Algae control

[jvelkgrove]

Do you think the Mandarin would eat Tubifex worms? They don't ship brine to Sacramento when it is warm.

Dusk to Dawn,

I'm from Sacramento / Elk Grove area as well. There are several LFS around that have brine and all of your other needs....

 

[Dusk to Dawn]

Dusk to Dawn,

I'm from Sacramento / Elk Grove area as well. There are several LFS around that have brine and all of your other needs....

I have called everyone in the book looking for live brine. Who do you know that consistently has it? I'll drive anywhere.

 

[Snid]

Pods are tiny lil' bug-like critters (Zooplankton) that usually show themselves more when the lights are off. They usually feed off of algae. Many people keep some Macro Algae in either a Hang-On-Back (HOB) Refugium or in a Sump/Refugium combo so that the Macro Algae can get rid of Nitrates and to be a food source for Pods. Then some of the Pods get sucked into a pump and flow into the Display Tank (DT) where the fish can find them and eat them. Some people also keep some Macro Algae directly in their DT.

Here's a helpful link with even more links inside it... Chuck's Addiction - Pods

 

[Dusk to Dawn]

Thanks Chuck.

 

[Creekview]

Get a diy brine shrimp hatchery. The LFS should have one. An empty 2 liter soda bottle and a small air pump are all you need. That way you can have fresh at home every day. I have used a product called Docs Ecostuff to seed new systems with 'pod life. Works very well.

 

[jvelkgrove]

Hello All,

I thought I'd join in on this thread as I've also been battling algae, and I believe a Red Slime issue. I have an RSM 250 that's about 2 years old now. I've tried all the advise listed on this thread and others with little to no improvement. Not sure what else I can do? This is what I have and my water parameters, Any advise would be great!

5 Mexican Turbos
1 cleaner shrimp
1 clown fish
1 yellow tan
3-4 hermit crabs
2 fighting conch
1 tiger tail sea cucumber
2 Radion Gen2 lights, 8 hours of lighting at 18K, 16 hours of moon lighting
in-tank media basket with 11.74oz Chemi pure elite and 62 ml purigen. (replaced every 4 months)
RO/DI water with 0-TDS
2 MP10's (one on each end)
Reef Crystals salt (10% water chance once a week)
Skimmer runs 12 hours with a good dark skimmate color
feed once every 3 days (Reef Frenzy)

Water parameters as of 4 days ago:

 

[Snid]

jvelkgrove,

Very nice post when looking for advise. Very thorough and helpful to those wanting to help.

Green Hair Algae (GHA) will grow even in low lighting. I believe red slime will as well. Your moon lighting is providing enough light for the algae to grow, even at night. The Algae seems to be getting light for 24 hours a day, based on your setup unless there is overlap. Think about the real sky at night. The moon rises and falls just like the sun, and it isn't up specifically when the sun is down, unlike Minecraft (don't ask me why I felt compelled to add that last bit). Anyways... I recommend gradually changing the amount of moonlight from 16 hours to something more like 4. You probably don't want to change it all at once, maybe trim off 4 hours each week.

Light is only half the problem though with Algae, there is still the nutrients that it is getting, which is probably the bigger problem. Algae eats Nitrates and Phosphates and Carbon Dioxide, the spores eat Ammonia...

Have you tried skimming 24 hours? If you're getting a good dark skim, then that means there is something it is removing from your tank. Just because it is removing it, doesn't mean it got it all in that 12 hour time. You might want to bump its run cycle up. It's not likely that you will skim too much. Most of the time the only reason why someone has their skimmer on a cycle like yours is if they feel it is removing trace elements needed by the corals. You can test for those and observe them to see if running it longer periods is indeed affecting them.

Have you tested the water you are using for your ATO and your changes? Does it have any Nitrates or Phosphates in it? If so, this may be feeding the Algae with each water change and top off.

How much water flow do you have? If the flow isn't strong enough, especially at the surface, there might be too much Carbon Dioxide building up in areas. This would especially cause the Red Slime Algae to grow as it thrives on low flow. Perhaps you need to adjust your power heads or even consider adding another one or substituting a more powerful one.

When you feed your fish, is everything getting consumed? How much settles on the bottom? Excess food dissolves and becomes Ammonia, which Algae spores need. Then the rest of the Ammonia cycle happens, thus introducing the food needed for the Algae to grow. Perhaps you need to consider feeding every other day, but smaller amounts instead of larger amounts every 3 days. This will give the fish a better chance of consuming all the food they need and less of it settling.

When you do a water change, do you clean the substrate at all? Do you use a baster to blast your Live Rock at all? Stuff is settling all the time, especially if you are dealing with a possible flow problem. You'd be amazed of how much stuff has settled on the rocks if you haven't been blasting it. With every water change, it's a good idea to blast the rocks a little bit of water flow to get stuff off of them and up into the water column to be syphoned out or directed towards the sump/skimmer. You don't want to stir the sand bed up like crazy, but getting the surface cleaned off during this process helps a lot as well. Some people do it in increments, like 1/3 of the sand bed with each water change/cleaning. All the stuff that is settling (food, fish waste, invertebrate waste, etc.) is slowly dissolving into the nutrients Algae is living off of.

If this were a new tank, I'd tell you not to be too concerned and let the Algae do its thing. But since this is an older tank we are talking about, it's time to try changing things up gradually to see if you can get on top of it. In most cases, you want to make changes gradually, as completely changing something in a contained ecosystem can have adverse effects. That being said, I think it would be safe to try the 24 skimming right away, as well as the change in the feeding schedule.

 

[jvelkgrove]

jvelkgrove,

Very nice post when looking for advise. Very thorough and helpful to those wanting to help. Thank You...

Green Hair Algae (GHA) will grow even in low lighting. I believe red slime will as well. Your moon lighting is providing enough light for the algae to grow, even at night. The Algae seems to be getting light for 24 hours a day, based on your setup unless there is overlap. Think about the real sky at night. The moon rises and falls just like the sun, and it isn't up specifically when the sun is down, unlike Minecraft (don't ask me why I felt compelled to add that last bit). Anyways... I recommend gradually changing the amount of moonlight from 16 hours to something more like 4. You probably don't want to change it all at once, maybe trim off 4 hours each week. I will gradually reduce the moonlight until I have about 8 hours of total darkness.

Light is only half the problem though with Algae, there is still the nutrients that it is getting, which is probably the bigger problem. Algae eats Nitrates and Phosphates and Carbon Dioxide, the spores eat Ammonia...

Have you tried skimming 24 hours? If you're getting a good dark skim, then that means there is something it is removing from your tank. Just because it is removing it, doesn't mean it got it all in that 12 hour time. You might want to bump its run cycle up. It's not likely that you will skim too much. Most of the time the only reason why someone has their skimmer on a cycle like yours is if they feel it is removing trace elements needed by the corals. You can test for those and observe them to see if running it longer periods is indeed affecting them.
I have already set my skimmer to run 24 hours, I will pay close attention to trace elements on my next water testing.
Have you tested the water you are using for your ATO and your changes? Does it have any Nitrates or Phosphates in it? If so, this may be feeding the Algae with each water change and top off. I've never thought about testing the water for ATO and water changes for Nitrates/Phosphates. This will be the first think I do when I get home today, Maybe the second... A beer just might be first!

How much water flow do you have? If the flow isn't strong enough, especially at the surface, there might be too much Carbon Dioxide building up in areas. This would especially cause the Red Slime Algae to grow as it thrives on low flow. Perhaps you need to adjust your power heads or even consider adding another one or substituting a more powerful one. I have both stock return nozzles pointed at the surface, The surface water has very good movement. I have two MP10's that are in anti-sink mode via Apex, The water movement thought the tank is very good.

When you feed your fish, is everything getting consumed? How much settles on the bottom? Excess food dissolves and becomes Ammonia, which Algae spores need. Then the rest of the Ammonia cycle happens, thus introducing the food needed for the Algae to grow. Perhaps you need to consider feeding every other day, but smaller amounts instead of larger amounts every 3 days. This will give the fish a better chance of consuming all the food they need and less of it settling. Feeding, I feed only what my 3 fish will consume in about a 2-3 minute period, I know not 100% of the food is consumed, I really try to not over feed. I will keep a close eye on this...

When you do a water change, do you clean the substrate at all? Do you use a baster to blast your Live Rock at all? Stuff is settling all the time, especially if you are dealing with a possible flow problem. You'd be amazed of how much stuff has settled on the rocks if you haven't been blasting it. With every water change, it's a good idea to blast the rocks a little bit of water flow to get stuff off of them and up into the water column to be syphoned out or directed towards the sump/skimmer. You don't want to stir the sand bed up like crazy, but getting the surface cleaned off during this process helps a lot as well. Some people do it in increments, like 1/3 of the sand bed with each water change/cleaning. All the stuff that is settling (food, fish waste, invertebrate waste, etc.) is slowly dissolving into the nutrients Algae is living off of. I will be siphoning the substrate for the first time on my next water change later this week, I have always blasted the LR while doing water changes. Its amazing how much stuff the LR collects!

If this were a new tank, I'd tell you not to be too concerned and let the Algae do its thing. But since this is an older tank we are talking about, it's time to try changing things up gradually to see if you can get on top of it. In most cases, you want to make changes gradually, as completely changing something in a contained ecosystem can have adverse effects. That being said, I think it would be safe to try the 24 skimming right away, as well as the change in the feeding schedule.

Thanks for all of the advise, I'll keep on top of it and hopefully see some good results in the near future, What are your thought on adding a GFO reactor?

 

[Snid]

GFO Reactor? Well, let me put it this way. I'm in the process of a DIY GFO for my own tank. Do some research on what media to use, as they are not all the same. I'm going with PhosBan for my first go around, but I may switch to Kent Marine Phos-Reactor on my second go around. I'm avoiding PhosGuard because of some bad reviews I have read.

 

[jvelkgrove]

I have one of these that I was thinking about tumbling GFO in. I'll do some research this evening...

http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_viewi...ntent=TL4311&gclid=CJTF0e602b8CFSdp7AodXQUApA

 

[Dusk to Dawn]

Welcome to the thread!

Hello All,

I thought I'd join in on this thread as I've also been battling algae, and I believe a Red Slime issue. I have an RSM 250 that's about 2 years old now. I've tried all the advise listed on this thread and others with little to no improvement. Not sure what else I can do? This is what I have and my water parameters, Any advise would be great!



5 Mexican Turbos
1 cleaner shrimp
1 clown fish
1 yellow tan
3-4 hermit crabs
2 fighting conch
1 tiger tail sea cucumber
2 Radion Gen2 lights, 8 hours of lighting at 18K, 16 hours of moon lighting
in-tank media basket with 11.74oz Chemi pure elite and 62 ml purigen. (replaced every 4 months)
RO/DI water with 0-TDS
2 MP10's (one on each end)
Reef Crystals salt (10% water chance once a week)
Skimmer runs 12 hours with a good dark skimmate color
feed once every 3 days (Reef Frenzy)

Water parameters as of 4 days ago:

 

[jvelkgrove]

Welcome to the thread!

Thanks!

 

[jvelkgrove]

So I took some water parameters today, These are the results...

RO/DI top off water
Nitrate 0.00
Phosphate 0.00
TDS 0.00

DT (1.026)
Nitrate 0.00
Phosphate 0.02

Water change water (1.026)
Nitrate 0.00
Phosphate 0.00

The Algae investigation continues....

 

[Snid]

Yup. Looks like the top off and water change mixes aren't adding any Nitrates or Phosphates. So that's good to know. It narrows down the playing field. Doing some of the minor alterations might start making a change and slowly get rid of the problem.

 

[StirCrayzy]

CUC plays a big part in controlling algae also. Check Reefcleaners.org for recommendations per tank size.

 

[Snid]

The only thing that I don't like about Reefcleaners.org is that they have set numbers on what is needed for certain sized tanks. The problem with that is no two tanks are alike even if they are the same size. There are so many factors that go into Algae growth, that you can't just throw out an arbitrary number based on how they would set up a tank that size and it be a perfect fit elsewhere. There's types of lights, number of lights, length of lighting, number of livestock, types of livestock, amount of live rock, type of sand, depth of sand, any sand at all, sump or no sump, type of skimmer, algae scrubbers, refugiums, etc... All that and more plays into it. Your setup could be way more efficient than what they suggest for your setup and then you end up with a bunch of starving inverts that die off and can cause minor problems.

Algae isn't as harmful as people make it out to be. It can be annoying and a nuisance, but it's hard for it to destroy a tank unless it is something like Bryopsis. My approach is to let Algae do its thing and then gradually over time find the balance of what I need to get rid of it. Going for the one shot big dump of a CUC seems a bit inhumane to the inverts to me.

 

[StirCrayzy]

I hardly think its fair to assume the # is "arbitrary". John has way more experience with these animals than you might think.
The fact that no two tanks are the same is indisputable, and I am of the belief that the listed #'s are more of an average ballpark figure than a statement of exact requirement.
I didnt suggest a "one shot big dump", I don't believe anyone would.
I m no expert, but find in many cases I read of algae problems, the CUC is undersized, and the control method automatically jumps to mechanical or chemical combat.
I don't take offense personally (and hope there is a mutual understanding), at contrary opinions, and love having a respectful forum to voice my own
Also, I don't stress over algae either, it's natural , though ugly if not kept in check.

 

[Snid]

I don't take offense personally (and hope there is a mutual understanding)

No offense here. Part of the reason why I love these forums over others is that people can give their opinions, conflicting or not, and avoid harsh criticism. I'm not against Reefcleaners.org specifically either, and perhaps should have expressed my view a bit further looking back. My main concern is that places like Reefcleaners.org will ask you what size tank you have and then give you a set number of critters in a CUC they feel is required in total and try to sell you that total right away. In fact, on Reefcleaners.org, you have to take extra measures to get into the custom design portion of the ordering. I don't doubt John's experience, but I do doubt he visits every home he sends the CUC to, though I do like that there is more communication than other places at Reefcleaners.org.

For example, if I was new to the hobby and started a tank, but my LFS gave me 2 Urchins, 5 Mexican Turbo snails, 20 Hermits, 10 Nassarius, and a 20 Cerith Snails for a 75 gallon aquarium but I suddenly had a Green Hair Algae outbreak, I might assume that my CUC was too little. If I then jumped onto Reefcleaners.org and ordered the packages based on the size of my newly cycled tank, I'd have a massive CUC for a newly developing tank and once the "uglies" phase passes I'm most likely going to have a lot of die off. John's calculations may have been right for that size tank and his experience may be unquestionable, but the person making the purchases, a new person to the hobby, doesn't know yet for sure and they may bypass John's wealth of knowledge very easily with the click of a button.

On top of that, I am of the firm belief that there needs to be a balance of techniques used to control Algae. Like you, I prefer to stay away from chemical approaches whenever, but mechanical is slightly different. The ocean itself is a giant mechanical and biological filter. When we contain part of it in a small tank, we remove the massive mechanical portion of it, so we have to make sure we add it back into the system. The skimmer for example is a mechanical version of tidal waves that bind organics to bubbles and push them away from the reefs. In fact, one of the reasons why Algae blooms happen near shorelines is because of this effect happening. Our mechanical light cycles tend to be more in sync with how the sun rises and sets in tropical zones. We need mechanical adjustments in order to replicate the ocean as much as we can.

A CUC is part of that replication for sure. I'm not saying don't have a CUC. I'm suggesting that we shouldn't buy large CUC's at once like many of the stores including Reefcleaners.org imply or suggest with their single click purchases. I'm suggesting that we should slowly introduce our CUC just as we should our fish and corals. The CUC is as much a part of the ecosystem as any other livestock, carrying its own bio-load. Furthermore, the CUC really only helps mask the symptoms and doesn't address the cause, much like aspirin can remove a fever without removing the illness when we are sick. The CUC eats the Algae that is growing because of perhaps excessive Nitrates or Phosphates. In my opinion, there should be an attempt of removing the causes before removing the results, but is a manner that doesn't impact the whole system dramatically. I think all changes ought to be gradual in such confined spaces as our tanks.

 

[DrugMonkeyRX]

I would add an Algae Scrubber....either build one yourself or just buy one from here.

http://www.santa-monica.cc/

 

[Snid]

An Algae Scrubber might be my next DIY for my Fuge... I was at the craft store today and already got some of the material to start on one when I get the time.