Algae

[HarryH72]

Hi All,

I’ve had problems with my tank from starting it about a month ago where my heaters were faulty leading to heat stress death and then white spot / brook wiping out most of my fish. At a similar time everything including rock and sand has been covered in this algae. We are currently day 8/14 on flu however it doesn’t seem to be making much difference. My phosphates and nitrates are both 0 I’m assuming because of the algae. Salinity, temp, and KH are all okay. Any ideas? I am currently adding 6ml a day of nitrates + to try and keep my torch, GSP, toad, and hammers alive.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

what are the parameters? How old is the tank? How many fish? What size tank? What type of lighting and flow? How did you cycle the tank? Can you show a tank pic? In white lights please we can't see blue pictures.

We need a lot more info to help you

 

[HarryH72]

what are the parameters? How old is the tank? How many fish? What size tank? What type of lighting and flow? How did you cycle the tank? Can you show a tank pic? In white lights please we can't see blue pictures.

We need a lot more info to help you

300 litre + 80 litre sump
3 Chromis & 1 damsel
AI blade grow and glow 1 of each
Temp 25-26c
KH 7.7
Nitrates 0
Phosphate 0 - 0.03
Salinity 1.026

Tank has been running since 1st September and was started using colony marine rapid cycle. It’s powered by 2 jebao power heads one at each end see photo for settings.

 

[HarryH72]

Here’s some more photos

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

How much did you feed your fish? what type of filtration system do you have? It seems to look like an import/export imballance

 

[HarryH72]

How much did you feed your fish? what type of filtration system do you have? It seems to look like an import/export imballance

1 square of frozen food and night and a pinch of either flake or pellet food in the morning. Currently a bag of media, 3 filter socks, and a bubble magus curve 5 which is going mental at the moment because of the treatment. It’s been a while since a water change due to having to wait till the treatment to have been 14 days.

 

[Waters]

I would stop dosing everything, cut back on the feeding (eliminate the pellet and flake), and add a large CUC. The tank is only a month old......everything is just out of balance. That is a lot of algae growth for a new, month old tank. You might even want to consider taking the rock out one at a time and scrubbing a lot of that stuff off so the CUC can try to maintain it going forward.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

So that would be the main issue, to give you an idea, I feed 3/4 of a cube to 18 fish. So most of the food you fed went uneaten and the algae is the result. So try to be much more conservative in your feedings.

Are you treating your main tank for disease? This is usually not a good idea. Did you get any advise from the fishmedics? Your tank currently has no fish, so letting the tank go fishless for 60 days allows disease to die out on its own.

Letting the tank go fallow would give you a chance to knock back that algae. You will have to scrub as much of it off as you can, increase the water changes, run activated carbon to help absorb the doc's, and increase the snail population, I don't see any snails. Get some turbo snails, they are awesome for green hair algae.

I don't know about diseases but I strongly suggest you do a more research, maybe even start a new thread in the 'disease' section and ask the proper way to eradicate the disease. Adding medical chemicals to your tank is a huge red flag to me.

 

[HarryH72]

Cheers guys. The remaining fish have been treated with esha treatment for the white spot however that was over a week ago and have been fine ever since never actually showing any signs of illness. The only reason for the dosing and slight overfeeding is to try and bring my phosphates and nitrates up to keep the corals going.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Cheers guys. The remaining fish have been treated with esha treatment for the white spot however that was over a week ago and have been fine ever since never actually showing any signs of illness. The only reason for the dosing and slight overfeeding is to try and bring my phosphates and nitrates up to keep the corals going.

By doing that, you're just adding more fuel to the (algae) fire. If you have an algae issue, increasing nutrients isn't the way to go.

 

[Doctorgori]

0 nitrates seem suspect