Help! To much algae growing

[windcoast reefs]

Hey everyone,
For the past few weeks I have been battling a algae problem. The only new thing I have added to the system in some feather macro algae. It is growing everywhere and now some of my fish are starting to not look so good.
Any suggestions?

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/picture.php?albumid=567&pictureid=4548

[Lampshade]

Water changes are key, there is excess nutrients in your water you need to remove. Also looks like there is a lot on the sandbed, look into possibly getting some sand sifters, and see about adjusting some powerheads to get more flow through the tank. Possibly overfeeding aswell, even if the fish eat all the food you give them right away, they still crap it out in the end making nitrates. I've been shocked how little i actually need to feed my fish, i went on holidays recently for a week and came back to find that my fishfeeder didn't work the whole time i was gone.... all the fish where happy.

best of luck, i just got over a big hair algae outbreak and it was a PITA.

[scherzo]

How old is the tank? How much flow do you have in it?

Water changes will really help, removing the hair algae manually and then increasing flow.

[don.ald]

is that green algae on the sandbed maybe cyno. ??

[syncro]

I found this info on feeding fish... maybe it will help:

- 5% of body weight for adults, %10 for juviniles

http://www.reefland.com/forum/marine-fish-care-health-disease-treatment/18767-feeding-marine-fish-fish-nutrition.html

[spit.fire]

phosphate removers

[windcoast reefs]

How old is the tank? How much flow do you have in it?

Water changes will really help, removing the hair algae manually and then increasing flow.

I just upgraded around 2 months ago and haven't had any problems up to this point. I am running around 600 gph through the sump and I have 2 koralia at 1050 gph.

[windcoast reefs]

Water changes are key, there is excess nutrients in your water you need to remove. Also looks like there is a lot on the sandbed, look into possibly getting some sand sifters, and see about adjusting some powerheads to get more flow through the tank. Possibly overfeeding aswell, even if the fish eat all the food you give them right away, they still crap it out in the end making nitrates. I've been shocked how little i actually need to feed my fish, i went on holidays recently for a week and came back to find that my fishfeeder didn't work the whole time i was gone.... all the fish where happy.

best of luck, i just got over a big hair algae outbreak and it was a PITA.

Okay, I will try doing a water change and not feeding as much. What kind of sand sifters do you recommend? I have a bunch on nassarius snails and a tiger brittle star right now.

[windcoast reefs]

phosphate removers


I currently run bio pellets and carbon in reactors.

[lastlight]

Diamond watchman goby totally turned my tank around. He handles all food that gets under my rocks. i don't even really have a cleanup crew. he's a one-fish show!

[phi delt reefer]

add some gfo - some people are still running some gfo with pellets.

what are you phosphates and nitrates reading at? Are you running a good skimmer?

[fishytime]

new tank blues combined with the pellets would be my guess.......manual pruning and ride it out...you could.......lower nutrients.....increase flow.....reduce photo period..and if you want, try elevating your MG....

[Aquattro]

Where did the sand come from? If it's used, or mixed up from an old tank, it could be releasing nutrients. Same with rock, if it's been moved from an old tank, it could release nutrients.
Skimming is important, as asked already, what are you using?

Water changes are the single best way to get things under control. Use RO water, good salt and don't be afraid to change 50% at a time. The typical 10% bi-weekly won't do any good.
What kind of food and how often? Easy on the flakes, and rinse frozen first.

Sand bed cleaners are good in preventing some of this stuff, but right now they'll just recycle it. For the algae pictured, you want to get it under control before you expect a fish to maintain it.
Lighting looks like MH? Is your bulb reasonably new (less than a year)?

[Aquattro]

new tank blues combined with the pellets would be my guess...

I don't use pellets myself, but my first thought was this too, from reading previous posts similar to this one..

[Lampshade]

I started dosing vodka with my pellets. Night and day difference, i was debating scrapping them until i tried a small amount of vodka dosing. Cleared up all my Hair Algae in a matter of a week. Maybe give that a shot, not sure on the specifics of your tank, so might not be the only cause.

[windcoast reefs]

add some gfo - some people are still running some gfo with pellets.

what are you phosphates and nitrates reading at? Are you running a good skimmer?


I'm running a reef octopus 200 currently as well as carbon in a reactor. My levels were all at 0 except phosphate which is at 0.05 ppm

[windcoast reefs]

Where did the sand come from? If it's used, or mixed up from an old tank, it could be releasing nutrients. Same with rock, if it's been moved from an old tank, it could release nutrients.
Skimming is important, as asked already, what are you using?

Water changes are the single best way to get things under control. Use RO water, good salt and don't be afraid to change 50% at a time. The typical 10% bi-weekly won't do any good.
What kind of food and how often? Easy on the flakes, and rinse frozen first.

Sand bed cleaners are good in preventing some of this stuff, but right now they'll just recycle it. For the algae pictured, you want to get it under control before you expect a fish to maintain it.
Lighting looks like MH? Is your bulb reasonably new (less than a year)?



I used my old sand, but I boiled it all before I put it back in.
I will try a few more big water changes and see what happens!
I use only frozen food and an amino acid mix for the fish, I usually feed once in the morning and once at night.

No it's A 200 watt LED fixture and I built.

[windcoast reefs]

I started dosing vodka with my pellets. Night and day difference, i was debating scrapping them until i tried a small amount of vodka dosing. Cleared up all my Hair Algae in a matter of a week. Maybe give that a shot, not sure on the specifics of your tank, so might not be the only cause.

How much did you dose and how often?

[Lampshade]

I'm still dosing, the corals love it, better color than I've seen in a long time. I'm dosing 1/2 a small cap(polar ice) every other day in a ~200gal system. start slow, you're basically dropping a nuke on nitrates when doing this, so everything needs to balance to accomadate. I went with a cap a day for a little bit because things kept getting better and better, but realized that was too much when i started to get cyno, meaning i'd taken out all my beneficial bacteria.

I must add, that seeing better results prompted me to "like" the aquarium more again and spend more time on it, probably greatly leading to the success of the battle, haha.