Red macro algae problem, can anyone help?

[IbiAquariums]

Hi guy's and girls...

I've red bamboo algae and red birds nest algae which continuously keep getting covered in what I believe to be Cyano, does anybody know how to possibly combat this??? It's starving my red algae of lighting, I've had to prune out number of dead pieces of recently, my birds nest just falls apart no matter how gentle I am when I try to disrupt the Cyano off of it. Very annoying.

The Cyano isn't out of control and has never ever taken over my tank and only actually appeared when my Xenia pulsing suddenly deteriorated. This I believe was a combo or carbon & my RO system needing new filters as the tds level was 5/6 now at 0 again, in future it'll go no higher than 3.

Here's a few pics hopefully you can see. If you need to know any other tank specs just ask...
Lighting is 50/50 blue/white T5 and a daylight tropical T5, time cycle 4pm until 4am. Temp 25c.

Stock: Batfish, 6 strawberry top snails, tiger cowrie snail, 2 algae hermit crabs.

As you can see my sand hosting what believe is Cyano.. The only Cyano within my whole 3tank setup.




In the pic below the bamboo has been cleaned and is now in my sump tank for experiment purposes tbh.




Also any suggestions for the lighting best suited for red algae??

Cheers all, karl.


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[Sniperhank]

Any light can support algae. A simple clip On work light with a spiral bulb can do it. Better the light the better the growth.
That said, algae and cyano like you describe are pointing at nutrients in the water column. There are two articles in my signature that talk about these battles.


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[IbiAquariums]

Odd, my iPad doesn't seem to let me click on your signature info. Could you maybe paste the actual links so I can browse?!

No idea what's causing the Cyano in my water, maybe my salt mix? (Coral pro reef - popular brand that). I'll dbl check my uv bulb but I'm 99% certain that's not even 6months old yet. I'm only now dosing Magnesium as it was undetectable 2weeks ago when I had the sudden die off of my Xenia. Regardless, I only have pulsing Xenia and yellow sun polyps in terms of coral anyway. Now that my mag is detectable again I'll soon stop dosing that. So actually the only substance entering the tank would be fish food, and minimal feeds at that (once a day). Thinking I might need to suck out 50% of my sand and relay. Maybe add another pump, but there's less flow & more dead spots in my ref tank and yet no Cyano maybe it's the many pod types dealing with the issue.




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[54seaweed]

larger water changes will help reduce the nutrients feeding the cayno

here's hanks 2 links

Algae control in salt water tanks - Aquarium Advice

Another View on Algae Control - Helpful Tips - Aquarium Advice

hope they help as well

 

[IbiAquariums]

I usually do about 20ltr changes every Mon, maybe increase to 30ltr??

I have 3 tanks interconnected (80gal mixed display, 30gal ref/algae display, and a 20gal sump/maintenance tank) amounting to about 130gal overall.

Cheers I'll check those links out right now. It's just irritating how it doesn't trouble any of my other algae types only birds nest & bamboo.

Thanks again.




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