What type algae is this, and how to get rid

[Mbheat77]

Hey I am almost at the point to sale but I love the hobby. I have been dealing with this algae problem for a while. I used to have a real bad hair algae problem that I manually removed by acubbing the rocks each time I did a water change. Had tank looking pretty decent but it's coming back. I've shorten my light cycle rearranged my flow but still by the end of week its right back on sand like I never cleaned. I'll post my numbers but my livestock is a foxface and a fairy wrasse, fire shrimp, 3 turbo snails, 2 trochus & 3 snails that bury in the sand. I have a skimmer running carbon and phosphate sponge. Thanks for any help in advance. 

[Gatortailale]

8 snails is not a big enough cleanup crew for tank that size. You need to add a lot more mouths to control it better.  I was dealing with a hair algae issue in my 112 g system few months ago I added 150 astrea, couple tuxedo urchin, 300 small blue leg hermits, 5 chestnut, 10 Mexican, and 25 banded trochus snails. Also started running an AI prime 16 fuge light in fuge area of sump on reverse cycle. Also added a bristle tooth tang as I find them to be a workhorse at picking on algae.  If the snails eat up all the algae I put small sheet of nori on clip.

if you can’t find good selection at LFS, I’ve had great success with shipments from reeftopia.com and you can get some good mix of crews for $150ish. 

 

This video gives a good overview of different janitors and what they generally address 

 

[ranger]

You hit the nail on the head........lots of cleaners then add some nori or i like the algae tablits they sell for pleckos when needed,Reefcleaner in florida have money cowres in stock add a couple of them also .

[ReefdUp]

To me, it looks like you have a bacterial insufficiency or lack of balance. How old is this tank? Recommend dosing quality "bacteria-in-a-bottle."

 

Since you're registering ammonia with no registered nitrite (but still some nitrate), it appears that your tank may be struggling with the nitrate cycle. This is fairly common with new tanks (or ones that never properly cycled). Are you having any invert/vert die-off? 

 

Dosing bacteria may help kickstart the nitrate cycle. However, you're likely to get another surge of algae as the ammonia is converted. I'd only add the inverts once the ammonia and nitrite reach 0.

[Mbheat77]

36 minutes ago, ReefdUp said:

To me, it looks like you have a bacterial insufficiency or lack of balance. How old is this tank? Recommend dosing quality "bacteria-in-a-bottle."

 

Since you're registering ammonia with no registered nitrite (but still some nitrate), it appears that your tank may be struggling with the nitrate cycle. This is fairly common with new tanks (or ones that never properly cycled). Are you having any invert/vert die-off? 

 

Dosing bacteria may help kickstart the nitrate cycle. However, you're likely to get another surge of algae as the ammonia is converted. I'd only add the inverts once the ammonia and nitrite reach 0.

Thanks for info. I've had the tank about 4yrs now. I bout it from a guy while it was still up. I took probably 50% of his water and started with the rest new water. When I 1st got tank it a as doing well had livestock and coral growth. Maybe like a year in I was loosing fish at every water change. Lost coral, nems u name it. U can look at my past post to kind of get more of a story. I was making bad water at 1 time I fixed that. Now I can do water changes without any deaths but I had bought a scopas about 6monts ago and I think he gave my tank velvet. The only fish that live was my foxface and wrasse. I have 2 cardinal and a 1 spot blennie in qt now that I will use to make sure I can keep livestock in about 3 weeks. But that's pretty much it. I have a toadstool that was nice size and pretty now its laying down and hardly has any tentacles open. My leather mushrooms are doing amazing. But my gsp is not spreading like I think it should be. Hope this gives more of a picture. Thanks. 

[Mbheat77]

7 hours ago, Gatortailale said:

8 snails is not a big enough cleanup crew for tank that size. You need to add a lot more mouths to control it better.  I was dealing with a hair algae issue in my 112 g system few months ago I added 150 astrea, couple tuxedo urchin, 300 small blue leg hermits, 5 chestnut, 10 Mexican, and 25 banded trochus snails. Also started running an AI prime 16 fuge light in fuge area of sump on reverse cycle. Also added a bristle tooth tang as I find them to be a workhorse at picking on algae.  If the snails eat up all the algae I put small sheet of nori on clip.

if you can’t find good selection at LFS, I’ve had great success with shipments from reeftopia.com and you can get some good mix of crews for $150ish. 

 

This video gives a good overview of different janitors and what they generally address 

 

Thanks I will start adding more cuc. Just a FYI I've had 2 urchin, about 20 hermits, and like 6 trochus. The urchins died, hermits killed the snails I believe then hermits died. 🤦🏾‍♂️ so I don't know what happened. And I had like 10 turbos in beginning buy they would commit suicide. Kept falling and can't turn over. 

[Mbheat77]

7 hours ago, ranger said:

You hit the nail on the head........lots of cleaners then add some nori or i like the algae tablits they sell for pleckos when needed,Reefcleaner in florida have money cowres in stock add a couple of them also .

Thanks. What are cowres

[ranger]

You are suppose to have algea as long as it is green you are fine......think of it as food for your inverts.                                                                                                                          You dont need anything in a bottle its all a scam except for red slime remover...they are alot of sand inverts                                                                                                                   like conches,hermits etc                 

For rock and glass i like small tuxedo urchins,small turbos money cowries and red banded trochus snails.

 

 

If you have a fair numbers of these cleaners your green algea no matter your nutrient levels will be fine.   

When you drive down n or p you risk dinos or slime then you have a real issue.                                                              

[ReefdUp]

2 hours ago, ranger said:

You dont need anything in a bottle its all a scam...                                                         

 

While there are certainly other acceptable methods to reduce ammonia, adding beneficial bacteria to rapidly process it is nothing resembling a scam. Ammonia at detectable levels needs to be reduced ASAP (assuming the test kit is accurate), and given the lack of nitrite, it is possible the nitrate cycle is bacteria-limited. Inverts added may die (increasing ammonia further), so I do not recommend adding inverts until ammonia and nitrite reach zero.

[ranger]

Put a ammonia alert if you think there is problem it is just about impossible to get a spike in ammionia in a non new reef tank unless you are messing with it.....

These bacteria in a bottle are a cure looking for a problem that isnt real.....prime is what may be needed i add this a couple times a year just incase.

Prime works on a real problem which is chloramine.......ammonia plus chlorine is nasty so you should always in my thinking proactivly address this with a little prime.

 I have never seen any corals or reef inverts or fish respond in any way to it.

[ReefdUp]

Recommend taking your water to a LFS to see how your parameters check out against a different set of kits.

 

Bacteria added against ammonia:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bacteria-in-a-bottle-myth-or-fact.403226/

 

There are other ways to address ammonia, but dosing bacteria is my preference, as it naturally addresses the problem. The research linked above is more focused on initial cycling of a tank's ammonia, but it is still relevant. 

[ranger]

Check out richard ross on reef beef has in my view the only normal view on nutrients and algea and reef cleaners.

Been in the hobby since late 80s all this junk out from these companys are a scam or newbies looking for a quicker way

falling prey when all you need is light /flow/rocks and inverts ........nothing else but some time.

You look at things a little different with time and experience.

You have to be messing with all these quick fixes to some how get a tank to produce ammonia after the cycle is done....

I always feel for people getting in recently because of all the crap they think they need.....the reefcentral days were great as we

all tried to understand phos and nitrates....carbon dosing...etc.

But really the forums are a nightmare of coral sellers and media reefers pushing junk.

I love following ross because he is the 1 outlier.

 

[ReefdUp]

@ranger, if you would like to continue this discussion, please start a new thread. Let's keep this thread relevant to the OP's specific question.