21 gallon nano reef NEEDS HELP

[Braun036]

Hey guys how is everyone doing?  I have a massive problem with my 3 year old tank. I really need some help. Even my LFS is stumped. And I am getting so frustrated with this. I hope someone on here is able to give me an idea. So here is my set up first for those of you who have not seen tank on here. I have a 21 gallon Red Sea Nano tank with an Ai Prime HD I have it pretty well stocked with a gold hammer a gold torch GPS two types of frog spawns. A cleaner shrimp two clowns and a 6 Lomé wrasse. So here the numbers I just checked them 10 min ago  alkalinity 12  magnesium 1350 calcium 450 nitrates 10 nitrites 0  ammonia 0  phosphates 0.01  RO water is 0 TDS salt 1.025 Red Sea coral pro. These numbers are stable and have been stable for a long time. I do a water change weekly 2 to 3 gallons every Sunday. I dose daily with Red Sea products I run carbon and the skimmer that came with the tank the water temp is 77.8. My test kits are Hanna checkers and I have the Red Sea kit for the ones that are not available from Hanna. I have a massive green hair and bubble algae problem. I have tired emblem crabs and they just my Duncan coral which I was pissed off about that they had 18 heads of my Duncan. So they are gone. I bought a sea hair who would not touch the green hair algae and died a few weeks later. I just bought another sea hare two days ago. Well guess what he is dead. I have done a full three day black out with little to no help. I even tried some wild medicine that the LFS told me to use I left it in the system for a month without carbon obviously and guess what it didn’t do a damn thing. I could just remove the rock and clean it but I really don’t want to do that since the corals are not only glued to the rock but have attached them selfs  As many of them have been with me for years. So I am 100% stumped. And I am turning to you guys for help. Thank you for any input. Here is a picture of what I have growing everywhere 

[Garf]

To clarify your corals, gold torch, gold hammer, two frogspawn and GPS(?). Green star polyps right? You still have the zoas, acans and the Monti digitata? 

And your fish, what do you mean a 6 lome wrasse? 6 line wrasse? How big? Even full grown I don't think bio load is an issue in 21g tank.

 

What red sea products are you dosing every day? The reef foundation ABC and trace elements? Do you have a refractometer to check the Hannah digital one? 

 

Can you share the results of the Triton tests you did in February? 

 

How long did you do the water changes as testing required thing? You think this had any bearing on your algae problem (started what, December?)

 

Perhaps some other element is throwing things off. Or perhaps it is simply something to work through, that may take some elbow grease and time to beat it. And a crab to munch the bubble algae, I know they can be hit or miss, 

 

Those gold torches and hammers are lovely, all those euphylia you have are. Hope you can get it straightened out soon. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Aurortpa]

Hmm, what is your phos and nitrates at?  Could be leeching from the rock. I tossed a small rock that just kept growing hair algae even after being nuked.

 

If I have a trouble spot I manually pull what I can then turn pumps off and use a small syringe to pump a very small amount of peroxide around the “roots”. Toss up whether it works each time.

 

Have you thought of a fish that may like to eat it? 🙂

 

[xthunt]

You didnt say if you had any snails. I like a mix of banded trochus (faster) and astraea (slower, thorough). Snails wouldn’t eat it that long, so you’d have to get it shorter for them. 

 

Easy way Ive found to pull out soft algae patches like that is to use wooden bbq skewers (the long sticks for shish kebab). I found a pack at the dollar store. Put the tip into the algae patch, and start spinning the skewer, the algae will start to wrap around it and rip away from the rock. Pull the skewer out and wipe the algae onto a piece of paper towel. Best to dry the wood off each time, for some reason when the wood is saturated it doesnt grip the algae as well. Or if you have a pack of them, just use a dry one for each patch. 

[luckie1966]

 

Red Sea NO3:PO4-X Biological Nitrate & Phosphate Reducer

You Must have a skimmer and really a doser because it needs to regularly added.

[Braun036]

34 minutes ago, luckie1966 said:

 

Red Sea NO3:PO4-X Biological Nitrate & Phosphate Reducer

You Must have a skimmer and really a doser because it needs to regularly added.

I use this daily two mil are added daily 

[Braun036]

@Garf thank you for the reply. Yes the still having those corals. Yes to it being a 6 line wrasse. The one clown fish is maybe 2 lines and the second clown fish is about an 1 1/2 inches. I would say that the 6 line wrasse is 2 inches. Yes I am using the Red Sea Products and dosing the foundation calcium + which is dosed 4ml a day. The foundation KH/Alkalinity which I do 8ml daily. The foundation magnesium which I do 2ml daily. I use Reef energy A and B 3ml of each daily. I just started using the Algae Management NO3:PO4-X. I do not dose the trace elements I thought since I was doing a weekly water change I would be good. I started using this pristine by seachem with the weekly water change just a half of a cap. I feed reef roids twice a week. Just a tip of the spoon. I feed zoo plankton to my  Electric flaming scallop.  the fish each Thera + A only feed what they can eat nothing sinks to the bottom and I feed the corals mysis shrimp and brine shrimp two to three times a week. Obviously the fish will eat that as well on those days. That is pretty much everything that goes into my tank.  Oh and I use the Hannah checkers for Alkalinity, calcium,  phosphates and salt and PH probe  Red Sea tests are for magnesium, nitrates, nitrites,  ammonia. 

[Clown79]

Do you have any snails? A good cuc will help 

 

 

Do you use a Turkey baster on the rocks before waterchange?

 

You could try spot treatment of 3% peroxide during waterchanges. I've done it and it works.

 

I use only 2ml during each waterchange. With a syringe, while all water movement is off, I spot treat directly on the gha. 

 

Proceed with waterchange and then turn water movement on.

 

I would suggest not using so much chemical treatment and meds in the tank. It will start throwing things off, possibly stripping nutrients and leading to worse things, like dino's. 

[Braun036]

@Clown79 I do use a turkey baster to clean off the rocks. And I was just watching a video on YouTube where the guy recommended you clean your rocks off daily. Not sure it might help. I do have about 5 snails and a couple blue legged crabs along with two brissel stars.  And I agree with you I actually wanted to stop using that algae management products because it is almost taken my nitrates to 0.  

[TheKingInYellow]

Nitrates will be zero because the algae is consuming it.

 

Slow down first of all and stop dosing anything you aren't testing for.  Are you testing for calcium, alkalinity and magnesium or are you just guessing?  

[Braun036]

@TheKingInYellow yes I am testing for everything that I put in the tank. With Hannah checkers and the Red Sea kits as well. 

[Aurortpa]

If your params are good you may want to simply reduce the frequency of your water changes giving the existing water more time to age. This can help your tank mature more naturally which may help eradicate your algae over time. 

 

I know my ninja star snails and trochus help eat the soft green hair algae too.

[A.m.P]

Dose 1 ml of 3% peroxide per gallon directly into the byropsis, let it sit for an hour or so, manually remove as much as possible and siphon out the debris with a 20% or so waterchange.

Change your mechanical filtration a few hours later, re-dose the area with peroxide the next day (same maximum amount of 1ml per 10 gallons) let sit for a while before turning circulation back on (or if right on top of coral keep circulation on).

You can also run phosguard and or purigen during this time to help get rid of the nutrients released by the melting algae. 

 

H202 works really well for eliminating most kinds of algae, if you can spot treat just the problem rocks in higher concentrations it works even better. Cured my chrysophytes, but it took a solid few months of this kind of manual removal once or twice a week and has very little negative effects of livestock (won't hurt beneficial bacteria on the whole and might tick off some softies/corallimorphs/inverts, but it safe at 1ml per gallong infrequent doses)

[Braun036]

@Aurortpa thank you for the advice. I am going to roll with what you are saying. I have been micro managing this tank for years and chasing numbers. Reading hours and hours of advice on water changes. So I am just going to continue the weekly testing and only change the water when needed 

[Tamberav]

It doesn't look like bryopsis, just GHA.

 

My tank looked like a GHA forest after a month of neglect last year.

 

I would just: Manually remove what you can so its 'shorter', this makes it easier for the CUC to eat it.

 

Add: 1 tuxedo urchin and 1 mexican turbo snail (these love GHA but will not eat your corals). 

 

Clean the sand bed with weekly water changes and blast off the rock, change floss twice a week. 

 

It should go away just with these methods. No chemicals, no stress to corals this way. 

 

 

[Braun036]

@Amphrites thank you. So are you saying to add 21 ml into the tank. And then do a water change an hour or so after. 

[A.m.P]

10 minutes ago, Braun036 said:

@Amphrites thank you. So are you saying to add 21 ml into the tank. And then do a water change an hour or so after. 

Ooops, 1 ml per 10 gallons. so 2.5-3ml (some people go allot higher, I used 2.5 in my 12g for example but it really ticked off my rics lol)

Directly apply the H202 with circulation off if there aren't corals right on top of it, let it set for a bit, manually remove as much of it as you can, then siphon out the debris with a water change though, yes. Then change out your mechanical filtration a few hours later, next day treat the areas with the same dose of peroxide, running nutrient export media can help keep things from just coming back, otherwise diluting the excess nutrients with waterchanges will work too.

Also what Tamberav said will eventually work too, if you just keep at manual removal, beef up clean up crews, and wait it out these kind of algae tend to lose in the long-term. Chrysophytes and other such plague algaes more require H202 and other more "drastic" steps to eliminate.

[Braun036]

Okay great I will give it a try I appreciate all the help. 

[Braun036]

@Tamberav okay awesome I am driving to the LFS now to pick them up. I hope this works. THANK YOU 

[Tamberav]

7 hours ago, Braun036 said:

@Tamberav okay awesome I am driving to the LFS now to pick them up. I hope this works. THANK YOU 

🙏

[Braun036]

So I have added two Mexican turbo snails to the tank to help with my GHA and to be honest I have had no luck. Now it has only been a few days but they do not seem interested in it at all. I have pulled a lot of it out to make it shorter for them. I guess we are just going to have to wait and see!!

[Tamberav]

1 hour ago, Braun036 said:

So I have added two Mexican turbo snails to the tank to help with my GHA and to be honest I have had no luck. Now it has only been a few days but they do not seem interested in it at all. I have pulled a lot of it out to make it shorter for them. I guess we are just going to have to wait and see!!

That's unfortunate..maybe they eating something else first? Mine destroyed it. They even eat my macroalgae.

[Braun036]

Yea I really hope that is the case. I will say now that I have been blowing the rocks off and trying to get most of that algae off the rocks. The tank is looking much better. I have noticed that the GHA is not growing or spreading in the last two weeks. So maybe I am going to start seeing this get under control 

[Braun036]

My tank is finally looking healthy again. 

[Braun036]