polarbear Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 So I recently started to have an algae outbreak in my 90 gallon tank. I have been running GFO and carbon for about 2 weeks and nothing changed. So I went out and bought new T5 lights and a new skimmer. I scrubbed the algae off the rocks and cleaned the sand bed of the hair algae. Now after 4 days of running the new lights and new skimmer, I am still getting hair algae growing on rocks and the sand bed. I tested my water and had the pet store test it and everything was good even phosphates. I don't know what else to do. I thank my calcium is still high. Could this be causing alage growth? Any suggestions would be helpful as I don't want the tank to be victim of hair algae take over nor do I have the money to start over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherita Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 What do you have for a clean up crew? I have found that mexican turbo snails and tuxedo urchins do quite a fine job on the gha. Also, a sea hare will take it down pretty quickly too. I had the fight in my 75g predator tank, the turbos and tuxedo wiped it outl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lamont Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 Maybe your light cycle is too long. Also a sea hare will mow it down pretty fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polarbear Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 Well I have a lawnmower blenny and 4 turbo snails along with about 15 nassarius snails. I also have about 7 hermits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 What are you feeding? What's your source water? How long has the tank been up? IIRC, you moved it from your brothers right? The phos test reads low or zero cause the algae uses it up. High Ca shouldn't cause an algae issue, unless it was a calcifying kind. Manual removal, good skimming, water changes will do the most. The GFO will help too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polarbear Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 I'm feeding a pellet food called spectrum marine formula as well as frozen Mysis shrimp which I rinse in RO water. As for tue water source, I have my own RO DI until and mix my own water. The tank has been set up sine April and yes I moved it from San Antonio. I bought the 90 gallon off a lady over there. Im useing a reef octopus skimmer that I bought this past weekend so I'm still waiting for it to fully break in. It's already pulling out junk but I'm hoping to does more once it breaks in. Will getting a sand shifting goby help with the hair algae on the sand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gonzobob Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 As Rob's comments have suggested, algae is all about nutrients. Algae is caused by too much / many nutrient's in the water. That source can enter the tank via food, water ect. Provided extra nutrients are already in the water additional light (via more intense light or more hours of light) will make the situation worse. If you have algae in a tank the goal would be to clear this up before taking any steps which may provide more nutrient's for the algae. At this point your goal will be to cut the added nutrients. In general terms this can be done as follows: Minimize feeding. As much as possible limit your feeding as follows: Fish and inverts, feed only what is consumed in 3-5 minutes. Remove any unconsumed food. Coral, target feed as possible. Again, remove any unconsumed food Cut the time on lights on the tank. Manually remove as much of the nuisance algae as possible. Water changes to remove as many nutrients as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 Can you post some pictures of the algae. You need to make sure you're not dealing with bryopsis which requires a completely different and much more ridiculous method of treatment. Have you introduced any new coral or inverts lately? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate1 Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 Did you get live rock with the tank? Rock can letch out phosphates and don't show up in test. It's not a cure but three days of darkness will help to get rid of the algae that's there. If you don't get to the bottom of the nutrient problem it will come back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 I'd recommend NOT feeding coral. The caveat being those that require it such as sun coral or other non photosynthetics. Coral food, I would argue, is generally not needed and only contributes excess nutrients to a closed system. Even those that generally recommended as needing food, such as LPS and anemones, get a vast majority of their sustenance from light and fish poo plus whatever they catch floating by when the fish get fed. Have you changed the RODI filters? The new skimmer will help. I'd skip adding fish to the system, it will only recycle the nutrients IF it will eat the algae. When I had a hair algae issue, water changes, RODI filter changes, GFO/GAC, and manual removal were the only things that helped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polarbear Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 I will cut back on the lights when I get home. As for feeding, I only feed once a day and add the food slowly as to not have extra in the tank floating around. I have not changed the filters yet in the RO system as they are only about 4 months old. I am going to replace the DI resin this weekend since it just started to show 001 TDS. I don't feed corals either. I'm going to try the 3 days of darkness this week and then do a water change this weekend. Hopefully it helps. Question: Do I leave the skimmer running during the 3 days of darkness? And do I cover up the tank with a sheet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Alvarado Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 I will cut back on the lights when I get home. As for feeding, I only feed once a day and add the food slowly as to not have extra in the tank floating around. I have not changed the filters yet in the RO system as they are only about 4 months old. I am going to replace the DI resin this weekend since it just started to show 001 TDS. I don't feed corals either. I'm going to try the 3 days of darkness this week and then do a water change this weekend. Hopefully it helps. Question: Do I leave the skimmer running during the 3 days of darkness? And do I cover up the tank with a sheet? Any tank filters - sponges or the like - that you haven't cleaned in a while? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 Keep the skimmer running during the TDOD, no need to cover with a sheet unless it gets lots of window light directly into the tank. Also, do a large water change, say 45g, once it's over. I'd also change your GFO/GAC at that time too. Manually remove as much as you can just before the water change too. It may take a few big water changes/manual removal attempts before it starts to stay away. I battled mine for probably 6 months or so. I am of the opinion that the 'GHA' outbreak so many of us go through is just an ugly stage of the usual algae outbreak that all tanks have when new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polarbear Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 I use a filter soak but I change them out about every 3 to 4 days. Thanks for the advice every. Hopefully things start to look better within the next couple of weeks. Also, the hair algae that's on the sand is more of a brownish color. Is this GHA? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 http://www.reefcleaners.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54&Itemid=81 This is a pretty good to-the-point guide on identifying and treating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bry Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 Polar, I had the same problems. My 90g was getting hair although I had started the GFO/coal a couple of weeks earlier. The GFO was working as I had no phosphates but I still had nitrates and still had green hair algae. I thought about getting another reactor for pellets. What I did was just wait. Yes I added a few more random snails, some worthless hermits and a really cool fighting conch. Water changes do happen every week or two but nothing really changed in my setup and I didn't see those animals really breaking it down for me (I do have one mex turbo that loves hair algae but only on smoother surfaces that he can easily navigate - he couldn't keep up though and I hear some people say theirs won't touch it at all.) So, like I said, I waited. Well I waited and I also cleaned the rocks in my sump, filters on my pumps and some of the glass in my sump. Also made sure I was changing the filter sock every 4 days to a week. It seems like waiting and a little maintenance helped. I wasn't over feeding but I will say that I now have an Apex that helps me turn off the cirulation pumps during feeding. That keeps the food in the water column so more of it gets eaten. But even before turning off the pumps, waiting for the GFO a few weeks longer seemed to help. I hope you have the same experience. Maybe you can also try some of the little things I did above. I used wash the food before I fed it to the tank too but I have to admit I've gotten lazy about that. May be worth a try on your end. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 If it is the same thing that has been going around.. it is not GHA though it looks like it. I had this same problem.. I raised my mg and got results immediately. Believe me, I tried EVERYTHING before I did this because I thought it was GHA. Ended up being some kind of Bryopsis.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bry Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 yeah if it's bryopsis, do the Kent Tech M magnesium thing and hope for the best. It didn't work for me and actually hurt a couple of things but hear good results mostly when I read around the web. Bryopsis is the worst... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 If it's bryopsis try this: http://blog.fragd.it/2008/05/09/step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-beat-bryopsis/ I used tech-m, and had to get up to near 3000ppm on a salifert test kit. Took at least 2 months to get it under control. If your NO3 and PO4 are high, tech-m won't even help until you get them down really low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polarbear Posted June 24, 2011 Author Share Posted June 24, 2011 It's not bryopsis. It's GHA. I looked it up and mine looks nothing like this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 It's not bryopsis. It's GHA. I looked it up and mine looks nothing like this That is what I said too... Good luck.. Here is what mine looked like.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 Im having the same sort of issue. I put 2 tuxedos in my tank, and a sailfin. The SF is eating the hell out of it. One urchin got murked by my condi(hes going bye bye) so I added a couple snails yesterday, cant remember what kind. They seem to be devouring the stuff too. Then again Ive only got a 40g tank. I know mine started due to my timer was messed up and was turning my 10,000k's on at 1am and then shutting them off at 6am. This was in addition to my regular time setting. Also my actinics have aged a bit so Im thinking they are contributing to this. Ive only had the tank set back up for maybe a month or so since I moved it (excess nutrients). I had cyano show up but chemiclean took care of it. 10g water changes every week with RO/DI water. I noticed that if I dose CA it seems to boost the growth...weird. If you figure out what nukes this stuff quick please post it. I am starting to have patches of coraline show up now though...which isnt a bad thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bry Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 I did use API's Algaefix marine a bit too before adding GFO. It really helped but not 100%. After adding GFO, I didn't do the chems any longer and just was patient to get the rest out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polarbear Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 Here are some water test results from today. Ca= 620ppm KH= 107.4ppm PO= 0ppm Nitrate= 0ppm Ammonia= 0ppm Mg= 1400ppm Ph= 8.2 Salinity= 1.024 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bry Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 I think you'd get plenty of coraline w/out adding calcium at this time (to answer your other post). Just a bit of patience and the right color of lighting will get it going. Maybe if you use the Algaefix and turbo snail(s) to clear the rock, the coraline could eventually grow in and help keep the GHA back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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