hey guys my tank has been up for right at 2 months and ive been battaling a green algee problem for about a week now. All my paramiters are perfect besides my nitrates which are at 10ppm. I do a 10% water change every week. what should i do? Ive included some pic's and u can see the green algee on the rocks
algee problem
- Thread starter chemjoey
- Start date
Marke86
Coral Junkie
Ive seen worse buddy keep up with your water changes but also cut down on your lighting take it down to like 6 hours a day or maybe even lower there are clowdy days in the ocean so im sure you can turn the light off for a whole day if you wanted to.
RyanG
Reef enthusiast
For the short term you could get a few turbo snails. In the long term you will need to keep nitrates and phosphates down. Its really just a part of having a new tank though.
Oscarsdad608
Reef enthusiast
Like ryang sad new tanks come with green algae. Do water changes with the best water you can get your hands on. I think your tank looks good for 2 months.
McCrary
Always Learning
A phosphate reactor will work wonders to help with algae problems. If you take away the phosphates then you should see a reduction in the amount of algae that grows. As the tank gets a little older and becomes more stable you will see the algae being reduced even further. RO/DI water will also go a long way to help you reduce algae and be careful of water that comes from machines or from some place other than a good LFS as machines can have a TDS of 50 or more while good RO/DI is generally 0.
Bifferwine
I am a girl
I agree with all of this so far, get a few cleaners to help out, run phosphate removal media, don't feed flakes or pellets, only feed frozen foods.
RyanG
Reef enthusiast
Phosphate will test at zero. It is being used as fast as its produced hence the zero reading. Its there though. RODI will definately help too. You could look into a sea hare. Just be prepared to unload it as soon as the hair algae is gone or it will starve to death quickly.
simpleman
Reefing newb
your params. are pretty good if you're not using Ro water. Make the switch to Ro and your water quality will be great.
McCrary
Always Learning
Almost all tanks will test at 0 for phosphates when using a drop style test. Photometers are generally required for accurate phosphate measurement, thats why people tend to get into a routine when it comes to replacing phosphate media, so they don't have to buy an expensive phosphate tester.
NewbReefer
Reefing newb
everyone pretty much got ya covered, use RO water (RO/DI if possible) add a few more snails, clean your skimmer cup daily to make sure your not getting skimmate build up so your skimmer will pull out the maximum amount of nitrates it can. run some sort of phosphate remover media, either in a media sock or a phosphate reactor. for a reactor you need the reactor ($30-$40) the filter media you put in the reactor ($40) some tubing, and a 100-200 gph powerhead to pump the water through the reactor. it seems like alot of $ but everything i've heard they are so worth it. I just got finished hooking mine up pics coming soon.
I would not bother with using phosphate remover as phosphate is usually not the major culprit in algae problems, and you do not really have enough algae to be considered as having an algae problem. The small amount of algae your having is pretty normal this early in a tanks development. A good water source will likely do more good than anything else. A skimmer, if you do not have one, would be the next step in tank maintenance development as it will actually remove nutrients rather than just change their forms as does biological filtration. Biological filtration is usually a poor choice of words because without denitrification there really is no filtration taking place, just changes of form of the nutrients that make the organic compounds less harmful to fish and invertebrates. Every thing is still available for algae growth though even after biological "processing." Snails, snails and more snails are good with new tanks, and usually most tanks occupants get fed something like four to six times the food they need. That is a lot of algae food.
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McCrary
Always Learning
Using RO/DI water is going to make a dramatic improvement in the algae department.
It is best when feeding frozen food to let it thaw and feed only the particles and not the liquid. The fines and liquid will not be eatten by the present inhabitants and will therefore just become nutrients for algae or be converted to nitrates. It requires filter feeders such as some clams, sponges and tube worms to eat the small of food. Once your biosystem develops longer the frozen food fluids will not have much of an impact.
cgoodman381
can i put whtever i want?
Best way to do this is poke holes in the top of a water bottle and filter it that way. Easy to do a garlic soak this way to.
Bifferwine
I am a girl
Or buy a little plastic strainer. They sell them at the grocery store.
Reefrookie
Not so new anymore!
I let the frozen food thaw out in the fridge in a plastic container, rinse it off in a brine shrimp net, then return it to the plastic container and soak w/ GarlicGuard
Reefrookie
Not so new anymore!
I will try that next, after my GarlicGuard is gone......thanks
