I've been battling algae for some time now and this week the macro algae the I had in the tank must've went sexual or something. It got all bubbly and now every surface in my tank including corals are covered in bubbles and purple / red stuff. I went to town today and removed 95% and did a water change. My chaeto grows like mad too.
My biggest problem for causing algae is me. I added in the damsels for my angler to eat and he's picky, so now I have (4) assorted damsels in the tank along with the angler. I've gotta feed them, feed him, and I was adding phyto feast for a while. I read another article about phyto just being a bottle of phosphates and not adding much to the tank. The only things that benefit are the coco worm and my clam in the other tank. I also found that dosing as directed is WAAAYY too much. I've now been told (2) drops, 3x per week is enough to support my biocube. I was dosing 2 teaspoons 3x / week.
I'm doing my best to net the damsels to return them for store credit, but they are so fast it's crazy. They don't trust the net.
In the meantime I am switching to daily (1) gallon water changes opposed to weekly 5-7 gallon changes. I read an article about the benefits of maintaining trace elements like mg, cal, alk by doing daily changes.
Ill keep posted.