introducing more nutrients into the system, which the algae is feeding off of, etc.

You might find this crazy/insane, but on all the tanks I've ever owned, I never did "regular" water changes. Even on the 75 SPS tank that I had, the only time I can recall doing a water change was when I had a heater get stuck on, temp went to 85, and I wanted some piece of mind that I at least did SOMETHING .

In my experiance, people battleing algae problems are introducing nutrients into the tank via water changes or just plain old putting thier hands into the tank all the time.

My tanks always ran much better hands off than constantly trying to fight something, and a natural balance was found.

 

[glxtrix]

the whole reason for having my "refug" on my tank is not for your typical use of a refug but to act as more water volume, there is nothing in it except the ph for my skimmer and the heater. The purpose behind BB tanks is to have no sand or macro algea so ditrus cant collect and form nutrient pockets. Its obvious I have that somewhere in my tank so I guess a good cleaning will have to be done. My RO unit is about 6 months old maybe a lil more but I dont make that much water, remember I only have a 15g tank. I guess I'll have to do the flush trick just to make sure. As far as taking the LR back to the fish store, thats not going to happen, I have coral growing on every piece of LR in my tank and not to mention the rock has been in my tank for well over a year and a half now.

 

[taftonomos]

If the RO unit sits for a long period, the membrane can leech phosphates, this I know for a fact. Just because one test kit my tell you otherwise, go by what the tank is doing.

 

[darren24]

Hey is that algae kind of like a "fern" leaf? If so I had a small patch on a piece of LR. No crab, emerald, or my yellow tang would touch it. I would try to manually remove it by hand and it would grow right back. I finally took the large piece of LR with the algae on it out of the tank and chisled the algae off taking a little of the LR with it. It did not come back.

 

[glxtrix]

yeah it kinda looks like that, totaly pain in my rear and I have no clue where it came from. Oh well, looks like I might have to take everything out again....

 

[wolterch]

I would try a lawnmower Bleeney, they do not need a large tank but they do need lots of algea and eventually they will get lazy and start eating flake food, but in the mean time they will do the trick they do like liferock to lay on and hide on.
don't give up I am facing simular problems at the moment and I have tangs, crabs, snails, and a bleeney
Good luck

 

[glxtrix]

yeah the only thing is I have clams and they are known for nipping at clams. There are a few options that can help controll this issue, it just all depends on what I feel like doing. There is option A. getting a blenny, wether it be lawnmower, bicolor or my favorite the starry blenny. The last two on doc foster and smith say nothing about nippin on clams, tho that doesnt mean they wont, I mean my oci clow started to do that. Opt B. try out some lettuce nudis. Or opt C. the one I fear, take everything out of my tank and hand prune it all.

 

[tsciarini]

I had the same stuff in my 25... nothing I ever put in there would eat it. I actually like the stuff... it has a really nice shade of blue in it. I never had a problem with it spreading, pretty much just hand picked it when it got thick and liked it for its decorative hues

I cant remember what its called tho... Ill see if I can find a good link.

 

[glxtrix]

well if you want it back you can have some of mine! I hate this crap! And it def doesnt have a hue of blue, its ugly green...I think you can find that color in crayola crayons. It unfortunately is growing on the back of the tank and this stuff gets THICK! Crazy. oh well. Yeah if you coul dfind that link that would be great, thanks tony.

 

[calireefer]

It looks like Bryopsis. I am trying to get rid of it in my tank as well. I just switched from protein skimming to a 24h algal refugium and its not growing as fast over the past month. I think the caulerpa and chaetomorphia are out competing the brypsis for nutrients. I'm sorry i didn't notice but are you using a refugium? 24h light cycle or reverse? how large? Also my sally light foots are eating it as are my emerald crabs and queen conch. Next I'm going to try sea hares and lettuce nudibranchs.

 

[taftonomos]

nothing like adding another fish into a tank with to much nutrients, to try and rid the tank of the algae, thats growing because of the excess nutrients.

Seriously, try stopping the water changes for a bit, and see what happens.

 

[wolterch]

I agree maybe the water is not getting enough time to truly cycle, and it keeps starting all over again every time you do a waterchange.
Concerning the Bleeney.
I've had a Clam for years and the Bleeney never touched it, maybe luck but in my case it was just fine.
Wolter.

 

[glxtrix]

I'm trying to think of the last time I did a water change, must have been almost 2 weeks now seeing I was gone for 13 days in tahoe, with that said the algea has grown much more since I have been gone, I can understand leaving the water in there longer but then i question why people are so adament about changing water every week......but I also have a tank at home that I neglect pretty well and its going very nice. I'm not too concerned about excess nutrients, I mean I have one fish in a tank and a skimmer thats rated 5X the water volume. All my corals which are mainly SPS grow very well and I'm turning the water about 40X's over. Eh who knows, maybe I'll let the water go another week and see what goes on. BTW how do you flush your RO unit?

 

[taftonomos]

It's going to take more than a week for the nutrients to be depleated IMHO.

glxtrix wrote: BTW how do you flush your RO unit?

I think this might be your biggest problem. Have someone test your RO water for Phosphates. I'm not aware of what you can do to flush out the membrane once it begins leeching stuff back into your water.

New membrane and DI perhaps?

 

[glxtrix]

I mean the membrane isnt old they have life expectancys to 2 years, mine is just about over 6mos.

 

[taftonomos]

glxtrix wrote: I mean the membrane isnt old they have life expectancys to 2 years, mine is just about over 6mos.

Right, BUT if the water has been sitting around the membrane because you do not use much of the RO, such is if you had a 100gdp membrane and used maybe 20G a week, the membrane will become loaded up with impurities that it cannot filter out.

Cheap way to find out, have a sample of the RO tested. Someone ought to have a PPM meter, or buy one that fits inline with your RO unit, so you'll always know what it's at.

 

[glxtrix]

yeah I hear ya. I have only a 10gpd and I use it weekly.

 

[flyingarmy]

I have a TDS portable meter that I can bring to the Feb Frag meeting if anyone wants to bring a water sample to be tested.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

flyingarmy wrote: I have a TDS portable meter that I can bring to the Feb Frag meeting if anyone wants to bring a water sample to be tested.

I will take you up on that offer. It has been awhile since I tested my RO unit.

 

[glxtrix]

yeah I will too, thanks flyingarmy