I don't know what else to do? Please help

[Shazbah]

Hi all. I have had my 130 set up now since June 2008 and i have NEVER been algae free.:tears: I love my tank and inhabitants but some days it just gets me down as it's an endless fight syphoning out the algae with a pair of tweezers.:smack:
I know you're all thinking that i must be doing something wrong and i obviously am but i can't figure out what and this is where i need your help.
Tank specs in signature underneath
water used> 4 stage RO unit with TDS meter. 20 ltrs changed every 4/5 days. Salt> seachem reef salt
Media> seachem seagel and purigen changed every 6/8 weeks. Floss changed every 4 days
Water tests done every Sunday and logged
calc> 450
Mag> 1440
KH> 9.2 Alk 3.29
PH> 8.1 raising to 8.35 in evening
salinity 1026
Nitrate 0
phosphates 0.03 with D&D test kit
amonia>0
I feed 1 small pinch of new era marine flakes or half a cube of frozen rinsed in ro per day.
The algaes in the tank are mostly hair algae with some halimeda and grape caulerpa
The only thing i can think of that i do every time i change the water and always have from day 1 is wear a pair of powder free latex gloves. I know that sounds stupid but the gloves are the only thing i can think of that might be causing my problem.
Any suggestions you have will be most welcomed. I spend hours watching my tank and would give anything for it to be algae free. The picture i have enclosed shows hair algae that was removed 4 days ago and regrown.
Thanks for reading

 

[screemer]

Hi Sharon, i feel for you. I have had my 130D up since early May and have struggled ever since with cyano and hair algae. I know my tank is new and maturing but every time i seem to get over one bout, another comes along, and as i have posted here before, it gets soul destroying. I have made the switch to A tunze 9002 with the mediabasket and have Seagel And Purigen in it with floss on top. I recently switched to Tropic Marin Pro reef salt to raise my Alkalinity and calcium levels, but i now see mto have hair algae growing on one rock. Very strange. I am going to try and add more flow to try and combat mine a little, some people have had good success with it. I'll keep you posted.

 

[Shazbah]

Hi Steve thanks for the kind words. What do you intend to add for more flow?? and are you saying more flow could help with algae issues???
Sharon

 

[screemer]

Well one of my stock pumps went down for a week, and i have had cyano ever since. Evidentally its very hard to get rid off, but very easy to get. I plan on adding a new Koralia Nano pump in the bottom left corner to see what happens. I know Dave Shaw has had great success adding extra flow. I hate seeing this horrible pink slime on my sand/glass, really does deter from my lovely fish/critters. I think ideally i'd get a Vortech MP10, but that'll have to wait til next year.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Just brain-storming... as everything in your post seems like you are doing everything correct

What light do you run? How old are the bulbs & if not stock what exact kind? How many hours a day do you run your lights?

Exactly what does your cuc consist of? Have you ever tried a pair of emerald crabs? If not, I would give that a go... my emerald crab wiped out a tank full of green HA in a week.

 

[Reefmack]

Sharon - have you tried a sea hare yet? They often do a great job on algae. Eddie (redsea reefer) had a tuxedo urchin that took care of his small areas of algae. Flow may help with cyano, but I don't think it will control hair algae. Some have turned off the lights and covered the tank into darkness for 3-4 days to get rid of it, with no harm to the corals or fish, etc. Do you have a good CUC? Mexican Turbos and emerald crabs do a good job on algae. It seems like you are doing everything properly. Just some ideas for you.

I don't think the latex gloves are the cause, but there are vinyl disposables if you want to eliminate that possibility - I use those.

Good point by Glenn on the bulbs - if the bulbs are older than 8 - 9 months the light spectrum could have shifted to one that promotes algae.

 

[lkbart]

If you can remove any of the rocks with HA on them, you can take them out of the tank, use a soft toothbrush & old saltwater (from water change) & scrub the HA off of them, then rinse very well - swish rigorously in old sw, & then swish in new sw before returning to the tank. Doing this helped get my HA under control & eventually it went away. And the zoanthids don't mind a gentle scrubbing either - to get the HA out from in between polyps. Pinching off the HA in the tank seems to just make it spread rather than removing it.

A couple other things I did with some success was to put shells over the spots of HA to deprive it of light, and to regularly blow detritus off the rocks with a turkey baster (you can use a powerhead). I believe I've read that the accumulation of stuff on the rocks feeds the algae.

I agree on the bulbs - that can make a big difference. And a good CUC can help too. Another thing to try is a different salt brand. Some salt mixes contain higher amounts of phosphates or other stuff algae can feed on. I have no experience with the Seachem salt & have heard it's pretty good, but when you're trying to resolve an algae issue, that's something to consider.

 

[jpsika08]

+1 with Glenn and Terry,
With that amount of HA you should put 3 emerald crabs in there, they have plenty of food as I can see in your pictures.

Where's your water coming from for the Water changes?

 

[imaccat]

Sorry to hear about your algae troubles, I can only re-iterate what others have already said;

Extra Flow
Mexican Turbo snails
Mithrax Crabs (Brown or emerald)

Just a couple of questions on your RO unit, when were the membranes & DI last changed and what level of TDS go you get at the output?

 

[Shazbah]

Thanks for the advice guys
Nanoreefing4fun> Lights are only 4 months old and are run 8 hours a day with the aquarays staying on for 2 hours after
My clean up crew consists of
2 emeralds added 4 weeks ago(added at last resort, not to keen on crabs)
1 mexican turbo (did have 2 1 died)
about 10 astrea tubos
about 7 different detrius
about6 hermits
1 sea hare added last Tuesday

Reefmack> Had a wonderful sea hare called fugly but took him back when algae was gone. I bought another one last week but all he seems to do is sleepverhere:
I really cant stand the thought of covering up my tank

Ikbart> I have just done a water change about an hour ago and i removed as many rocks as i could and scrubbed them with a tooth brush. Its the ones that i can't take out and scrub that seem to be the worse for algae. I did strip the tank down in April to try and catch a pistol shrimp and whilst i had the rocks out i gave them all a good scrub as i had a bryopsis outbreak but high levels of mag is now keeping the bryopsis at bay but the hair algae has just grown back worse. I have put some flat pieces of rock over some parts but the algae just grows over it and sadly i have to much to cover. I am also on my 3rd different brand of salt. I've had tetra, red sea and now seachem hoping the salt might be the problem but it,s not.
Thanks for the ideas though

jpsika08> Water is from my ro unit
Sharon

 

[Shazbah]

Just to catch up with other posts

Imaccat> TDS reading 283 in and 0 out.New filters and di resin added 7 weeks ago
Sharon

 

[turbiville]

I had an ongoing bryopsis algae problem for months, and then decided to try the Kent M magnesium trick and it worked within a week. I don't have so much as a hair in my tank. I lost all of my snails, but at least the algae is gone.

 

[clownfishheaven]

I have a little HA problem now, I "HAD" a big problem before.

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...lub/61749-how-grow-rain-forest-rsm-130-a.html

If you don't mind adding a little chemicals in your tank for the short term. You can give it a go.

I attacked it with a two-prong approach. When mine was like a forest, I realized that in order to starve it to death it would take months, or more. So I physically removed as much as possible. I did the Mg method, and I added Algaefix.

The above steps I took were meant to temporarily get ahead of the HA. Next I added some macroalgae such as chaeto for sustainability. I feed more than I should too.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Do you see your emeralds eating it?

 

[imaccat]

Other thoughts I had were;

Are your test kits ok? Are they within their dates and can you confirm your levels with another test kit?

Have you re-calibrated your tds meter?

My Mexican turbos and mithrax would only eat it when it was fairly short, but it sounds like you are manually removing it anyway.

There has to be something feeding the algae either light or nutrients in the water, what is the position of the tank, does it get direct sunlight on it?

Just throwing out some ideas to see if it helps!

 

[Shazbah]

Turbivile>
How high did you raise your mag level to??? It must have been very high to kill all your snails. I have never raised mine more than 1800. Are you saying that elevated mag levels killed your hair algae as well as bryopsis???

nanoreefing>
Yes i do see the emerals eating it but i think its to much for them to control and i'm pretty sure my sea hare is on a diet:cursin:

clownfishheaven>
I read your post a few days ago but thought you were just suffering from new tank syndrome. We dont have algaefix here in the UK we have something called Fauna Marin Ultra algae X which i have used in the past and it worked but did'nt wipe it out completely and i'm abit nervous about using it again as you have to remove all media with no skimming and no water changes
Sharon

 

[Reefmack]

I did the Mg treatment for Bryopsis, but stopped when I got above 1700 and some of my corals stopped opening. I ended up getting a small Foxface that ate it all in a week, but no guarantees that fish will always do what you want. I'm interested also to to find out if the elevated MG takes out normal hair algae - I've read it only works on Brypopsis.

 

[Shazbah]

Hi Terry
Yea i'm very interested as i've read somewhere else that someone claimed to kill off all algae including hair with elevated mag (kent marine tec m) levels but they didn't state what they raised it to
Sharon

 

[Shazbah]

I have a 4000 gall Koi pond and every summer i get hair algae growing on the sides of the pond. I add something called clover leaf blanket answer and within a week it's gone and dose not return untill the following year
Wish it was this easy with a marine tank.
I know, that was a really useless and random piece of information. Sorry just feeling a bit peed off

 

[Shazbah]

imaccat
sorry i missed your post. Thats some great ideas you have there but unfortunately i have thought the same thing about test kits so i bought some new ones that were a different brand. I use salifert but i also bought tropic marin as i thought some of the kits were wrong but the tropic marin gives basically the same reading as the salifert.

Took my tds meter to lfs to be calibrated along with my ph meter as i thought i had a low ph but turned out that it had been calibrated with the wrong solution.
The tank is not by a window so it doesn't get any sun
I know that something is feeding the algae i just aint got a clue what it is. I would give anything to solve the problem.
I'm just hoping that some bright spark reads this post and says
"Sharon this is your problem and this is where you are going wrong". I will love them forever:bow:
nothing wrong with having hope
sharon