Grrr, Persistant Green Hair Algae

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Gregcoyote said:
Right, but enough is enough. They bind the most nutrients when they are growing. I think pruning the algae back is like most plants, it stimulates growth. I recommend using scissors to cut out sections of old looking chaeto so you are leaving hundreds of freshly cut growth ends.


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+1 Plants or any living things have life span. They ultimately die when the time comes. If the algae color is not right then it is dying. They are plants so pruning is a good thing.
 
The sump was getting too full of chaeto. I needed to make room for more growth


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Algae scrubber works great, had one on my 800g , I would get one going ASAP , takes a couple weeks to get some growth going.
 
Well after 2 days in the sun my chaeto had dried and turned white. And the deer didn't eat it, yeah.
I weighed it and there was 44 grams of dried plant there. I was wondering how much weight in food I put in so I added 3 weeks of pellets to the scale. Nothing. Didn't even measure 1 gram. So I added more and was going to weigh half of what I I took out. After adding a bunch I ended up with only 1/4 of the weight, or 11 grams.
That is more food than I feed in a few months. I should be winning this algae war. Nutrients out wayyy exceeds nutrients in. I'm soo confused.


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Are you sure you don't have any die off of any kind in your tank? CUC or something else maybe?

And I'm willing to bet it only takes a little bit of input to produce a ton of output algae growth, so I wouldn't expect a 1:1 ratio between the two.
 
I'm planning on putting a waterfall style algae turf scrubber (ATS) in my sump. I would appreciate any pics and ideas to help with my designing ideas
 
I think I need to tweak my skimmer. The skimmate is kinda fizzy, for a lack of better words. If I lower the back pressure (Reef Octopus internal) it doesn't skim much. If I increase it it will fill the cup in a few hours. It fills now in about 2 days, but it's more like bubble popping spray that fills the cup than bubble overflow.
So I'm thinking of changing the skimmer depth in the sump by either adding another 1/2" spacer and increasing back pressure or removing a spacer and increasing back pressure.

Both are a pain to do, so I'm hoping someone can tell me which will give a dryer skimmate. Save me the PIMA of trying both.


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The bubble column should stack dryer and dirtier bubbles to the top and push them over into the cup. If they are just fizzing and popping, something isn't right or there are no organics to remove.


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Nitrate and phosphates are zero.

On a side note I was starting to doubt my nitrate readings as they're always zero with algae. But I checked to curing bucket my algae covered rocks are in and that is up to 40 ppm. Awesome. And the algae is finally dying with a bit of hydrogen peroxide dosing. Ammonia and nitrites are still 0 so my BB are still alive.


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I think its time to take another leap.

I still have half my rocks in the curing bucket. Dosing it with 4ml peroxide daily; do it by pulling a rock to sit out of the water and dispensing the HP dose over algae. Wait 5 minutes and put back under water. All the HP eventually gets in the bucket. Ammonia and nitrites at 0, Nitrates at 30ppm today after a 33% WC yesterday, and phosphates up to a mind staggering 0.04. At least I know my Hanna Checker can make a reading of other than 0.

In the DT, I am also dosing 25ml HP for about 125 G of water all told. I am using a syringe to dose it into the worst areas of algae, and am being very careful to avoid SPS, as I've read they don't like it. LPS and shrooms don't mind the dose at all. The algae is turning white shortly after the dose. Amm, N2, N3 and Phosphate all at 0 still.

Now I think I need to do something to get ride of the algae, pulling it all out is neither possible, nor feasible in a 31" deep tank. I have mentioned the clean-up crew I'm thinking of and its hefty (to get $35 air freight to the island). $200 worth of critters, including 65-100 dwarf blue leg hermits, 24 scarlet hermits,4 lettuce slugs, 3 conches and an algae blenny.

The other thing I'm considering is changing out my substrate which I think is a crushed coral sand mix. It was 1 year old when I got the tank, and that may have been part of the problem, but I rinsed it very well first before reusing it. I would go with a standard arag sand or PFS (haven't decided yet). I would have to suck out about 1/3 each week with water changes (right side, centre, left side) to avoid shocking the entire system.

So, I'm asking the experts opinions, should I get the clean-up crew and hold off or even cancel the substrate change (I guess I should post a pic of it to confirm what it is), or change the substrate first and see what that does.

Did I mention Grr, algae!

I also pruned the chaeto again (3 weeks) and it dried to 13grams of biomass. Still way less than I'm feeding. Stoopid algae.
 
Ingy said:
I also pruned the chaeto again (3 weeks) and it dried to 13grams of biomass. Still way less than I'm feeding. Stoopid algae.
Click to expand...


Oops. I meant still way more than I'm feeding. I'm putting in 11 grams of food every 6 weeks.



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Someone mentioned they use pool filter sand in their tank. Can you post a pic or 2. I'm going to start removing my old sand and I'm still undecided on which way to go (PFS or aragonite). Need pics of an established coral tank with PFS.


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I need to kill a myth. Shutting off your lights will NOT kill off your algae. It won't even discolor it. The ONLY thing it will do is reduce the amount of NEW algae that grows. Anybody who claims it will, needs to come over to my house and stick their head into my curing bucket and take a look around.

Here's where my FACTS come from:
6 weeks ago I pulled the worst of my algae covered rocks out of my DT and put them into a brute garbage can with a heater, powerhead, air stone (for O2) and a lid. Every day I dosed the top 2 rocks with 4 ml of H2O2. The algae I hit died and turned white. Today I rearranged the rocks, pulling one from the bottom of the COMPLETELY DARKENED bucket and it is a green hairy hippie rock. There has been absolutely NO die off due to light reduction. I have taken pics and when I figure out how to post over my limit, I will (in lieu of sticking your head in my bucket).

So, to get rid of algae you need something to kill it (scrubbing, H2O2 dip or CUC) and light reduction to help control NEW algae growth. Light reduction alone is completely (expletives deleted) useless. Which sucks!


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Ingy, first the pool sand. I have found some kinds are high in selenium. Also, silica based sands provide no buffering like aragonite can offer.

As to the lights out issue. In my humble opinion it is a bandaid. As long as the excess nutrients are active in the water, the algae will rebound and grow right back. Those nutrients need to be removed by water exchanges, removal of the algae and/or a chemical binding agent like GFO. If the nutrients are there, once the light resumes they will go right back to growing.


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I sucked the first bit of substrate out of my tank with the last wc. Pulled around 15-20% of it out. Man was it murky. The tank didn't get very murky, just the changed water container. I decided to check the nitrate and phosphate levels in it and guess what.

No guess.


Yup, Both levels were at 0, just like the DT levels. The only place I've seen raised levels is in the curing bucket, where is expect to see it.


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Well I'm almost done removing the old substrate. I sure hope that cures the algae issues. Tomorrow I'll get the last of it under the rocks. I'll have to move all my corals and rocks to get to it and I'm not looking forward to that. I'm still not sure if I'm going to replace it with the course aragonite or PFS. But I'll definitely put less in, only about 1 1/2" instead of 3-4".

In the mean time I've built the new algae turf scrubber and hooked it up. It takes up more room than I thought. All of the rock in the sump has been removed and put into my QT that I set up today. Going to order a Algae Blenny next week so I needed the QT anyway. Now my next question. Do I need the skimmer? Having my SRO 2000 int in the sump with the long ATS is crowded and I'd like to pull the skimmer.

QUESTION:
For those who run an ATS, who does or doesn't use a skimmer as well. Nitrates either way?

I have my skimmer off right now and love how quiet my room is. Stupid Reef Octopus are ridiculously loud. I would like to pull it out if I can. I'm going to watch my levels and see, but I'm hoping others can give an indication.


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