Help with algae

[Hallowhead]

I've been battling this stuff for a while now with no luck. I do manual removals often, but it keeps coming back. I feed two frozen cubes a day.

My tank is a reefer 425xl

My parameters
Salinity 1.026
Nitrate 10
Phosphate .03
Calcium 400
Alk 850
Mag 1200

I do 20 gallon water changes once a month.

I have 2 kessil 360x and 1 xr15 they're not maxed

I have 1 mp40 60% and a ow-25

HELP

 

[MadReefer]

When my sand looked like that I started dosing Vodka. What inhabitants do you have? Any tangs, snails, urchins, etc. to eat the algae on back?

 

[Hallowhead]

When my sand looked like that I started dosing Vodka. What inhabitants do you have? Any tangs, snails, urchins, etc. to eat the algae on back?

I have purple tang, bristletooth and a blue hippo. 7 or so nass snails, blue hermits maybe 6, 10 astrea a few trochus and a Mexican or two. Tuxedo urchin

 

[MadReefer]

Maybe increase flow. I know it sucks to have this problem.
Can Vodka dose or dose peroxide. Note peroxide dosing isn't meant to be long term like Vodka.

 

[Hallowhead]

Maybe increase flow. I know it sucks to have this problem.
Can Vodka dose or dose peroxide. Note peroxide dosing isn't meant to be long term like Vodka.

How many invertebrates do y'all have ?

 

[The Gooch]

Makes sure your rodi has fresh resin. You don’t want to add silicates to this, or dosing aminos. You need some more clean up. I would add 30 trochus, and another 2 tuxedo urchin. You could probably slip
In an orange shoulder tang if you use an acclimation box, but I didn’t tell you that if the tang police ask

 

[Hallowhead]

Makes sure your rodi has fresh resin. You don’t want to add silicates to this, or dosing aminos. You need some more clean up. I would add 30 trochus, and another 2 tuxedo urchin. You could probably slip
In an orange shoulder tang if you use an acclimation box, but I didn’t tell you that if the tang police ask

I just don't get the draw for 30 trochus that seems absurd ! I definitely can agree more can't hurt, but my rocks are clean as a cucumber, it's just sand and glass tbh

 

[MadReefer]

Can add bunch of copepods.

 

[The Gooch]

I just don't get the draw for 30 trochus that seems absurd ! I definitely can agree more can't hurt, but my rocks are clean as a cucumber, it's just sand and glass tbh

30 trochus on an 80g tank is a fairly light stock honestly. I usually keep it at one per gallons since I don’t use hermits (bug meds). But if rocks are clean which I see now (didn’t notice without a full tank shot), then just scrap the glass clean, and reduce silicates in the water, if they’re even elevated.

Looking closer at this, looks
Like Dino’s as well. I see the bubbles in the slime. Bunch of ways to go about this. Really depends on your system age. There are entire forums dedicated to this topic. A uv sterilizer is usually the go to first response remedy. Some guys ID their strains under microscopes. I dunno. I never got that deep into it. Got them once and uv took care of it in 36 hours.

 

[Hallowhead]

Can add bunch of copepods.

Getting tank ready for a Mandarin, it's crawling with pods. Like the sand is moving at night there are so many

 

[Hallowhead]

30 trochus on an 80g tank is a fairly light stock honestly. I usually keep it at one per gallons since I don’t use hermits (bug meds). But if rocks are clean which I see now (didn’t notice without a full tank shot), then just scrap the glass clean, and reduce silicates in the water, if they’re even elevated.

Looking closer at this, looks
Like Dino’s as well. I see the bubbles in the slime. Bunch of ways to go about this. Really depends on your system age. There are entire forums dedicated to this topic. A uv sterilizer is usually the go to first response remedy. Some guys ID their strains under microscopes. I dunno. I never got that deep into it. Got them once and uv took care of it in 36 hours.

I run a uv sterilizer. The back glass doesn't go away at night but the sand stuff does which id partially agree, I think it's dinos

 

[Salted]

Maybe reeflux?

 

[redfishbluefish]

Looks like you have a combo of cyano, algae and diatoms. Can’t help with the walls, but here’s what I do about my sand.

My tank goes through periods of when typically cyano shows up. Probably from my laziness of water changes, lack or reduced clean up crew, or who knows what. What I’ve done in the past was to use a Python siphon system to vacuum my sand. What this did was sort of swirl the cyano around in the big tube, leaving smaller pieces to settle back down to the sandbed. WIthin a day or two, the cyano was back.. It wasn’t efficient enough to remove all of the cyano.

So here’s the fix....done during a water change. I removed the large tube portion of the Python



and used the smaller tubing only to vacuum up the cyano. Now you suck up the cyano (and some sand), but the removal of the cyano is much more efficient. It’s very satisfying to watch sheets of cyano getting sucked up the tube leaving nice white sand. With my five foot 90 gallon tank, I might have 2-3 cups at most of sand pulled out. I rinse this under tap water using a gallon bucket about ten times….the cyan floats around and is dumped out and repeated until it appears it’s all gone. Using 1 ½ inch pipe with funnel, the sand is returned to the tank.



Best to do this after your lights have been on the better part of the day, with the cyano at it’s peak.

 

[Hallowhead]

Looks like you have a combo of cyano, algae and diatoms. Can’t help with the walls, but here’s what I do about my sand.

My tank goes through periods of when typically cyano shows up. Probably from my laziness of water changes, lack or reduced clean up crew, or who knows what. What I’ve done in the past was to use a Python siphon system to vacuum my sand. What this did was sort of swirl the cyano around in the big tube, leaving smaller pieces to settle back down to the sandbed. WIthin a day or two, the cyano was back.. It wasn’t efficient enough to remove all of the cyano.

So here’s the fix....done during a water change. I removed the large tube portion of the Python

View attachment 58174

and used the smaller tubing only to vacuum up the cyano. Now you suck up the cyano (and some sand), but the removal of the cyano is much more efficient. It’s very satisfying to watch sheets of cyano getting sucked up the tube leaving nice white sand. With my five foot 90 gallon tank, I might have 2-3 cups at most of sand pulled out. I rinse this under tap water using a gallon bucket about ten times….the cyan floats around and is dumped out and repeated until it appears it’s all gone. Using 1 ½ inch pipe with funnel, the sand is returned to the tank.

View attachment 58175

Best to do this after your lights have been on the better part of the day, with the cyano at it’s peak.

Interesting concept, I definitely increased the size and frequency of my water changes, but this stuff comes right back.. I've beat just about every form of algae in the passed but can't win this one !!

I'll try to syphon the cyano as shown above next water change.

I def don't want to try reeflux, had more adverse effects in passed

 

[MadReefer]

I did similar to Paul but would just siphon into my filter sock to catch the cyano and other dirt so no water lose. Then put a clean sock in or replace the filter floss.

 

[Boehmtown]

The snail tank at the lfs is always clean. Even if the snails and hermits aren't eating it they are running all over it annoying it to death. I have 1 Mexican turbo that basically keeps my whole tank clear of everything

 

[Hallowhead]

Just added a large clean up crew

Dozen cerith
Dozen blue legged hermits
6 trochus
6 nassarius