Frustrated and need help!

dankolle

dankolle

Reefing newb
I have been using nothing but ro di water for some months now and I have not seen any improvement in my algae problems. Every week I have to scrape brown and green algae from the glass and see it growing on my rocks. I also have green hair issues. I remove it with water changes and it comes right back.

I am grasping at straws to figure out the issue. I only have four small fish and very little corals to speak of. I run a skimmer and it hardly gets dirty. I have some debris building up in the bottom of my sump and I can't seem to stay ahead of it. Is that causing my issue?

Do I even need a sump? Would I be better off increasing my flow and using a hob carbon filter? I only have a fifty five gallon tank andi have no intensiins to fill it anytime soon...I just want a c,ean simple reef environment for me to relax during the work day and it's causing more stree than enjoyment right now,

I have been thinking about a phasban reactor but am not sure what I would be doing to cau a phosphate issue all of my test come back clear so I am really stumped about this....can anyone help me out?

I have coraline growing everywhere as well so I know that is a good sign but I caant get the ore stuff under control.

Thanks for listening to my frustration rant...I really need some guidance!
 
How many hours [per day] do u run ur lighting,wats ur last nitrate reading,are u using powerheads,wat all members [if any] belong to ur cleaning crew & have u ever tried chemi-pure?
 
How much and how often are you feeding your fish? Also, what are your nitrates and phosphates testing at?

Something to be aware of, if your phosphates are bad for a while, then they can leach into the rocks themselves. Now, when you start fighting the algae problem, the algae will start pulling the phosphates out of the rock to feed on. It will seem like your Fighting the same algae problems but once it uses up all those phosphates it will start to go away.
 
It's best to find the cause of the algae and eliminate it but in the short term, you can get some turbo snails. They will make quick work of your algae on the rocks and the glass.
 
Photoperiod: 7am - 7pm MH (6am - 6pm actinic)
I just reduced this to: 9am - 5pm MH (8am - 6pm actinic)

Feeding Schedule: I feed them twice a week about 5 - 10 pellets of nano pellet food. I also feed my fire shrimp a silver side about every other week. I attach some forcepts to the body of the fish and let him pick at it for about 15 minutes then I remove the body so it doesn't rot in the aquarium.

Nitrate: 0ppm
Phosphates: I don't have a test kit for this

Power Heads: 3x Hydor Koralias + return pump = 2100GPH

Cleaning Crew: Assorted snails (margarita turbo, conch, and astrea ) A lot of them died because the algae went away for a few months and now it is back. But I probably still have 10-15. 5 - 8 hermit crabs and a fanning crab (forgot the name). I also have a fire shrimp, but I don't think that really counts as "cleaning".

Other live stock: Pink antheis, 2x clown fish, mandarin, fire coral, xenia, kenyan tree, and a single mushroom.

I used to have a lot more stuff in there, but it seems like something happened and it all started to die off. I had a thriving star polyp colony and that started to die (completedly dead now), my anemone shriveled up and died, the mushroom was multiplying and the babys died and the kenyan tree was about 8" long and it is about 3" long now. The tank started to die off when I got the sun coral that was eating pounds (not literally) of meat every week. That has long since died and been removed from the tank.

I have never tried any chemical removal tools for phosphates or any other chemical treatments in the tank.

I did use city water for 2 years in the tank actually without much issue. It seems I am worse off with the RO/DI water now than I was with city water. I know that is probably not the case and it's something else I am doing wrong.

I am very open to critcism at this point. I want to save my system from the algae junk and give my creatres a better home!!
 
u dont have to use a RO unit you can goto walamrt or a grocery store and get the water that are in 1g jugs for real cheap forget what its called but its clean filtered water and doesnt have all the additives that tap or city water has
 
I got a really good deal on a 6 stage RO/DI unit so I have been using that for the past 3 months and it doesn't seem to be helping...not to say that it isn't I just think I have bigger problems.
 
Lowering your MH time like you did should help, I used to run mine 8 hours and lowered it to something closer to 7 hours.

Whatever changes you make, make them slowly. Make sure you are doing water changes once a week. Maybe add a couple more snails. I had similar problems and lowered my MH time and added 2 or 3 snails at a time until I got it under control. It's a balancing act.

If your skimmer isn't doing much, you might try adjusting that. I have a 39g and i only get about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of liquid in it each week, but lots a gunk on the inside of the collection cup that i clean every week. You can adjust the skimmer itself, or change the water level. I did both to get mine working better. Also, you might consider adding an Automatic Top Off if you don't already have one. The more consistent the water level the better the skimmer will work.

Perhaps take a water sample to your LFS and have them test for phosphates, or get a testing kit so you know for sure if your phosphates are too high.

EDIT: A couple more thoughts. Yes, keep the sump. You don't NEED one, but it is very helpful. The greater the total water volume the easier it is to keep things stable. What all do you have in the sump? Do you have macroalgae?
 
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Try switching to frozen food instead of pellets, also. Have you also changed out your bulbs in a while? A sump really isn't necessary, as long as you have enough flow. Maybe try adding a lawnmower blenny. Mine decimated whatever little algae was in my tank, and attacks my glass now when I don't clean it often enough. I have zero algae. i have to actually supplement with algae sheets now.

Part of what helped with my algae problems is having chaeto in my sump (even before I got a lawnmower blenny). You could find a hob refugium. I leave my lights on in my sump 24/7, and any algae that grows stays in my sump, and it's minimal since the chaeto uses up all the nutrients.
 
Thanks everyone for the advice it's giving me great moral support and hope for the future!

My sump consists of:
15 gallon capacity w/ 500 gph flow
cheato algae ball about 3"
45 watt PC grow light is on 24/7 right next to the cheato
5-6 pounds live rock rubble
100 gph power head that blows across the live rock
AquaC urchin skimmer - it produces junk about every day, but it isn't as nasty as some skimmate I have seen...maybe I am just too critical and am comapring to setups 10x the size of mine.
Water heater
Ocean runner return pump

My bulbs are approaching a year old - I am wondering if I should replace them. I am frustrated because everything I had in the tank was doing great and then it just died. So I don't want to get new livestock until I figure out the problem and I don't have anything that needs light in the tank right now so I don't want to spend the $$$ on lighting! :/

I had a goby that kept the sand crystal clear, but it disappeared. I think it got squished under a rock...it loved to clear out all around under my LR.

The cheato in my sump doesn't appear to grow at all...its about the same size it was when I purchased it almost 2 years ago. I got it to eat up some nutrients and then I seeded it with pods for my manderin. Not sure if that worked or not.
 
From my experience, lighting is important to get a chaeto to grow, as well as nutrients, like nitrates....if you say your nitrates are at 0, and you only have 4 fish that are fed just the right amount, your chaeto just might not be getting enough nutrients.

Case in point, when I had my 45g, I set up my sump w/ fuge and chaeto (I had the plumbing set up so that 25% of dirty tank water went directly into the fuge chamber, and the other 75% went directly into the skimmer chamber). Once I got the right lighting, my chaeto tripled in size in no time at all, and my nitrates sank to 0. At the time, I only had maybe 4 small fish, and I fed sparingly. Eventually, no matter how many times I changed my fuge bulb, my chaeto stopped growing...eventually, it died back to a small ball. My nitrates were always 0ppm. Double edged sword -- you want your nitrates at 0, but you want nitrates present for your chaeto.

I since upgraded to a 125g, my nitrates were sky high, changed my lighting to a 100w 6500K CFL, and my chaeto exploded. My nitrates are slowly going down.

And from what I've read from others, they usually change out their mh bulbs every 6 months, but I'm not sure.
 
I would suggest a few things

1. Get the reef master test kit to test for phosphates that is food for algae if you have phosphates you will have algae. I use phosguard pellets in a filter bag and just add it to my hanging filter for a few days a month as needed.

2. Get your RODI water tested by your LFS or buying a meter to test it just to be sure its really coming out clean. I know its a new system but who knows right? Worth a shot to test it.

3. VERY IMPORTANT Suggest changing the bulbs, the lower wattage of old bulbs is rumored to cause algae. I dont know how long you have had the algae problem but they recommend changing them out around 6 months, so if you have had the problem for months that might be the timeframe you need to make sure you change in the future.

I ran the same old actinic bulbs on my freshwater tank for a long time before realizing it was the culprit to many issues I had.

I dont use a sump so I cant give any advice on that but I would say your skimmer should be pulling out something based on the tank issues you are describing if it is not something is wrong.

Dont give up just yet! Best of luck and keep us updated.
 
I would think those old flourescents could cause the algae blooms. Since you haven't tried this, I think you should go ahead and change out all the bulbs.
 
Should I just dump the actinics and get 20k MH bulbs? Or should I keep them? I have 2x 175 watts so I'm like 6 watts per gallon without them and about 7.5 with them.

AmberSunrise: I think I could say the problem started around the 8 - 12 month mark...I'm not for sure tho. Next time I will mark my calendar exactly when I got the new bulbs.
 
Then I am going to agree with wonton that its the actinics that are 3 years old. I ran mine for almost 2 years and had horrible issues until I switched them. It still took a couple of months of scrubbing and regular water changes to completely get rid of it.
 
MH and T5 bulbs only need to be changed out about every 12 months. After a certain amount of time they will "shift" spectrums. When they shift the light becomes less beneficial to corals and more so for nuisance algae.

Your bulbs being 3 years old could be a major contributing factor. As for your old MH bulb, the eBay bulbs don't last as long as the good aquarium MH bulbs. So, what you saw before when you were using them is that the corals did great with them and when they started losing their intensity, it started affecting your corals.
 
1.Definitely replace ur MH bulbs. After 8 months they begin to emit light that is closer to red in the color spectrum. Red/Yellow lighting encourages the growth of green & cyano algae. I had this same problem 1 month ago...$80 a bulb. It hurt but its worth it.
2.Buy a phospate test for about $15...nitrate can be @ 0 while phosphate is of the chart. Most algaes need phosphate to survive so deny them their food source by using Phos-ban or Chemi-pure
3.Learn ur enemy so u can DESTROY them. Happy hunting :)
 
Whoa! I have been getting cyano and other algae in my 20G for no reaosn I can imagine. The 2 35 watt CPL are very old. I never heard this before. Anymore info on olf bulbs causing algae?
 
sen5241b said:
Whoa! I have been getting cyano and other algae in my 20G for no reaosn I can imagine. The 2 35 watt CPL are very old. I never heard this before. Anymore info on olf bulbs causing algae?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I've got 2 or 3 articles bookmarked on my computer at home. When I get done with work tonight I'll post them.
 

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