Too much coraline algae

When I first saw bits and pieces of the coraline algae I was pleased. Now, its growing on the walls, on the sand, its everywhere. I do water changes weekly, and am just scraping up this purple stuff a little each day. I don't mind a little but its getting out of control. It is also growing around my toadstool corals on the rock. I think it looks kind of pretty but it will take over right? I'll send a couple of pics. Should I be doing something else to stop this?

 

I don't believe it will harm anything. It's a good type of algae. It won't grow over your corals I don't think.

 

Sorry for this pic being so big but is this going to spread all over my rock?

 

That doesn't look like coraline to me. It looks more like red slime algae. If you take your hand and touch it, does it feel soft or hard? Coraline is hard and tends to have a textured look.

 

Yep, not coralline (which is good). It's slime algae (which is bad).

 

So what are your parameters?
Ammonia
Nitrites
Nitrates
Phosphates
Etc.

What kind of flow do you have in your tank?

The two main causes for this are high nutrients in the water and lack of adequate flow.

I would increase the flow by adding or redirecting the power heads and remove as much by hand.

What are you using for your water changes? Tap water or RO/DI water? Tap water contains alot of nasties and it is very difficult to control pest algae while using it.

 

Also, how many fish do you have, how much do you feed, how often do you feed and what do you feed?

 

I do water changes each week. Its a 60 g tank I do 5 gallon changes. I always use RO water. I have 2 clowns, 1damsel, 1 chromis and 1 6 line wrasse, 2 feeder shirimps. My wathman gobby died just a couple of weeks ago. He was doing fine for a long time, then started getting thin, I haven't been able to find hiim since. Oh and i have 1 sandshifter star fish.

I feed Myesis shrimp and occasionly pellets. Although, the temp is at 80 during the day and drops maybe 1 to 2 degress at night. I shut off my heater because my lighting seems to be providing enough heat.

When I did my water change last Saturday the ph was at 8.0 instead of the usualy 8.2 though.. Ph is now 8.2 all other peram are 0

I have 2 porwerheads l on each side of tank in the same level pointing opposite directions. 1 is 600 the other is 550.

Im wondering how this bacteria got in there? My soft corals look good. All fish are active and happy.

 

Oh, I feed 2x daily. Anything the fish don;t eat doesn't the sandshifter starfish eat? Do you think Im taking out too much water too often? I think I need to get another gobby though.

 

Cyanobacteria gets in your tank the same way any other algae does -- on anything and everything you put in it. It's a very common algae and everyone has to deal with it from time to time.

It sounds like you've got everything in check, but I would cut back on feeding. Two times a day is too often for the fish you have, and uneaten food is contributing to the algae. I would also use only frozen food and not the pellets. Maybe cut back to once a day or once every other day for feeding and see if that helps a bit.

Your sandsifter star will probably starve to death in your tank. They need huge tanks to survive, and the eat the fauna that lives in the sand. So they run out of food fast. I doubt the sandsifter is eating leftover fish food, that's not really what they eat. If you want a better type of star to clean up after leftover fish food, trade the sandsifter in at your LFS for a brittle or serpent star. Those guys will do a good job cleaning up leftover fish food.

I do not think you are doing water changes too often. What you are doing sounds about right.

 

Thanks Bifferwine ! I just called my LFS & agreed to make the swap in a little while. So, a 5 gal is not too much weekly ?

Do I need more water movement? What is too much?

 

Most people do 10% to 20% weekly. You are right under that at 5 gallons, so it's definitely not too much.

Two powerheads is fine in a 60 gallon tank. You can always add more flow if you want to. It's nearly impossible to have too much flow. If your sand is sitting on the bottom, you don't have too much.