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Would you use Chaeto in this situation?


VaporCountry

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So I am having a little problem with nuisance algae in my 11 month old tank and I am considering trying chaeto. I am not sure what kind it is but it keeps returning. Does anyone know the type? I am also getting a little bit of hair algae and bryopsis mostly on my frag plugs. I have pulled all the plugs and racks out and scrubbed/picked the algae off but it just returns. My nitrates always stay stable at 2-3ppm but my phosphates kinds of goes up and down. They get to about 0.12-0.2 twice a week then I dose them down to 0.03 with phosphate E. I have tried GFO and chaeto in the past. The GFO just kept getting depleted within less then a week and I was getting getting sick of changing it, I was only running it in a media bag. The chaeto I tried before but worked too well and I had zero nitrates and phosphates. The tank was still pretty new when I was growing it so I took it off line. The thing I am worried about if I try chaeto again is my nitrates bottoming out since they are all ready in the desired range. Now if that happens I have adecent amount of marine pure in the back I could remove which might let it rise a bit or I have nitrate to dose. Also I get almost zero algae growing on the glass and am running a UV sterilizer.

What would you guys do? Try chaeto again, try GFO again but get a reactor, or just try and dose phosphate E everyday to to keep the phosphate level lower and more stable? Chaeto seems like the least maintenance option but again worried with the nitrates going to zero.

 

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Tanks doing great, pretty much all the corals are doing well except one chalice that starting bleaching out of no where. It had some algae growing right where the rim meets the frag disk, I don't know if it caused it but that's the side it starting bleaching from first. There is more algae then what is in the pictures but its not bad and is in different patches around the tank. 

 

FTS I just took today 

FTS120819.thumb.jpg.5767667966f22d47428f56daf8ffc36d.jpg

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Thrassian Atoll
5 minutes ago, VaporCountry said:

Tanks doing great, pretty much all the corals are doing well except one chalice that starting bleaching out of no where. It had some algae growing right where the rim meets the frag disk, I don't know if it caused it but that's the side it starting bleaching from first. There is more algae then what is in the pictures but its not bad and is in different patches around the tank. 

 

FTS I just took today 

FTS120819.thumb.jpg.5767667966f22d47428f56daf8ffc36d.jpg

Dang, that’s filled to the brim.  Everything’s looking good.  I would not change anything, maybe besides going to a bigger tank.  Haha.  I wouldn’t be worried about that algae though.  It doesn’t look bad and the rest of the tank looks good.  
 

You need to figure out what’s making the phosphates spike in the first place.  That’s where I would start.  What’s the tank size?  Is the skimmer undersized?

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13 minutes ago, Thrassian Atoll said:

Dang, that’s filled to the brim.  Everything’s looking good.  I would not change anything, maybe besides going to a bigger tank.  Haha.  I wouldn’t be worried about that algae though.  It doesn’t look bad and the rest of the tank looks good.  
 

You need to figure out what’s making the phosphates spike in the first place.  That’s where I would start.  What’s the tank size?  Is the skimmer undersized?

Thanks! The tank is an IM 30L, I have thought about upgrading but the tank is still pretty new at 11 months and I don't really have the space. I want to try sps so I'm setting up a 10g I had to try my hand at it, cycle just about completed. The skimmer is a cad lights pls 50 elite and works well but doesn't skim really that dark but is rated up to like 50+ gallons I think

 

Im not sure where all the phosphate is coming from. I do feed a whole cube of mysis a day though. I feed 2/3rds of it to the fish then the rest to the LPS. The fish do seem to eat most of it but some does get into the rocks. I do a 4g water change religiously every Saturday. I did just clean the back compartment for the first time but their really wasn't a whole lot back there. I would have thought with having a bare bottom tank and sucking up all the detritus every week it wouldn't be so bad.

 

You are probably right about not changing much and the better route might be to up the testing and dosing of Phosphate E to keep things lower. I could try and do it every other day but its just kinda of a pain. Really wanted to come up with a solution that was more automated, I'm a lazy reefer lol.

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Thrassian Atoll
5 minutes ago, VaporCountry said:

Thanks! The tank is an IM 30L, I have thought about upgrading but the tank is still pretty new at 11 months and I don't really have the space. I want to try sps so I'm setting up a 10g I had to try my hand at it, cycle just about completed. The skimmer is a cad lights pls 50 elite and works well but doesn't skim really that dark but is rated up to like 50+ gallons I think

 

Im not sure where all the phosphate is coming from. I do feed a whole cube of mysis a day though. I feed 2/3rds of it to the fish then the rest to the LPS. The fish do seem to eat most of it but some does get into the rocks. I do a 4g water change religiously every Saturday. I did just clean the back compartment for the first time but their really wasn't a whole lot back there. I would have thought with having a bare bottom tank and sucking up all the detritus every week it wouldn't be so bad.

 

You are probably right about not changing much and the better route might be to up the testing and dosing of Phosphate E to keep things lower. I could try and do it every other day but its just kinda of a pain. Really wanted to come up with a solution that was more automated, I'm a lazy reefer lol.

Try just feeding the fish small amounts at a time.  A cube is a lot in that size tank.  I would skip feeding the LPS for a week and see what the numbers are at and how the LPS look.  Feeding LPS is always a debate.  But the food amount is definitely the cause.  

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28 minutes ago, Thrassian Atoll said:

Try just feeding the fish small amounts at a time.  A cube is a lot in that size tank.  I would skip feeding the LPS for a week and see what the numbers are at and how the LPS look.  Feeding LPS is always a debate.  But the food amount is definitely the cause.  

 

So you really think it's the food huh, I just didn't think a cube was that much. I guess I will cut back to half a cube a day and skip feeding the corals and see how it goes. The only other thing I can think of is I dose amino acids, I could try and cut that dose in half as well.

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Thrassian Atoll
Just now, VaporCountry said:

 

So you really think it's the food huh, I just didn't think a cube was that much. I guess I will cut back to half a cube a day and skip feeding the corals and see how it goes. The only other thing I can think of is I dose amino acids, I could try and cut that dose in half as well.

Just cut back the food for now and see how that goes.  Even splitting up the feeding might be beneficial.  

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4 minutes ago, Thrassian Atoll said:

Just cut back the food for now and see how that goes.  Even splitting up the feeding might be beneficial.  

Thanks for the help! 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/8/2019 at 6:50 PM, VaporCountry said:

My nitrates always stay stable at 2-3ppm but my phosphates kinds of goes up and down.

What's the story on this tank being racked to the gills with tiny frags?

 

The corals have good color, but the tank looks over-crowded:

Related image

 

The tank has been up almost a year -- how long has it been like this? 

 

Was the tank rebooted in the middle of that year or something?  Are any of them permanent?  How many?  Since when?

 

Nutrient Levels

IMO the bleaching you've seen is related to phosphate levels crashing.

 

The variable nutrient levels are surely related to the insane number of frags in there on top of the lack of rock. 

 

It may seem weird because you're trying to keep levels down or remove nutrients when you should be trying to keep levels up or to conserve nutrients.

 

Aragonite acts like a phosphate sponge to a degree -- it'll adsorb phosphates (just like GFO does) when there's excess.   And it will release phosphate into the water when there's a dearth.  Like a wetlands with rain....soaks up extra during downpours, then acts as a water reserve during a drought.

 

Consider swapping the fake media for natural aragonite.

 

You should consider dosing phosphates just like you dose alkalinity to stabilize things.  Ie. Test and dose daily.

 

Maintain a specific level for a while and see if that makes normal algae grow (that snails will eat for you) and cuts back on the mystery algae. 

 

0.10 ppm for phosphates should be enough to make a difference without doing anything too crazy with the number.  (Peace of mind for you...dosing more would also be fine...just not necessary.  Your 0.2 levels were even fine....I'd do nothing except maybe dose nitrates to keep them from running to zero.)

 

Nitrates are less critical and might even be fine registering at zero on a test kit, but watch for them to bottom out and consider dosing nitrates too if that happens.  Target 5-10 ppm.  Some corals may not appreciate the super-low levels near zero.

 

Coralline Algae

I worry about the apparent lack of coralline algae covering the bare rock and frag plug surfaces.....this still looks like a brand new tank in those areas.

 

Cleanup Strategy

Glad to see an astrea snail hard at work center-photo (cool!).

 

But I wonder about the total number of herbivores you have in there?  You have room to work your way up to 2 turbos (or equivalent) per gallon. 

 

(Don't count scavengers like hermit crabs and nassarius snails....only herbivore snails.)

 

You are member #1 of the cleanup crew, so keep up with the manual removal you've been doing.  But do it in the least invasive way possible....try not removing the rock from the system when you work, if possible. 

 

Try not to use any kind of cleaning agent like peroxide - just use simple mechanical removal.

 

These things will inhibit coralline algae grown and may even extend the algae growing cycle.

 

When you clean an area, place a snail right in the middle of it so they know it's cleaned and ready for them.  Snails operate from memory, so they'll continue ignoring a location the remember having crap algae to eat....or where the algae is overgrown and too big for them to eat.  Show em it's ready and they'll remember that too.  You just need enough snails to cover all the area that needs covering, otherwise they won't complete their grazing circuit before the algae has a chance to grow too large for them once again.

 

IMO

IMO if you stabilize nutrients on the higher end of the range the tank seems to want (use all tips above) and prevent nitrates from zeroing out completely...

 

...AND you beef up your herbivorous snail population every time your algae grows back where you've cleaned it....

 

...I think you'll have this issue licked within 1 or 2 cleanings or so.

 

Use a variety of snails - don't be afraid to have at least one monster turbo in there -- bigger mouth can eat bigger algae.  But I'd suggest a variety of snails if possible.

 

Some scavengers are probably OK, but I tend to keep very few....like 1 or 2 per 50 gallons.

image.jpeg

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VaporCountry
On 1/3/2020 at 5:18 PM, mcarroll said:

What's the story on this tank being racked to the gills with tiny frags?

 

The corals have good color, but the tank looks over-crowded:

Related image

 

The tank has been up almost a year -- how long has it been like this? 

 

Was the tank rebooted in the middle of that year or something?  Are any of them permanent?  How many?  Since when?

 

Nutrient Levels

IMO the bleaching you've seen is related to phosphate levels crashing.

 

The variable nutrient levels are surely related to the insane number of frags in there on top of the lack of rock. 

 

It may seem weird because you're trying to keep levels down or remove nutrients when you should be trying to keep levels up or to conserve nutrients.

 

Aragonite acts like a phosphate sponge to a degree -- it'll adsorb phosphates (just like GFO does) when there's excess.   And it will release phosphate into the water when there's a dearth.  Like a wetlands with rain....soaks up extra during downpours, then acts as a water reserve during a drought.

 

Consider swapping the fake media for natural aragonite.

 

You should consider dosing phosphates just like you dose alkalinity to stabilize things.  Ie. Test and dose daily.

 

Maintain a specific level for a while and see if that makes normal algae grow (that snails will eat for you) and cuts back on the mystery algae. 

 

0.10 ppm for phosphates should be enough to make a difference without doing anything too crazy with the number.  (Peace of mind for you...dosing more would also be fine...just not necessary.  Your 0.2 levels were even fine....I'd do nothing except maybe dose nitrates to keep them from running to zero.)

 

Nitrates are less critical and might even be fine registering at zero on a test kit, but watch for them to bottom out and consider dosing nitrates too if that happens.  Target 5-10 ppm.  Some corals may not appreciate the super-low levels near zero.

 

Coralline Algae

I worry about the apparent lack of coralline algae covering the bare rock and frag plug surfaces.....this still looks like a brand new tank in those areas.

 

Cleanup Strategy

Glad to see an astrea snail hard at work center-photo (cool!).

 

But I wonder about the total number of herbivores you have in there?  You have room to work your way up to 2 turbos (or equivalent) per gallon. 

 

(Don't count scavengers like hermit crabs and nassarius snails....only herbivore snails.)

 

You are member #1 of the cleanup crew, so keep up with the manual removal you've been doing.  But do it in the least invasive way possible....try not removing the rock from the system when you work, if possible. 

 

Try not to use any kind of cleaning agent like peroxide - just use simple mechanical removal.

 

These things will inhibit coralline algae grown and may even extend the algae growing cycle.

 

When you clean an area, place a snail right in the middle of it so they know it's cleaned and ready for them.  Snails operate from memory, so they'll continue ignoring a location the remember having crap algae to eat....or where the algae is overgrown and too big for them to eat.  Show em it's ready and they'll remember that too.  You just need enough snails to cover all the area that needs covering, otherwise they won't complete their grazing circuit before the algae has a chance to grow too large for them once again.

 

IMO

IMO if you stabilize nutrients on the higher end of the range the tank seems to want (use all tips above) and prevent nitrates from zeroing out completely...

 

...AND you beef up your herbivorous snail population every time your algae grows back where you've cleaned it....

 

...I think you'll have this issue licked within 1 or 2 cleanings or so.

 

Use a variety of snails - don't be afraid to have at least one monster turbo in there -- bigger mouth can eat bigger algae.  But I'd suggest a variety of snails if possible.

 

Some scavengers are probably OK, but I tend to keep very few....like 1 or 2 per 50 gallons.

image.jpeg

 

Hi thanks for the reply, I think I have got the algae issue solved. It turned out I had a bad test kit and my nitrates were actually around 20-25 so I think that's where the algae was coming from. I added the cheato, and reduced feeding to get the levels to come down. The nitrates are now around 8-10ppm and I'm starting to feed normally again to see if the level stays stable now with the chaeto growing. 

 

The tank is so packed mostly because I have a coral addiction lol but also because I had a frag tank that didn't go well so a lot of frags got moved over. I had a plan to grow and sell/trade corals to feed my addiction. I just set up a new 25 lagoon and the plan is to use that tank as more of a display for my prized corals and use this 30g as a grow out working display/frag tank. I like to have a wide variety of coral and don't mind trimming them down often to have a bigger collection. Also most of them are chalices that grow pretty slowly. 

 

The algae was only there for maybe a month or so. I had some small algae issues earlier on which I treated with vibrant but until recently everything was great, not sure what changed. I didn't really like the vibrant as some of my corals lost a little color and it seemed to kill off a lot of my coralline. Also my alk consumption dropped which I attributed to the dying coralline. 

 

As far as the coral bleaching it was only one coral, the one on the left, the other red chalices just lost a little color because it was fragged the day before. I don't think it had anything to do with my phosphates, none of my other corals showed any signs of bad health. Some algae started growing right on the rim of the chalice in between where it met the disk and then it started receding. It was a weird algae I haven't seen, not regular hair algae or byropsis. If you familiar with chalices once they start to recede it can be difficult to get them to recover. I tried a dip and put it in low light/flow but sadly I lost it. 

 

I don't think the nutrients levels were varying just rising, most likely from over feeding. I like to feed a lot and am hoping I can get the nitrates to stay stable now that I have the chaeto, if not ill have to adjust my feeding. Phosphates are going to rise thats just how it goes. Hoping the chaeto will help some with it and I'll just keep dosing Lanthanum Chloride to keep them in check.

 

You think I should raise nutrients? My phosphates just rise so defiantly don't need to dose them. Now that I figured out the nitrate test kit was faulty I can get that in check. My goal for nitrates are 5-10ppm and phosphates 0.03-0.10ppm. Would you recommend these levels? I mean I don't mind them being higher as long as I have no algae. 

 

Everything Ive read about nitrates and phosphates are corals especially LPS and Zoas like a little nitrate and to to have them at zero and high phosphates aren't good and to keep them at 0.03.

 

Yea coralline algae hasn't had a ton of growth lately I think mostly because when I dosed that vibrant it weekend it quite a bit. Also a lot of those disk haven't had much of a chance for growth are they are pretty new. I keep my Alk, Cal, mag stable with a doser so im hoping the coralline will return to good health. 

 

I had probably about 15 astrea snails in there but just recently added 5 more, I also have a lawnmower blenny. As of right now there really isn't any more algae so they don't have a whole lot to clean. I used to have some trochus snails but they just bull dozed all my frags around. I don't really have anything glued down as I like to have a big variety of corals and need to pull them out to frag often. 

 

I am defiantly part of the clean up crew lol. I always go in and have to clean off my frags and scrub the racks each time I see algae start growing. Now that I think I have things back on track I think the snails can keep things clean. I only use the peroxide sparingly when I have some nuisance hair algae or bryopsis on frags plugs that starts to grow and keeps growing after I remove it and it comes back. I never dose it straight to the tank, just pull the plugs and do a light dip. I rarely have hair algae or bryopsis growing on my rock, that I am very thankful for. It mainly just grows on my zoa frag plugs. I think one of the reasons may be because im always putting fresh white plugs in when I cut frags and I heard the new plugs are prone to these algae. I also read that the black frag plugs don't grow as much algae as the white so I got some in to see if it makes any difference.

 

I'll be sure to try that tip about placing the snails in the location with algae, thanks. I will just have to try to keep any algae that pops up short so they don't ignore it.

 

So what do you think for the higher end of the nutrients, 5-10ppm No3 and Po4 0.03-0.10ppm? I use lanthanum chloride because I hate changing out GFO and playing the guessing game. I would rather just dose the tank twice a week to manage it. The plan is right now is to dose it down to 0.03ppm twice a week. Do you think this is too low? I am guessing it would rise to about 0.08-0.10ppm so it would only be 0.03ppm temporary till it raises again. At least that was how the tank was trending before it started going higher for what reason I don't know. I did notice the brand of lanthanum chloride I was using stopped working as effective, not sure why but maybe that was the reason it started to get higher. I just got a new brand of it in and it seems to be working better. 

 

Im going to see how it goes with the new astrea snails and need be add a few more. I think I have the algae under control now. Well at least as far as the matted kind that was growing on the rocks and racks. Not sure what kind it was but I could easily blow it off. As far as the hair algae and bryopsis that grows on the zoa frags plugs(don't get any on on my LPS plugs/disks) I just went through and manually removed all of it and also dipped a few that I couldn't get to the algae in peroxide. Peroxide seemed to kill it so I am hoping now that my nitrates are in check it won't return. 

 

Yea I don't keep any crabs or shrimp because I like to feed my lps and am afraid they will tear them up going after food.

 

Thanks for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it!

 

 

 

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On 12/8/2019 at 6:50 PM, VaporCountry said:

My nitrates always stay stable at 2-3ppm but my phosphates kinds of goes up and down. They get to about 0.12-0.2 twice a week then I dose them down to 0.03 with phosphate E.

This was the variability that you mentioned that I was referring to.

 

9 hours ago, VaporCountry said:

It turned out I had a bad test kit and my nitrates were actually around 20-25

...about in line with the phosphate levels then

 

I would still consider replacing the fake media with live rock. You want the benefits that it brings which I mentioned earlier.

 

I would not do anything else to mess with nutrients in the tank if I were you. Not even the chaeto.

 

Instead consider the feeding rate in the tank. It doesn't seem like you really have that much to feed in terms of fish, and it's very hard to feed corals without wasting a lot.

 

Your ever increasing nutrient levels tell me that there's a lot of food going to waste.

 

so if you have fish, feed them well. But I would not do any other feeding on the tank. If you do not have fish I would still feed only very in frequently.

 

Another tangent on the feeding/ever increasing nutrients is that you may need to increase your flow to keep detritus suspended to give corals more than one opportunity to eat it.

 

Also, stay away from things like magic bullet cures, usage of peroxide, scrubbing of rocks, etc. All of those things may appear to give short term results. But all of those things also tend to set the maturity level of your rock back close to zero and make algae spread. Obviously that's not what you're trying to do.  

 

Having all those frags in the tank is going to present a continuous problem of having too much bare surface for algae to grow on.

 

If you can avoid all those bad things that you were trying against your algae and lock down your nutrient levels well above zero, your coralline algae should return sooner or later and hopefully cover up some of those frag mounts.

 

In terms of snails, perhaps try focusing on Ceriths since they are so small. I would hope they would leave your frags alone.  I would be prepared to have to bite the bullet and add bigger snails though because Ceriths are very very small and may not be able to consume all the kinds of algae that you need them to. Before you give up on them just remember that you will need a lot lot lot of them compared to how many turbo snails you would need to do the equivalent task – and that was up to two turbos per gallon if you recall.

 

If you have to go to bigger snails, consider super gluing down your frag's. As long as it is to the glass bottom it shouldn't be a problem to remove them as needed. Super glue has very little holding power against lateral forces so if you try to slide a frag sideways or maybe tap it sideways as if with a small hammer it will come loose very easily.  Obviously you would want to use as little superglue as possible in this role.

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