started a saltwater talk back in July (I believe) and has since been battling non-st

[PB_Smith]

Diatoms need silica to form. Purigen removes silicates. That might help. IMO the uv won't help.


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if in response to me, I've been using 250ml of Purigen, 1 unit of chemi-pure elite, 4 ozs of carbon, phosban, bio-pellets, and still had the diatom bloom, the only thing that changed prior to it's stopping was utilizing the UV.

using a UV isn't going to completely solve the OP's or any issue other than maybe a bacterial bloom, but it certainly doesn't hurt and it does kill any free floating forms of anything that is exposed to it, so it is very possible that UV used properly can help contain certain issues and is a good adjunct to filtration in general.

 

[Gregcoyote]

started a saltwater talk back in July (I believe) and has since been battling...

I've just never seen an algae problem cured by uv. Gave up on uv many years ago. JMO

Using sand that's silica based can also cause this problem.


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[mr_X]

green water can be wiped out with a sterilizer, but I can't speak for anything else.

 

[jehenry89]

Neither of us want to dump any more money into this tank. We already have reactors running phosphate and carbon. We have spent a lot of money on this tank and we cant seem to get this stuff to go away. We are going to try to raise the Ph to 8.5 and see if that helps. If not, probably going to take it down. 4 of our fish have died, a huge portion of our snails and now our corals are starting to die, the few corals that we did have.

Just kind of over it at this point.

 

[mr_X]

If you just give it time it will go away. Just keep your water pristine. If you decide to take the tank down I just put a 300 in the wall and could use a few fish.

 

[Rockster2]

That is an understandable reaction but would also be a shame. You've obviously put a lot of time effort and agony in this and most like you are eventually rewarded with a stunning tank that all of your friends admire. I've not read the entirety of the the thread but can see you got a lot of good technical replies. Since you are new to the hobby and in the likely event you haven't considered it let me ask a more basic question. Where is the tank located in the house and does sunlight shine on it at anytime of the day? Afternoon sun is particularly bad for causing all types of algae problems. In any event, good luck.


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[jehenry89]

That is an understandable reaction but would also be a shame. You've obviously put a lot of time effort and agony in this and most like you are eventually rewarded with a stunning tank that all of your friends admire. I've not read the entirety of the the thread but can see you got a lot of good technical replies. Since you are new to the hobby and in the likely event you haven't considered it let me ask a more basic question. Where is the tank located in the house and does sunlight shine on it at anytime of the day? Afternoon sun is particularly bad for causing all types of algae problems. In any event, good luck.


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Nah, no sunlight. It is in front of a window but there are blackout blinds on the window and we never open them except during water changes.
We just started to see some coralline algae start growing like 2 weeks ago which I know is a good thing, so something must be going right in there, haha. about 90% of it is on the glass at the moment though. I just did a good cleaning of the rocks and I'm going to scrape it off and hopefully it starts to grow on the rocks more.

 

[jehenry89]

When the lights flip on, I will take an updated picture. It does look a lot better than it did during the initial post.

 

[mr_X]

I disagree that sunlight is a problem. I have seen many tanks that use sunlight as a supplement and have no algae issues. Here's a prime example-

Taken from here-
Tank of the Month - February 2006 - Reefkeeping.com

 

[jeffaquarius]

We know that if salt water tank has a prolonged lighting you will expect more algae than normal unless the tank has adequate filtering system. Generally speaking natural lighting is not recommended since it can not be controlled. I don't think tank in the shade will affect the growth of algae either. It's the direct sunlight that is being concerned about when it hits your tank early morning and it ads up to your lighting duration and the natural sunlight wavelength in the afternoon favors some algae.

 

[Gregcoyote]

I've studied this some as my reef gets direct sun from sky lights for a few months each year. And I eventually want to use a combination of "light tubes" and LEDs to light my reef. The light tubes are controllable. The sun has a lot of red in the spectrum and we know algae loves that. But in a nutrient restricted system it doesn't matter that much. I do reduce the overall time period of lights on a bit when I get sun. It has always seemed silly to me to depend solely on artificial light when the sun, with some help, does a fine job. And it's free.


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[Gregcoyote]

Sun light on the reef.


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[jeffaquarius]

I've studied this some as my reef gets direct sun from sky lights for a few months each year. And I eventually want to use a combination of "light tubes" and LEDs to light my reef. The light tubes are controllable. The sun has a lot of red in the spectrum and we know algae loves that. But in a nutrient restricted system it doesn't matter that much. I do reduce the overall time period of lights on a bit when I get sun. It has always seemed silly to me to depend solely on artificial light when the sun, with some help, does a fine job. And it's free.


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Obviously you know how to handle direct sunlight. Nutrients and specific light wavelenght are the source of algae growth. Cut off any of the 2 and it will hinder their growth. IME after replacing my incandescent bulb with LED in my dining room next to my tank, it had minimized unwanted algae.

 

[jehenry89]

We cut down the lights to four hours a day for a good two weeks, it didn't do anything to it.
Here is an updated picture. It seems like the dino is concentrated on the right and some species of green hair algae is concentrated on the left.

The reactors I have running now are running 24/7 and I just replaced the media about 3 weeks ago.

We also updated our skimmer about a month or two ago.
Skimz SN123 Monzter Mini Protein Skimmer - Bulk Reef Supply - this is our new skimmer.

I know for a fact that our water has high silicates. I have battled diatomes in my very mature freshwater tank since the day I started it. I would still have issues if I did not have a fish in there cleaning it up for me. That problem has subsided in the saltwater tank since we started to run the phosphate reactor.

We are still doing weekly water changes of about 15% and I try to suck out as much of the dinos as I can.

You think we would be having this issue if we opted to buy live rock instead? : \

 

[Sniperhank]

Rock is live after you cycle the tank. Dinos is a nutrient issue not related to silicates. Silicates will be consumed by diatoms and burn away over time.


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[jeffaquarius]

We cut down the lights to four hours a day for a good two weeks, it didn't do anything to it.
Here is an updated picture. It seems like the dino is concentrated on the right and some species of green hair algae is concentrated on the left.

The reactors I have running now are running 24/7 and I just replaced the media about 3 weeks ago.

We also updated our skimmer about a month or two ago.
Skimz SN123 Monzter Mini Protein Skimmer - Bulk Reef Supply - this is our new skimmer.

I know for a fact that our water has high silicates. I have battled diatomes in my very mature freshwater tank since the day I started it. I would still have issues if I did not have a fish in there cleaning it up for me. That problem has subsided in the saltwater tank since we started to run the phosphate reactor.

We are still doing weekly water changes of about 15% and I try to suck out as much of the dinos as I can.

You think we would be having this issue if we opted to buy live rock instead? : \

What is the knob setting of your Taotronics? Like white fully clockwise? Is your tank next to your house lighting which is on most of the night?

 

[jehenry89]

Ugh, I don't know what to do!

 

[jehenry89]

What is the knob setting of your Taotronics? Like white fully clockwise? Is your tank next to your house lighting which is on most of the night?

Nah, no house lights. Just the bedroom light, which is on the ceiling pretty far from the tank. That is on maybe 5 hours a day at night. Only one of the lights is adjustable. The one that is adjustable, it is turned on all the way, yes.

 

[VADM_Mustang]

Ugh, I don't know what to do!

Ok, just give me a quick recap of your current issue. I'm sorry but I can't sift throught 6 pages of posts.

 

[VADM_Mustang]

Ok, just give me a quick recap of your current issue. I'm sorry but I can't sift throught 6 pages of posts.

Oh. Never mind. Let's see... I'm in a Facebook group with Paul Baldassano (he has one of the oldest reef tanks in the world, 44 years old). He gave me the idea for the Algae Turf Scrubber. I've been running one for a few weeks. His article is easy to find. Just google search "Paul Bladassano ATS". His premise, the best way to get rid of unsightly algae is to coax it to grow out of sight (which is fairly easy, considering most species of algae are stupid).