WTF is going on??

B

bojangles93

Reefing newb
Ok, here is the rundown on my current system. I have had the tank running since September 2010 and all seemed well and good. My equipment is listed below.

55 Gallon with custom built 22 gallon acrylic sump/ overflow (with cheato and a couple red mangroves)
4 bulb 48 inch T5/HO
2 - 700 gph powerheads and 1 MJ 1200 to keep overflow primed
CPR backpack skimmer (Now I know might be small for my system)
Mag 5 return pump from sump

I have not posted any pictures to the forum since my camera seriously sucks and cannot seem to get any good pictures so I kind of gave up with that aspect.

My tank cycled with what I thought was little problems (I let it cycle with live rock and a shrimp for approx. 6 weeks before adding my first fish) and all seemed well and good. I used 50 pounds Marco and 50 pounds Live from LFS. In retrospect I should have used more Marco and less live to seed.

In November I started to notice that there was hair algae beginning to grow. I would clean as much by hand as I could and it seemed to always come back.

I have used RO/DI since I set the tank was set up (recently tested TDS ~300 going in and 1 coming out after DI) and try to keep my salt level at 1.025-1.026 at 78 – 79 degrees.

Recently the hair algae have become almost unmanageable and just about taken over everything. I have continued to pull out by hand and recently installed an algae scrubber that is approx. 100 sq inches, but due to space constraints that is all I can use it is also one sided. Two 23 watt cfl with dark brown growth so far (running almost a month)

I also installed a GFO / Carbon dual reactor last week and have been doing 10 gallon changes every week for the past month. I have yet to see major improvements (although there has been some) in the algae even after a 7 day blackout. My most recent tests (this past weekend) are below.

Sg – 1.026
Cal- 480
Ammonia – 0
Nitrite – 0
Nitrate – 0
dKh – 9
Phosphate – Do not test
MG – Do not test

I feed a frozen Mysis/brine/oyster eggs/blood worms mixture that has been rinsed in clean r/o water.

My wife is getting impatient, regarding controlling the algae? The only thing I can think of is the bulbs which run for 10 hours actnic 7 hours daylight 10000k, but they are brand new purchased when I set the tank up in September.


Any advice would be appreciated, am I getting frustrated for nothing, not being patient enough what?

Sorry for the long post:grumble:
 
Did the bulbs come with the fixture? Usually the ones that come with them are pretty low quality. But not usually bad enough to cause such terrible algae problems!

Do you use a crushed coral substrate?

It's possible that the live rock you got is leaching things.

This is puzzling, as you seem to be doing everything right. I'll think about it some more and get back to you!
 
I would try changing the bulbs, even though they were new with the fixture, those bulbs are notoriously bad.

Also, i would do a week long blackout, and seriously cut down on what you are feeding. Then slowly work up to your normal light schedule, and pull out as much algae as you can when you so your water change. It wont hurt the corals to have no lights, or the fish to get a little diet time.
 
Have you had anything go missing? Cucumbers bury themselves in the sand, and I had one die in the sandbed of my old 240 once. I wasn't able to find the body, but it caused a huge parameter spike as it rotted away over several weeks, which lead to a big algae spike.
 
Out of curiousity, where did you rock come from? What LFS?

I'm a proponent of using ALL live rock, but REAL live rock, not mostly dead rock.

And what bulbs are you using? Which colors?
I wish someone in the middle of a major and seemingly uncontrollable algae attack like yourself could borrow a completely different light system, like metal halide or led, run that for 2-3 months and see if that makes any difference.
 
Take water sample to LFS and get phosphate test. I'll bet that is your problem. Your flow is definitely not to weak. Try a phosphate reactor.
 
D2: the lights did not come with the fixture. I ordered the light from TnT and Paul put the lights in from his stock

I have read that some people have phosphate problems with marco rock and that was my bae
 
I would recommend doing a Phosphate test also. All types of algae love phosphates. You could also have a comprehensive aquarium water test. Take your water to several LFS and compare the results. Or send it in AWT. Aquarium Water Testing Lighting may be a factor, but I would bet something is going on with your water quality.
 
sorry for triple post:

The only thing missing is a LITTLE (inch and a half) watchman goby. with my population of hermits, and the water volume i dont think that if he had died would have caused a swing, would he?
 
Thanks guys!! You are pretty much telling me what I was thinking. Looks like I will be taking some water to my stores this weekend to see if we can find anything.
 
Also, I think you are on the right track with the GFO reactor. It's going to take more than a week to clear up, especially since the reactor is pulling only a small amount of your water through it at any given time. I was having a bad hair algae problem in my old tank and when i was acquiring equipment for the new build, one thing I bought was the dual BRS reactor. I ran it on the old tank for a few weeks before i tore it down and my algae was starting to subside. I'd say give that a little more time and continue to remove as much as you can by hand and probably limit the amount of time your lights are on.

Also, what's your CUC like? I didn't have any luck with this but some people swear by Sea Hares for nuisance hair algae. And do you have a refugium with Chaeto? That's the best macro for sucking up phosphates. I see you have the algae scrubber now though so that may be redundant.

Something else that's interesting and its the reason i bring up the lights... i set up my new tank with all rock, sand and cuc from Tampa Bay Saltwater. Then a few months ago I set up my new little 28g nano the same exact way. Three things are different about the two tanks.

1. Lighting. MH/T5 on the big cube, and 50/50 CF lights on the little nano.
2. GFO and Carbon running on the big cube, neither on the nano.
3. Protein skimmer on the big cube, none on the nano.

And to make things more interesting, the old tank i had hair algae problems with, was a T5 only tank (pretty much the same as CF) and no GFO.

Guess what.... my new nano was getting hair algae on the powerheads and some on the rocks. And I wasn't even feeding the tank because other than cuc, there was nothing in there! So I HIGHLY doubt I had a phosphate problem. IMHO, I think it's the difference in lighting that did it. But I can't prove this unless someone with a nuisance algae problem is able to make the switch. ;)
 
After researching after I installed the scrubber is when i ordered the BRS Dual reactor. I know it takes time to get rid of the algae, I just wanted some insight as to what was going on and to make sure I was going in the right direction. last night i cut my lights down by 2 hours to see if that helps.

I would really like to get a MH/T5 fixture but I think the wife would kill me. :shock:

ESPECIALLY SINCE I AM ALREADY TRYING TO CONVINCE HER TO LET ME UPGRADE

my CUC is hermits and a 70 gallon package from reefcleaners.com and a brittle star that I have not seen since i put him in the tank. :helm2:
 
I had hair algae in my tank (not as much as you, I'm sure). My lawnmower decimated it. I know he wouldn't be able to eradicate a huge problem... but every little bit helps!
 
I would second the advice to get a seahare temporarily, just to get rid of some of it. Those are the BEST animals for hair algae! Be sure you can take it back to the LFS when you are done with it though.
 

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