Algae Plague. Please help!

[realhiphop]

and the fact that I have no skimmer? what other ways can I succesfully deal with this problem?

[ross76053]

Step 1) Have a beer & relax *or soda if you're under 21*

Step 2) Realize algae blooms are normal in a relatively new tank

Step 3) Get more crabs & snails depending on the type of algae

Step 4) Have another beer

 

I went through the same think with my 10-gallon. Bought some more crabs (for hair algae) & Astreas. The snails continually mow the algae back. I do have to scrape the inside of the tank walls every four days or so to remove the yellow/brown algae (I don't scrape the back or left side - don't want the snails to starve).

 

This has worked well for me, so hang in there!

 

Ross

[HuBu]

i would have to recommend getting mexican snails if they are available. i currently have 2 in my tank and everything is clearing up. they are big enough to take down most hair algae that my hermits wont even take.

[Mnesarchus]

I went through the same thing (actually it just finished). I thought my algae was bad, I had hair algae that was 2" long! It'll go away just get some good snails and hermits.

[rlinusc]

How long does this period last? I have been dealing with this for a c ouple of months now and it is driving me crazy!!

 

Linus

[flaunt]

i'm not sure how long you've had yours up, but if it's been more than just a few months then maybe this will help...

 

my tank has been set up for about a year now, having undergone much turmoil and changes (including a completely new sandbed about 8 months ago)... i've had battles with nuisance micro algae of almost every variety (a minor battle is going on right now, in fact), but i'm just now starting to learn how important water chemistry is in the battle. i don't use a skimmer either, but it seems to me that making conditions favorable for coralline makes somewhat unfavorable conditions for the nuisance algae. for example i've recently been messing with my carbonate hardness, calcium, and phosphate levels. from observation it would appear that two things i recently did noticably stunted the growth of the bad algae (cyano, green hair, diatoms, i have a little of everything):

1) jacking up my carbonate hardness (it's currently resting at 13dkH which is on the high end)

2) introducing Phosguard (seachem product) into my power filter which is now making my phosphates undetectable

 

you might consider getting some test kits (CA, kH, PO4) and adjusting your water quality (via supplements or water changes as necessary) to heavily favor coralline algae over nuisance algae.

[JPF]

My algae explosion was caused by too much food. I cut back on the food, doubled my water changes for about 6 weeks, and increased the number and type of hermits and snails. It took a while but the problem has not reappeared since making these changes. That was 6 months ago. I only have to swipe the glass once a week vs every day.

[Mnesarchus]

Originally posted by rlinusc

How long does this period last? I have been dealing with this for a c ouple of months now and it is driving me crazy!!

 

Linus

 

There was nothing on my rock (algae-wise) when I bought it. IN about 10 days it was covered, and I mean COVERED in algae. About 10 days after that, I added 6 astrea snails to my cleanup crew (which allready had 3 bumblebees and 3 hermits) and within 7 days, it was clean as a whistle. All I have now is a little algae on my substrate and nice purple and pink coralline.

[rlinusc]

Hmmm.. i have ran my tank since about february, however, i had a massive die off due to an unknown toxin introduced when i put a bunch of new plants in the tank around june. Since then the tank has been making a recovery (my anthias and sarcophyton made full recoveries after they appeared to be completely dead.) I expected a massive algae bloom and received one, but noticed that my astreas were not surviving. My other snails seem to be okay, but the astreas just weren't lasting, perhaps from predation from the hermits. I still have strombus (and they seem to be multiplying) as well as a couple of nerites. i have a combination of scarlet and micro reef crabs that also seem to be doing fine. Since the die off i now only keep 2 peppermints in the main tank, 1 in the refuguim along with my sarcophton and my anthias. I feed VERY sproadically, probably less than once every other day, in order to cut down on the nitrates.

 

Well here are my other stats....

I have a 15 gallon attached to a 15 gallon refuguim using a passive flow system. The total system has about 35 pounds of Live Rock and about 10 pounds of live sand with about 1 1/2' aragonite substrate. I have both long and short feather caulerpa as well as sargussum algae. I run the lights in the main tank (PC SmartLamp 64 Watts) in the main tank and 26 watts of PC lighting in the Refuguim. The Main tank has a photo period of about 10 hours and the refugium a photoperiod of about 14hours.

 

The hair algae is EVERYWHERE and has gotten to the point that it literally is choking the anthias and the sarcphyton. The hair has caused the anthias to lose its anchor on the rock (the coral now anchors itself on the algae matt itself) and seems to be irritating the leather quite a bit.

 

I don't have the water parameters except i have no nitrates but that is likely due to an over abundance of the hair algae, and I have a 1.026 specific gravity. I need to do a phosphate and a calcium test. I skim wiht a prizm the same time that the main tank lights are on, and i use RO/DI water making changes about 1 every 2 weeks. (Adding evap water every 2 or so days) I have even started using a phosphate filter (from red sea) though i haven't seen any improvements.

 

Whenver i do a manual algae pull the stuff gets ferocious in its return and i feel like i am just spreading the stuff around, especially since i can't get all of it out.

 

Are there any other clean up crew members that are especially good with hair algae? I just haven't seen much from either the astreas (i had one astrea that got pretty big and was carrying a lump of hair algae all over its shell) or the hermits. I was even considering getting an lawnmower blenny on a temp basis. Should i just tough it out and make more water changes (I always favored stability especially as I skim on a daily basis)?

 

Linus

[Pikelet]

I'm with the guy who recommended sitting back and letting it run its course. Water changes, good source water and snails work for small systems. Add a lit refugium with macros for larger systems. When your algae starts to run out of steam, make sure you export it out of the system before it gets in your sandbed. That's where a skimmer can come in handy for a short time to take care of some of the organics. Of course it sits around doing very little the rest of the time

 

Bringing up the Ca to 450 ppm will merely favour some types of algae over others but you'll still have some green, brown or cyanobacteria outbreaks from time to time during the first few years as your tank reaches different equilibrium points and you learn more about your particular system.

 

So ..... in short ..... don't sweat it too much and don't get into the popular belief that algae is the enemy because its actually your friend.

[MrConclusion]

Start doing water changes with distilled water, so you aren't importing silicates or phosphates.

 

Also, use Seachem Phosguard to clear out the phosphates that come in with your fish/invert food.

[flaunt]

also if you run carbon, it adds trace amounts of phosphate (supposedly they ALL do this in varying amounts, regardless of what the packaging might claim)... running carbon and phosguard simultaneously is a great way to exhaust the phosguard quickly! in other words, i quit using carbon regularly after adding phosguard. i figure phosphate removal is much more important than removing small amounts of waste that the bacteria should be able to handle themselves.

[realhiphop]

I have no HOB filter in my tank. Is there anyway I can still use some type of phosphate remover in my tank? The slime algae is growing on top of the hair algae.

[Metznreef]

same here. i'm thinking about adding another power head and making it flow accross the bottem of the tank because the slime is mostly growing on the bottem of the tank.

[BustytheSnowMaam]

I have never had an algae problem in my tank, just a little green stuff on the back wall and a light dusting of transluscent brownish stuff on the rest of the walls, which is readily removed with the algae magnet.

 

Some ideas (keep in mind that your mileage may vary here, and what I'm saying may not be what more experienced people recommend); these are only brain farts:

 

1) I lengthened my photoperiod by an hour (from 12 to 13 hours). This has significantly reduced the green stuff on the back walls, and increased my coralline growth. Coralline produces chemicals which reduce the growth of nuisance algae (as someone here already said).

 

2) I've read on Reef Central that people who used Formula One had big hair algae problems. When they stopped using it, the hair algae disappeared. F1 apparently has a lot of phosphates.

 

3) You can use antibiotics to deal with red slime algae (cyanobacteria), however, antibiotics kills the good bacteria with the bad. Use caution.

[chufa]

I didn't realize that I had an algae problem until I came back from a one week trip, and I could not see inside my tank! The glass was completely green.

 

I was doing a glass scrape every other day. My rocks were fine. Apparently, my cleanup crew focuses on the rocks and not on the glass.

 

Anyway, my tank is just 2 months old, I'll give it some time before I worry too much.