Timfish

Nuisance algae in reef systems is pretty much a ubiquitous problem, and one that is a common source of frustration for reef aquarists. It is also one I've learned to view the problem very differently than what is generally portrayed and it just takes a few rather basic steps, and patience. (This is longer than I planned so feel free to jump past the backgound info.) Back in the late 90's I realized the general notion of nuisance algae being just a nutrient issue didn't fit what I was seeing in my maintenance business. In my systems there was not a correlation between PO4, Nitrate, and nuisance algae problems. A nice looking tank that did not have a problem would test "bad", have "unacceptable" levels of PO4 and/or Nitrate, while a tank with "good" numbers would have a serious nuisance algae issue. If there was a correlation between equipment and nuisance algae it was a positive one, more and fancier equipment didn't get rid of nuisance algae. There was clearly something else going on and I'll get back to this in just a sec. While I have tried various chemical fixes, the first, and very simple, technique I realized worked well and produced the most consistent results was just small weekly water changes, 5% - 10%. One aspect of these early fixes with water changes that I didn't really appreciate until years later (reading reef research was at the time for purely aesthetic reasons), I would siphon out nuisance algae when doing a water change. The top layer of sand would also be siphoned off if there was any "color",any single cell algae, rinsed quickly in tap water, then put back in the tank. This constant removal of algae, not aggressive but persistent, turns out to be very beneficial and very similar to the way the primary herbivores (Parrotfish in the Pacific and Urchins in the Caribean) on reefs control the algae. Fast forward a few years, a little bit more than a decade, and I started getting on the internet and checking out the forums. I didn’t look up every forum, but the ones I did pursue suggested nuisance algae was still treated as a nutrient issue. So maybe I was missing something? I started wondering what the scientists and the research being done say about reefs? This was a real eye opener. Here are just two of the observations I stumbled across: "When I see the colors of some of these low nutrient tanks, I can't help but be reminded of bleached coral reefs. It should therefore not come as a surprise that feeding corals in such systems becomes a very important component in these systems. Though reefs are often categorized as nutrient "deserts", the influx of nutrients in the form of particulates and plankton is quite high when the total volume of water passing over a reef is taken into consideration. Our crystal-clear aquaria do not come close to the nutrient loads that swirl around natural reefs. And so when we create low-nutrient water conditions, we still have to deal with the rest of a much more complex puzzle. Much like those who run their aquarium water temperature close to the thermal maximums of corals walk a narrow tight rope, I can't help but think that low-nutrient aquariums may be headed down a similar path." Charles Delbeck, Coral Nov/Dec 2010, pg 127. "Imported nutrients are usually transported to reefs from rivers; but if there are no rivers, as with reefs remote from land masses, nutrients can only come from surface ocean circulation. Often this supply is poor, and thus the vast ocean expanses have been referred to as "nutrient deserts". The Indo-Pacific has many huge atolls in these supposed deserts which testify to the resilience of reefs, but the corals themselves may lack the lush appearance of those of more fertile waters. Many reefs have another major supply of inorganic nutrients as, under certain conditions, surface currents moving against a reef face may cause deep ocean water to be drawn to the surface. This "upwelled" water is often rich in phosphorus [2.0 mg/l] and other essential chemicals." J. E. N. Veron "Corals of Australia and the Indo-Pacific" pg 30 " What was real gratifying was reading Forest Rohwer in ch 5 of his book "Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" discussed how it wasn't nutrients per se that causes algae problems on reefs but a shift in the equilibrium of a reef ecosystem that allows algae to take over. This really resonated as I would see nutrients stay the same or increase as algae abated. Chasing some of the references Forest Rohwer mentioned, there is a far more complicated picture involving microbes, herbivores, corals, algae and the various roles of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC). I'm going a bit off topic, but there's a lot of stuff aquarists are doing that's either not relevant or is detrimental to the long term sustainability of reef systems. I encourage every reef aquarist to read his book. So, back to the problem at hand. Patience. You're not getting rid of algae. You are changing the equilibrium of your reef ecosystem. It ain't going to happen overnight. Expect to see it get worse at times; two steps forward, one back. Changes in the types of algae is a good thing. As far as using any of the various products out there touted for dealing with nuisance algae, I strongly, strongly discourage their use. First of all, they definitely are not at all needed to fix a problem. These products do not actually fix the underlying problem; there's still the issue of why the ecosystem's equilibrium is favoring nuisance algae. Some of the products if overused have the potential to create superbugs which none of us want. Most importantly, corals have a holobiont, an assemblage of various microbes, viruses, cyanobacteria, fungi and archaia which is species specific and essential components of a coral's immune system and nutrient cycling. Much of the holobiont is in the mucus coating of the coral (a portion is internal and a portion is also endolithic, in its skeleton). Anything dumped into a reef system that kills nuisance algae will be killing beneficial, and I'll argue essential, portions of a coral's holobiont. And pointedly, one (if not more) of these products were used in this thread by a previous maintenance company with no effect. Small water changes. These don't have to be weekly. I'm posting links to two threads I've done dealing with nuisance algae below and one had water changes every 3 or 4 weeks. 20% monthly would be a good target number but I've never seen any benefit to going more than 30%. When siphoning, remember, suction strength is determined by the weight of the water in the hose and the height of the surface of the aquarium water above the surface of the water in a bucket you're siphoning into. Use a 1/2" or 9/16" diameter hose; smaller diameter is way too slow and the amount of suction gives poor performance. Larger is hard to control, has a higher suction over a larger area making it harder not to hurt animals, and siphons off water way too fast requiring larger water changes to accomplish the same amount of work. Stainless steel straws can be helpful and they have the advantage of actually increasing the suction strength at the nozzle end of the straw but decreasing the area that's seeing the suction. Below is a video using stainless steel straws to remove palies safely and works well with some aspects of algae removal. At some point straws do slow things down and I rarely do more than a third of my target volume using them. Usually, like I did in this thread and the 1st thread I've linked too below, I will pull out rock and scrub off algae in aquarium water with a toothbrush or small scrub brush. But I have also dealt with nuisance algae leaving the aquascaping in place (see below). If there's anything valuable like cryptic sponges, corals or coraline algae, I'll put a rock back in the tank. Some stuff may not be worth the effort and I'll use dry rock or a quality, quarantine wild or maricultured live rock to replace it in the aquascaping. I have yet, in all the tanks I've fixed over the years, seen one where I need to pull everything out to fix a problem. There are also occasions where I might do select rocks a second or third time, but never to the extent of the initial scrubbing. Remember though we're trying to get the corals growing again so minimize the disruption as much as possible. Here's my second example shifting the equilibrium of a system to favor corals: This is a 4 year old ~200 gallon 4' tall half cylinder on a 42" tall stand. Previous maintenance companies had tried to deal with it with gfo, algae reducing products and reduced feeding (once per week). The first thing we did was remove about half the rock and scrub it off. The first water change was ~25 gallons. We also removed gfo, turned off the skimmer. With the 2nd week we dropped to just 5%-7% weekly water changes with tap water. We also added an auto-feeder set to 8 small daily feedings, ~1-2 grams Spectrum pellets daily total (X6 or X7 for approximate frozen weight). Several urchins were added, a long spine, short spine pink and royal urchins and a couple Mexican Turbos (DO NOT ADD TO MANY SNAILS! short spine urchins like Tuxedo or Royal are the best options since they chew the algae "holdfasts" off rocks ). I removed the squirrel fish partly because it was seriously under weight 😕 The sump was setup to use a filter sock which I used a few times to help remove stuff but was permanently removed in August. The finger corals are gradually being removed, my client doesn't like them but I needed them to compete with the algae until other corals get going. March 3rd April 27. Here's what it looks like during a scrubbing. The height makes it impossible to get to spots even with a scrub brush with an extended handle (I stuck it in a section of PVC). Some of the sand was siphoned off with water changes, rinsed and dumped back in. June 15. A little nit of cyano started to show up. (This didn't happen in Mike's tank.) It was just siphoned off with water changes. July 6. Here's a weeks worth of cyano growth. July 20. And the cyano has stopped. (This step has taken longer in other systems.) August 8. Still got some hair algae showing up but this is 3 weeks worth. Last week. Here's links to my first thread and to my video on using stainless steel straws: http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/34556-hair-algae-a-case-study/?tab=comments#comment-275433 http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/40619-stainless-steel-straws-beta/?tab=comments#comment-340809 I also wanted to share this following experience I had with one of the systems I've maintained over the decades which I think demonstrates a reef system's ability to change it's equilibrium with just water changes. Last decade one of the house systems I had maintained for over a decade was left empty for over three years. During this period I still maintained the system on a weekly basis. On three separate occasions the system was crashed from either AC failures or circuit breakers being turned off. Because the house was empty the home owner chose not to put any effort into any remidiation, just keep doing the basic maintenance. While a few fish and robust mushrooms survived each crash the only animals added were overflow from other systems. As expected because of the dieoff there was a bad nuisance algae outbreak each time. But in each of the three events, in a process that took roughly 6-8 months, the nuisance algae abated. And the only action taken was siphoning out the algae small weekly water changes. No scrubbing, no removing rocks, and each water change left algae in the system. For those wondering the filtration was a wet/dry and no skimmer.

Welcome to the club! Dr. Wright's presentation last summer at C4 on the different responses of genotypes to stressors was fascinating as well as your paper on holobiont immune resopnse of A. millipora! Can't wait to see what your research with captive grown specimens might show! (Your tank size is a little vague though, is it 10" x 10" or 10' x 10'? )

It's a Squamosa, easiest of the Tridacnas but not as colorful as Maxima or Derasa. This system has had a smaller clam species reproducing in it for a while and there is a small one that has attached itself to it. As far as care they don't get any special attention or feeding.

The Pagoda? It was a 3" colony in 2000. I'm guessing it's 35-40 lbs now. I'm not as fond of Sarcophyton and especially Sinularia as I was and try to keep them under 10% of the total coral biomass now (obviously I'm not followin that dictate religiously ). I've had several systems now where significantly reducing their biomass has noticably improved the growth of corals from other genus. I can't say if it's reduced competition for nitrogen and phosphate and calcium (Sinularia use a lot in the spiculules imbeded in their tissue) or if it's due to growth inhibitors (Sinularia is researched for ditripenes as cancer inhibitors) or probably more likely a combination of the two. Anthelia though is a scourge I would avoid with stony corals. After having it in this tank for over 1 years I got tired of it causing problems with some of the other corals I ended up losing a couple nice acros. However I can see Anthelia being used to great effect in a tank with a wave maker where a lot of movement is desired along with having fish that might prey on stony corals. (I've known aquarist to let Xenia take over and kill nice stony corals because they preferred the movement over the colors.)

Thank you!

And here's how it looks in sunlight:

I think I'm a little past due updating this thread. Alk 5.5 Ph 7.9 T 78 Salinity 1.027 Calcium 400

Freind of mine got this cute video of his neighbors daughter talking to Elvis https://youtu.be/D5jHklmdfa8

Freind of mine got this cute video of his neighbors daughter talking to thier 25+ year old sailfin tang named Elvis https://youtu.be/D5jHklmdfa8

Just realized I hadn't posted these links here yet. The below links to the research by Feldman, et al, on activated carbon (GAC) skimming, skimate analysis, total organic carbon (TOC) and bacterial counts in reef systems I feel are important also. Granular Activated Carbon Pt 1 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/1/aafeature1 Granular Activated Carbon Pt 2 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/2/aafeature1 Total Organic Carbon Pt 1 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/8/aafeature3 Total Organic Carbon Pt 2 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/9/aafeature2 Protein Skimmer Performance, Pt 1 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/1/aafeature2 Protein Skimmer Performance, Pt 2 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/1/aafeature Skimmate Analysis http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeature Bacterial Counts in Reef Aquarium Water http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature And here's some thought provoking papers: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/214/16/2749.full http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/umrsmas/bullmar/1979/00000029/00000004/art00011 http://wap.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_48/issue_6/2266.pdf

Thank you! For those wondering the overflow and return lines are under the rock in front of the mangroves.

Couple small things: PO4 is not needed for a coral's skeleton per se, although it does seem to slow bioeroders that are trying to dissolve it when it gets incorporated into the skeleton. PO4 is a limiting nutrient for a coral to utilize inorganic nitrogen for it's zooxanthellae. The coral's symbiotic algae obviously needs it. Coral's also need phosphate to make their own DNA, RNA and proteins including the proteins that make their colors. If an aquarist strips out PO4 the corals have to be feed although if the fish load is large enough and well fed the corals should get their needed nitrogen and phosphate directly from the water before it's stripped out. All the biological process that are crucial are beyond our ability to test. We can't test how much organic or inorganic nitrogen is being produced or consumed daily, we can test for any leftover nitrate but not urea or amino acids and we also can't test for nitrogen that's hidden in DOC. We can't test how much organic or inorganic phosphate is being produced or consumed in our systems just leftover inorganic phosphate. We can't test for the beneficial or harmful DOCs being produced. We can't test for beneficial or harmful microbial activity. And you need to clarify "as is done naturally through diffusion in sea water". Because natural diffusion of PO4 in the oceans shows reefs are sucking it up and dropping levels in waters around them.

Well, where to start. Exactly, nutrients did increase after the hair algae disappeared. PO4 went from 3-4 to 8-10 and nitrate went from ~5 to ~20 mg/l. And I say "disappeared" since it stopped growing in the nooks and crannies and holes where neither I or the various algae eaters in the system could reach so the equilibrium shifted to a set of conditions that was adverse to nuisance algae (for the record I don't believe in fairy dust). There certainly are cases where a system is being overfed and reducing the feeding and/or measurable nitrate and PO4 would reduce nuisance algae. But in my experiences over the last 3 decades I was not seeing an association between PO4/nitrate and nuisance algae and coral growth and that prompted me into look a lot closer at the science since my experiences contradicted so many "gurus". I do expect to see nuisance algae to be the first to react when a system is started or disrupted. I have also seen systems correct themselves (3 times in 3 years in one system) without manual removal, just small weekly water changes and I found it fascinating the process pretty much follows the timeline Nilsen and Fossa laid out for new systems in VOL 1 of their "Modern Coral Reef Aquarium" series. (I suspect many aquarists would be far more successful if they followed Nilsen and Fossa's recommendation to use mostly or all wild live rock and leave a system alone for the first 10 months.) Manual removal of nuisance algae with small weekly or every other week water changes I've found to the most reliable way to shift the equilibrium of a system that favors corals over algae. In Mike's system the negative effects of the increased PO4 has been very slowed growth of the Sinularia spp which uses calcium crystals to give the colony rigidity, the stunted growth of Pocillopora damicornis and the death of green birdsnest.

Thank You! I should but all the parts are off the shelf except the housing but that can easily be duplicated by any acrylic shop. I should have a new cannon design using Cree XPL chip in a few weeks with build instructions that doesn't need any custom parts. I'll also have PAR charts with a couple different lenses but with the 16° lenses available it can be hung way above a tank. Here's a current video:

In my maintenance business I have several combinations. This system does not have any place to grow macro algae or an algae scrubber and after what I have read about the different roles played by DOC released by algae and by corals I would not reccomend trying to use macro algae or algae scrubbers. But if you set on doing so cheato produces far less harmfull DOC than most other algae. I definitely would not use any form of carbon dosing, you're selectively manipulating the microbial populations and you cannot test what you are doing, same reason for not using skimmers. Regarding PO4 there has been a misconception for a long time, unfortunately endorsed by some prominant "Gurus", that just small amounts cause "poisoning" of the coral skeleton when in reality research shows coral growth is increased wiht increased PO4 levels. What is also rarely passed on is the average on reefs is .13 mg/l and upwellinf will expose reefs to as much as 2.0 mg/ and that phosphate is a limiting nutrient for corals to utilize ammonia and nitrate as a food source for their zooxanthellae. In my experienece I don't see any deaths I can attribute to PO4 until levels are at 7 or 8 mg/l. As far as nitrate, forget about it, you need really high levels, way in excess of 100 mg/l to cause potential problems. Corals are competing with algae for ALL forms of nitrogen, organic (amino acids and urea) and inorganic (ammonia and nitrate). So you can see there's a whole lot going on with nitrogen and phosphate we can't test for. Focusing just on one form of each often doesn't help solve any problems. Helping MFrame with hair algae, th PO4 and nitrate levels increased after we got rid of the algae. Trying to get rid of the hiar algae by reducing the PO4 and Nitrate only would have impacted the corals ability to compete and aggrevated the problem.

Requirement was I had to mount the lights flush in a balcony above and in front of the tank as your standing looking at the tank. Lights are offset about 2' so it's roughly a 30° angle. Atypically this makes the bottom front the area with the lowest PAR levels because of a shadow line caused by the front glass. Is it warm!? It's d@mn HOT if I'm on a step stool working over the top!

Yeah, it was really fun figuring out aquascaping that would be seen not only from all directions but with the way light is refracted and reflected from very different angles besides what is typically seen from directly in front or from a side. I was a bit apprehensive designing the lights. They are a long way from the tank and offset from the front. I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least, that I got such high PAR levels on the back side of the aquascaping. I'll do another video after the handrail is done on the glass railings. I've got a couple mangorves now on the island.

Here's a video:

I do not worry about nitrates. What I noticed a long time ago was nitrates do not cause nuisance algae problems and did not seem to impact the corals in my tanks. The simple circle given by Spotte in his book Marine Aquarium Keeping and parroted by many "gurus" since worked for fish only systems but just seemed lacking when it came to reef systems. Trying to find a better explanation and a better understanding I was pleased to find a much better description of the nitrogen cycle in Debeek and Sprung's The Reef Aquarium Vol III. Since then, chasing down papers, I've found it fascinating at how much more complex we're learning the nitrogen cycle both outside and within the coral holobiont. What seems very obvious to me now is we need to think of organic forms of nitrogen, urea and amino acids, and inorganic forms, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as just parts of the total nitrogen in the system. And both corals and algae are competing for the same forms. There's other issues the shift the equilibrium from algae to corals or corals to algae. Beside getting Forest Rohwer's book Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas here's a link to a paper reviewing the research on the cycling of nitrogen: http://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/pdf/S0966-842X(15)00075-X.pdf

Well, there are certainly some individuals that are pleased to see you do so. I'm curious what your thought process was in making that decision?

And here's a current video:

They're all crees. Whites are XPG2 and blues are XPE2. The heatsink is running ~100° F and I've mounted thermostats on it to turn off the leds if the fans fail so I'd expect a typical life span.