Green Bubble Algae
- Thread starter DianaKay
- Start date
PO4 It is just very recently zero. It took me a long time to get it down. I am using RO/DI water and do 10% water changes weekly.
Ok. Just did a quick read on your history. Your tank is about 5 months old.
I see bryopsis and cyanobacteria in that picture. More then likely those algae are up taking your nitrates and phosphates giving you false readings on your test kits.
Are you testing the TDS (total dissolved solids) of your rodi top off water? If not, you need to do that.
You can step up your water changes to 50% weekly. Be sure to have the temperature equal with your display tank water and equal salinity prior to water changes.
Do this for one month and see how it goes.
I see bryopsis and cyanobacteria in that picture. More then likely those algae are up taking your nitrates and phosphates giving you false readings on your test kits.
Are you testing the TDS (total dissolved solids) of your rodi top off water? If not, you need to do that.
You can step up your water changes to 50% weekly. Be sure to have the temperature equal with your display tank water and equal salinity prior to water changes.
Do this for one month and see how it goes.
Thanks I will try 50%. Is it ok to have a few of my corals out of the water for a few minutes that it takes to do the water changes. IT would be a frogspawn, GSP, and a leather?
SubRosa
Well-Known Member
Two things about bubble algae: #1 you will never starve it out. It stores nutrients in the fluid inside the bubbles. It can concentrate nitrates to at least 100x the level of the surrounding water. Don't believe me? Collect some bubbles, extract the liquid and test it yourself, then compare the reading to the tank water. #2 the only fairly reliable natural control which will reliably not munch on one kind of coral or another is a Desjardin's Tang. Genus Lo definitely eat them, but I've also seen them eat zooanthids and LPS corals.
Blue Space
Well-Known Member
You know, just when you think there can't be anymore GBA hiding in my tank...You relax looking at the growth of pretty corals
and then SEE SOME
This funny looking tall swaying GBA was sticking out from under my Chalice: View attachment 43208
Makes me wonder where I'll find it next.
What does it taste like though... Light and refreshing or tough and chewy?
Brave one to say that, you are.
cracker
Well-Known Member
I wish I had seen this post back in July!
Blue Space. The tiny ones have nice delicate skin , a pleasent salty pop and a "Hint of the ocean " The big one are all tough break out the dental floss chewy ! Try one Yourself ! LOL
Pat I have a LOT less BA than before fingers crossed as well!
Blue Space. The tiny ones have nice delicate skin , a pleasent salty pop and a "Hint of the ocean " The big one are all tough break out the dental floss chewy ! Try one Yourself ! LOL
Pat I have a LOT less BA than before fingers crossed as well!
Pat24601
Well-Known Member
Indeed!
Pat24601
Well-Known Member
StevesLEDs
RS Sponsor
GBA among other types of macro and micro algae can grow in otherwise healthy aquarium water, since they have the ability to photosynthesize a portion of energy required to grow. Knowing that, in addition to knowing that the algae's most active photosynthetic absorption peak is right at 640-670nm (red colored light), reducing the levels of red light in conjunction with maintaining proper water quality is like a one-two punch to algae.
If you are feeling nerdy, here's a bit of background on how this works:
T5 bulbs work using a mercury based gas, when high voltage is applied, it glows blue/purple. Using the white powdery phosphor coating on the inside of the glass reacts with the light emitted by the mercury gas creating a white (or blue, purple, pink, etc) light, which is what we use for our aquariums. (Phosophor the same material used for glow-in-the-dark toys, etc). The glow from phosphor is called florescence, hence, this is the reason the tube bulbs are called fluorescent lights! Unfortunately the phosphor in fluorescent lights [ie T5 bulbs] degrades over time, and emits less of the beneficial shorter wavelengths of light (bluer) and shifts towards and emits more of the longer wavelengths (red-er) light. That said, the specs on your T5 bulb are only valid for about 2 weeks until the light output begins to shift ever so slightly towards the red spectrum. After 7-9 months the shift is so huge that a big amount of blue light, as shifted (wavelength increase as the phosphor degrades) to the longer wavelength red light, creating issues with providing enough essential wavelengths to both grow coral and reduce algae growth. If you've talked with researcher in this field studying the effects of red light in marine aquariums, any red light in an aquarium is usually referenced as a "toxic color." They call it toxic because it produces annoying, unpleasant, non-beneficial, and sometimes harmful cyanoalgae and similar micro-algae.
If you are following along so far, you'll ask me about the phosphor used in LEDs, and how is it better or how it differs from T5 (and other florescent lights) right? Well the phosphor used in LEDs is a similar type of phosphor, yet does not degrade as fast. Why does it degrade at a infinitely slower rate? Because the blue LED that illuminates the phosphor has a very specific and non-harmful wavelength of about 440nm. Blue light emitted by mercury vapor is about 280nm-410nm - in the harmful ultra violet range. Ultraviolet is a very high energy wavelength that degrades all type of material, just like sunlight does. It will degrade paper, human skin (sunburn), all organic DNA, plastics, retinas in eyeballs, corals, anemones, clams and even phosphors. Basically the LED does not output ANY ultraviolet light to degrade the phosphor, and the insignificant degradation that does occur, is due to heat. That said, regarding the phosphor used in LEDs, the degradation period is on on the scale of decades, not months. The color shift of an LED after 10 years of 12/hr/day operation, will have shifted in such a small amount that it is considered negligible compared to a florescent phosphor. I suppose this is just another reason the trend towards LEDs is increasing in popularity, because the LEDs have this advantage to output little to no red light, and completely curb algae growth, despite water conditions.
Lack of red light curbing algae growth is scientifically proven (even with a surplus of phosphates in the water), also evident by a complete lack of algae growth at deeper ocean water levels, where red light is unable to penetrate.
Having been successfully utilizing LEDs in aquariums for more than 10 years now, there are definitely some LEDs out there that output a very heavy amount of the red wavelengths. At Steve's LEDs, we make a SIGNIFICANT effort to engineer our LED systems to minimize the amount of red light emitted. Using a tool called a radiospectrometer allows us to see the wavelength intensity of the light output emitted at the 1nm resolution, so we can pick and choose exactly what corals need and avoid what algae requires to grow. This reduces algae growth as much as possible, yet does not impede coral, anemone, or clam growth in any way. There is not way to completely eliminate red light and still have excellent aesthetics - eliminating red light results in a perfectly blue/green aquarium and washing out every other color- not very desirable. That said, we have only the minimum amount of red light necessary to get the corals and other inverts looking amazing, and this such a low amount that algae is not able to photosynthesize it.
Those companies using red LEDs in their fixture are either not actually aquarists, or they are trying to make their own "fad" LED combination, or perhaps they are valuing the numbers on their spec sheet vs actually caring about growing corals as healthily as possible. Steve's LEDs considers all new "fad" LED combination that pop up, however, we take great pride in only putting into production those LED combinations that are scientifically and research proven to appropriately balance invert growth rates and aesthetics, with a huge emphasis on algae reduction.
Hope this helps 'enlighten' you on understanding algae growth in your marine aquariums.
Jeff
If you are feeling nerdy, here's a bit of background on how this works:
T5 bulbs work using a mercury based gas, when high voltage is applied, it glows blue/purple. Using the white powdery phosphor coating on the inside of the glass reacts with the light emitted by the mercury gas creating a white (or blue, purple, pink, etc) light, which is what we use for our aquariums. (Phosophor the same material used for glow-in-the-dark toys, etc). The glow from phosphor is called florescence, hence, this is the reason the tube bulbs are called fluorescent lights! Unfortunately the phosphor in fluorescent lights [ie T5 bulbs] degrades over time, and emits less of the beneficial shorter wavelengths of light (bluer) and shifts towards and emits more of the longer wavelengths (red-er) light. That said, the specs on your T5 bulb are only valid for about 2 weeks until the light output begins to shift ever so slightly towards the red spectrum. After 7-9 months the shift is so huge that a big amount of blue light, as shifted (wavelength increase as the phosphor degrades) to the longer wavelength red light, creating issues with providing enough essential wavelengths to both grow coral and reduce algae growth. If you've talked with researcher in this field studying the effects of red light in marine aquariums, any red light in an aquarium is usually referenced as a "toxic color." They call it toxic because it produces annoying, unpleasant, non-beneficial, and sometimes harmful cyanoalgae and similar micro-algae.
If you are following along so far, you'll ask me about the phosphor used in LEDs, and how is it better or how it differs from T5 (and other florescent lights) right? Well the phosphor used in LEDs is a similar type of phosphor, yet does not degrade as fast. Why does it degrade at a infinitely slower rate? Because the blue LED that illuminates the phosphor has a very specific and non-harmful wavelength of about 440nm. Blue light emitted by mercury vapor is about 280nm-410nm - in the harmful ultra violet range. Ultraviolet is a very high energy wavelength that degrades all type of material, just like sunlight does. It will degrade paper, human skin (sunburn), all organic DNA, plastics, retinas in eyeballs, corals, anemones, clams and even phosphors. Basically the LED does not output ANY ultraviolet light to degrade the phosphor, and the insignificant degradation that does occur, is due to heat. That said, regarding the phosphor used in LEDs, the degradation period is on on the scale of decades, not months. The color shift of an LED after 10 years of 12/hr/day operation, will have shifted in such a small amount that it is considered negligible compared to a florescent phosphor. I suppose this is just another reason the trend towards LEDs is increasing in popularity, because the LEDs have this advantage to output little to no red light, and completely curb algae growth, despite water conditions.
Lack of red light curbing algae growth is scientifically proven (even with a surplus of phosphates in the water), also evident by a complete lack of algae growth at deeper ocean water levels, where red light is unable to penetrate.
Having been successfully utilizing LEDs in aquariums for more than 10 years now, there are definitely some LEDs out there that output a very heavy amount of the red wavelengths. At Steve's LEDs, we make a SIGNIFICANT effort to engineer our LED systems to minimize the amount of red light emitted. Using a tool called a radiospectrometer allows us to see the wavelength intensity of the light output emitted at the 1nm resolution, so we can pick and choose exactly what corals need and avoid what algae requires to grow. This reduces algae growth as much as possible, yet does not impede coral, anemone, or clam growth in any way. There is not way to completely eliminate red light and still have excellent aesthetics - eliminating red light results in a perfectly blue/green aquarium and washing out every other color- not very desirable. That said, we have only the minimum amount of red light necessary to get the corals and other inverts looking amazing, and this such a low amount that algae is not able to photosynthesize it.
Those companies using red LEDs in their fixture are either not actually aquarists, or they are trying to make their own "fad" LED combination, or perhaps they are valuing the numbers on their spec sheet vs actually caring about growing corals as healthily as possible. Steve's LEDs considers all new "fad" LED combination that pop up, however, we take great pride in only putting into production those LED combinations that are scientifically and research proven to appropriately balance invert growth rates and aesthetics, with a huge emphasis on algae reduction.
Hope this helps 'enlighten' you on understanding algae growth in your marine aquariums.
Jeff
Pat24601
Well-Known Member
Jeff,
I have not read your full article yet as I'm on my phone, but I actually wondered if the switch to LEDs might be helping (among other things) with my GBA because it has got better after the switch. Of course, I've done other things as well, but no one thing I could point to and say. "This fixed it".
I have not read your full article yet as I'm on my phone, but I actually wondered if the switch to LEDs might be helping (among other things) with my GBA because it has got better after the switch. Of course, I've done other things as well, but no one thing I could point to and say. "This fixed it".
Coraljunkie
Well-Known Member
I'm glad it's going away but I run leds and I'm plagued
Pat24601
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I couldn't really say what helped. Really, I don't think I've done much.
i do watch phosphates and nitrates, but like most everyone I still have some and I'm not really religious about it. I feed 1-2 cubes a day, which is really a lot. I really don't think I starved it.
I did add some emerald crabs, but I never saw them eat any or any disappear without me taking it out.
I did change my lights, but as you said people have GBA with LEDs.
I did keep aggressively on top of manual removal. Maybe this helped, but I'm always accidentally bursting them and losing them in the tank etc, so I'm not sure it's what did it.
I'm not really sure why it's getting better. I hope it stays that way, though.
Pat24601
Well-Known Member
I love sailfin Tangs. They are awesome.
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