Brown type of algae in my aquarium

[seabass]

30 minutes ago, F3NIX said:

Should I run lights for 5 hours Instead of 10 ?

Ten hours might be a little long.  I might drop it to eight, but don't expect miracles.

[Tired]

I'd agree, eight is pretty standard. You particularly don't want to be messing with the light if you have any photosynthetic organisms doing poorly.

 

You have a very new tank, that by the look of this algae growth is unstable. Anemones don't do well in new, unstable tanks. They can skate along for awhile if their previous tank was a good environment, as it takes them awhile to react to changes. I would guess that the tank has never been good for the anemone, and it's now hit the limits of its tolerance. I would try to rehome it, if it doesn't improve quickly. It'll take awhile to recover, so you need to get it started on recovering fast, and I'm not sure there's any realistic way you can put it in good conditions in this tank. 

 

Do you feed the anemone, and if so, how much and how often? You could try feeding it once a week or so. 

[F3NIX]

No I don’t feed it. My rock flower anemone is fine. I feed my rock flower anemone 3 times a week but not my bubble tip. The tank I had before this was great and it opened up always. It’s just this tank. It’s imbalanced.

[seabass]

2 hours ago, F3NIX said:

I feed my rock flower anemone 3 times a week but not my bubble tip.

Wow, I would think that you'd feed the BTA but not the RFAs.  Plus, I'd probably only feed the anemones once a week (or maybe a little twice a week at most).

[F3NIX]

I know I should be doing both. I just ordered nitrate and phosphate supplements to get both them up. Fish of hex had the same problem and he fixed it by that. 

[Kindanewtothis]

Noob question here.

 

Would a lawnmower blenny eat some?

[seabass]

I believe they primarily graze on microalgae versus macroalgae.  I feel that snails are probably going to be more effective on green hair algae.

[Tired]

Lawnmower blennies are best kept in established tanks with a lot of algae. 

 

You should feed both anemones. Unless they're catching a lot of food of their own accord, they do best if fed, and in some tanks will need it to stay healthy. 

[F3NIX]

So it’s cyano and green Hair algae. what do I do then ? Just let it balance itself out and dose phosphate/Nitrate ? Lots of brown algae on the glass. Is that diatoms or cyano ?

[Tired]

Cyano, green hair algae, and diatoms are all "ugly stage" algaes. You deal with them by keeping nutrients reasonable, having an appropriate cleanup crew, maybe doing some manual removal during water changes, and waiting. They'll flare, run amok for awhile, and then slowly decline in favor of beneficial algaes. Just keep them off corals in the meantime, and pull long hair algae tufts out by hand, snails can't eat that. Diatoms tend to go away once they use up all the available silicates, and the other two will sort themselves out as the tank matures.

 

Conveniently enough, this strategy can also work for dinos. Keeping nutrients up and encouraging biodiversity will get rid of many cases of dinos. So even if you do have some in there, they'll likely get handled. 

 

For your cleanup crew, what types of snails do you have? Keep in mind that they do and eat different things, and that some species won't touch algae at all. Nassarius, for example, are entirely for eating leftover food and a tiny bit of sandbed shifting. IMO, just get ceriths. Ceriths will move about the same amount of sand as nassarius (which is to say, not much), and may even be better at it. They'll eat algae and detritus, so are multipurpose. To avoid having leftover food rotting somewhere, don't have leftover food. Feed as much as the fish and other things eat, and if they miss a lot of the food, feed with the pumps off. 

[F3NIX]

I have a couple cerith, 2 nassarius, 2 turbo, 4 nerite, 4 bumble bee snails, and like 20 other snails but Idk if their Nerite or another species. Their small and big.

[seabass]

Did you ever mention what type of water you are using (conditioned tap, RO, RO/DI, or distilled)?  Have you ever tested it with a TDS meter?

[F3NIX]

I have a rodi system, and actually now I think about it, I haven’t tested it. It’s sorta new so I’m pretty sure it’s not bad but I’m going to order a tds meter. It’s the aquatic life 100gph one.

 

[Tired]

You may want to remove the bumblebee snails. They eat worms, which means they'll eat some of your detritivores. 

[F3NIX]

Ok I’ll try to remove them. My Duncan is losing a head and some of my other corals Are not looking good Idk what I’m going to do. Might just break it down. 

[F3NIX]

My phosphate and nitrate supplement comes Wednesday. And I just ordered a Hanna low phosphate checker, and a tds meter. All coming Tuesday. This will help get to the bottom of things.

[Tired]

I think you mentioned you have another tank? If so, I would transfer any struggling corals to that. These algaes are in pretty much every aquarium, no need to worry about transferring spores over. 

 

This is the ugly stage, it pretty much happens in every tank. You're just in a bad situation because of the low nutrients. This tank is absolutely not beyond fixing, it just needs some time. Which a newly set up tank would also need.

[F3NIX]

I shut that tank down when I moved everything over. I’m starting it again in 2 weeks or whenever this algae problem goes away. The phosphate and nitrate stuff I ordered will most likely fix it. Is 6dkh low ? My calcium is 460 and my magnesium is 1450. I might now why this happened. It was still new and I was running chaeto for 16 hours and it was growing. I’m guessing it used up nutrients.

[seabass]

6 dKH is extremely low.  What salt mix do you use?

[F3NIX]

Instant ocean reef salt. I only used it in the beginning. To get the water mixed. Haven’t changed water yet. It was at 8 now it’s 6. I’m dosing alkalinity. If I dose 

alkalinity does calcium go lower ?

[seabass]

Alkalinity for Instant Ocean Reef Crystals should mix to somewhere between 8 and 12 dKH.  According to the BRS calculator, you shouldn't increase alkalinity more than 1.4 dKH each day.  I'd probably limit that to 1 dKH per day.

 

Raising alkalinity should not lower calcium unless your magnesium level is low too.  Then dosing one will push the other out of suspension.

[F3NIX]

Yeah I’m bringing it up by 1 each day. In 5ml increments throughout the day. Total dose is 25ml. It was at 9 probably. You think that can cause my green star polyp and anemone to close ?

[seabass]

What's the current pH levels (let's say towards the end of the light cycle, and a little before the lights come on)?

 

Low alkalinity might be affecting pH.  But I wouldn't necessarily try to buffer pH.  Just bring alkalinity back up to 9 dKH.  Check your calcium and magnesium levels, and keep everything stable.

[F3NIX]

I’m gonna check that tomorrow and let you know. It’s funny cuz my mushrooms, hammers, frogspawn and neon green bubble corals and a bunch of other corals are doing fine. It’s just my Xenia, gsp, and bubble tip anemone and 1 head of my Duncan. 

[seabass]

The Duncan is likely due to alkalinity.  It'll probably take awhile to recover.  I suspect pH might be involved in the others, but it could be due to instability, encroaching cyano, or even something else.