Red Hair Algae in New Tank?

[The Kraken]

So my reef tank 150 gallons has been up now for 2 months or so. 2 clowns and a cleaner and 10 hermits, 4 turbos, 3 blue eyed hermits. 20%PWC every week so far. My original algae bloom was greenish and not so bad. Now it is red and all over my sand and tank walls. Scraping it off every day and lightly vacuuming the top layer of my 2 inch sand bed with PWCs.

NH4 = 0
NO3 = 0
NO4 = 10-20
pH 8.0
Salinity 1.025
Temp 77-77.5

Any advice on how to clean this up? Or is this just something I have to deal with in a new tank? My lights schedule is 11 hours actinic with 8 hours 250W MH, then moonlight for 13 hours. Should I reduce this and will that affect the ricordea I have in there or stress my fish? Do I need more CUC?

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

I had this bookmarked from a while ago and I always end up going back to it anytime I set up a new tank. At some point in a tank no matter how hard you try to avoid it you end up with some kind of an algae problem and this covers a variety of them. Methods For Curing Algae Problems

 

[mr_X]

sounds like cyanobacteria to me. you can reduce the lighting but the cyano will not be eradicated. you can use chemical means to kill it off, but it's but a symptom of the larger problem which is excessive nutrients.

more "cleanup crew" will not effect this either, except maybe make it worse (more eating, pooping critters will not lower the nutrient level).
water changes with good source water (r.o.d.i.) cutting back on feeding, and protein skimming is the solution.

 

[The Kraken]

sounds like cyanobacteria to me. you can reduce the lighting but the cyano will not be eradicated. you can use chemical means to kill it off, but it's but a symptom of the larger problem which is excessive nutrients.

more "cleanup crew" will not effect this either, except maybe make it worse (more eating, pooping critters will not lower the nutrient level).
water changes with good source water (r.o.d.i.) cutting back on feeding, and protein skimming is the solution.

Good advice on the CUC. Even if it eats the algae up it's just gonna cause more with its waste. I have been feeding my 2 little clowns and a cleaner shrimp twice a day with flakes in the a.m. and frozen PE mysis and Rod's food at night. I'll cut back to just once a day. Or is that still too much? And how much is too much? I usually crush up 3 flakes. At night I take small chunks off the bricks of frozen maybe fingernail size each. Still too much?

As for the lighting, what if I just kept MH off for a week? Or should I decrease the actinics too?

 

[mr_X]

you can feed every other day if you like. it won't hurt. do you have photosynthetic creatures in the tank? if so, i would not keep the halides off for a week. again, it's a nutrient issue. keeping the lights off will make it appear as it's gone, but if the nutrient issue isn't solved, as soon as you put the lights back on it will come back.

 

[hackteck]

do you use tap water?

 

[The Kraken]

OK. Am feeding less from now on. They just seem so hungry when I do feed them. I guess I don't have the heart for feeding every other day. I don't want my fish and my cool shrimp to hate me. Sounds stupid now that I say it. Every other day it is. And I'll turn the MHs back on.

And I only use RO/DI water. I have 0 dissolved solids in my water. Super clean. I think my problem was I was over feeding the fish (although this kinda started before the fish). But it started after the CUC was in. Hmmmmm. I wonder....

Yep the kids and wife were putting food in the tank to get the nassarius to come out! Wonder if that sparked the cyano?!! Of course we've been feeding Nemo, Marlin, and Jacques twice a day since. Hopefully this will take care of it. Ordered a phosphate test kit as well to check on that. How informational are phosphate tests? Are they that accurate and doesn't phosphate usually get trapped in the substrate and whatnot?

 

[mr_X]

i've never owned a phosphate test kit.

 

[The Kraken]

Look at my other thread and look at my tank pictures to tell me what I'm dealing with then please.

 

[mr_X]

is that red? what is it to touch? is it stringy and mushy, and brown? it may be dinoflagellates. still, the same defense is lowering the nutrient level. i had those in the tank at the local gym and ended up using a vodka dosing regimen to eradicate them. as i said, i've never owned a phosphate test kit, but vodka does reduce both phosphates and nitrates.

Vodka Dosing by 'Genetics' and 'Stony_Corals' - Reefkeeping.com