Desperate plea for algae ID / remediation steps!

[All_talk]

Very nice tank Paintman. Looks like there is some experience there that could be worth listening to.

We have strayed from the topic, apologies to the OP.

My experience says manual removal to get as much of the mass out of the tank as possible , think in terms of nutrient export. Bulk up on a diversified CUC. Check you parameters, but don’t sweat the exact numbers, just get them in the middle ground and give them a nudge if they wander to far. This is true for N and P too, you want more than none and less than a lot. Slow changes, steer clear of quick fixes like chemicals, you can’t expect the tank to be stable if you keep doing different things to it. And patience, your tank is still relatively young and finding its balance.

And I will say again, check out the Ross video, lots of great info.

 

[paintman]

Very nice tank Paintman. Looks like there is some experience there that could be worth listening to.

We have strayed from the topic, apologies to the OP.

My experience says manual removal to get as much of the mass out of the tank as possible , think in terms of nutrient export. Bulk up on a diversified CUC. Check you parameters, but don’t sweat the exact numbers, just get them in the middle ground and give them a nudge if they wander to far. This is true for N and P too, you want more than none and less than a lot. Slow changes, steer clear of quick fixes like chemicals, you can’t expect the tank to be stable if you keep doing different things to it. And patience, your tank is still relatively young and finding its balance.

And I will say again, check out the Ross video, lots of great info.

Some sound advice except for sentence #2. In my opinion a CUC is the most over rated, and biggest waste of money in this hobby. I have read far to many post telling people to throw a CUC or a particular fish at their problem. when in fact 90% of the time the problem was caused by lazyness.

IMO the best solution to most problems in this hobby is to get up off your lazy backside and use a tooth brush, turkey baster, and power filter. I can't even begin to imagine how many fish and inverts have been killed in this hobby for no other reason then stupidity and lazyness.

Keeping a reef tank is the same as any other pet. It takes dedication on the owners part. 30 minutes a week with turkey baster and power filter woud solve 90% of all these problems you read about on R2R. Unfortunately this hobby has become a hobby of the lazy and self absorbed. The hobbyist would much rather say the solved their problem with something sexy like a CUC, Kole Tang or some kind of snake oil they spit int their tank while watching their doser go blink blink on their phone.

 

[Dburr1014]

A CUC should be a must in any system.
But, I do not believe you should randomly throw in 100 snails, 100 hermits, 100 this or that.

Back a couple years ago I had a dino outbreak. When I got over that, gha Set in. Not terrible, just a few spots. Been a year now and still have the spots growing.

Anyway, I went and bought a few snails cuz I only had a few. Only had 2 rather large hermits also. My tank has run this way for years. Just recently bought a couple hermits and some more small snails.
I'm getting ahead of it but building a CUC for your demand instead of overkill is better. A CUC should always be implemented.

And my tank...
With my hair problem.

 

[paintman]

A CUC should be a must in any system.
But, I do not believe you should randomly throw in 100 snails, 100 hermits, 100 this or that.

Back a couple years ago I had a dino outbreak. When I got over that, gha Set in. Not terrible, just a few spots. Been a year now and still have the spots growing.

Anyway, I went and bought a few snails cuz I only had a few. Only had 2 rather large hermits also. My tank has run this way for years. Just recently bought a couple hermits and some more small snails.
I'm getting ahead of it but building a CUC for your demand instead of overkill is better. A CUC should always be implemented.

And my tank...
With my hair problem.

A CUC should be a must in any system.

Sez who? Reefcleaaners.org? Give me a tooth brush, turkey baster, power filter, and 30 minutes of my time and I will do far more good for my tank then any CUC would ever do! Plus I would have the piece of mind knowing that I am potentialy killing $300 worth of inverts or a specialized fish because of bad advice from a keyboard jockey. Or an industry that is hell bent on seperating me from my money.

The OP's tank problems can be controled if not cured of it's problems with just a small amount of conviction.

 

[paintman]

So a MACNA talk by Rich about controlling algea is terrible advice? lol

No, I appaud him, it's perfect advice for the lazy reefer.

 

[Jared Bryant]

No, I appaud him, it's perfect advice for the lazy reefer.

Lazy reefer isn't that an oxymoron?

 

[Crustaceon]

This is a good day for you because I'm going to tell you this is an easy fix and exactly how to do it. You don't have a bunch of coral/fish and your rock work is pretty open, which will make this process really easy. All I would do in this situation is grab a nylon bristle scrub brush and absolutely go to town on the rocks. Yes, the water is going to look really gross. It's not going to hurt anything and your fish will probably just hide during the scrubbing, but will come right back out after you're finished. That's where step two comes in. Do a 50% water change using RO/DI either made yourself or purchased from your local fish store. The key here is using a source water that doesn't have any nitrates or phosphates in it when you mix it with salt and add it to the tank. Make sure the temperature and salinity are EXACTLY the same as your display's water before adding it to avoid shocking your fish. I like to drop a small heater and circulation pump in my new saltwater bucket for a few hours beforehand to prep it for the water change. Once bucket temp is good, use a refractometer and check salinity. Adjust by adding a little RO/DI if salinity is high or salt if it's low, wait a few minutes and check again. PRO TIP: Use two identical buckets and make a little line on the inside of each with a sharpie, let's say 2" from the top. Mix new saltwater to the line in one bucket. Use the other bucket to know exactly how much water to remove from the display during the water change. Last step is clean/replace any filters/filter socks in the tank after the display water looks clear. Repeat this scrubbing + water change routine every week for the next month and then wait two weeks before doing any more water changes. Your tank will look a million times better the first time you do it and you'll feel better because you'll know you're doing something that'll actually make keeping your tank looking this nice really easy long-term. After this month of hardship, just do a weekly 5-10% water change. Start on the low end and if you see algae return, scrub a little bit, slighting increase the water change percentage and wait until the following week to reassess.

 

[Crustaceon]

Sez who? Reefcleaaners.org? Give me a tooth brush, turkey baster, power filter, and 30 minutes of my time and I will do far more good for my tank then any CUC would ever do! Plus I would have the piece of mind knowing that I am potentialy killing $300 worth of inverts or a specialized fish because of bad advice from a keyboard jockey. Or an industry that is hell bent on seperating me from my money.

The OP's tank problems can be controled if not cured of it's problems with just a small amount of conviction.

This is the way.

 

[Dburr1014]

Sez who? Reefcleaaners.org? Give me a tooth brush, turkey baster, power filter, and 30 minutes of my time and I will do far more good for my tank then any CUC would ever do! Plus I would have the piece of mind knowing that I am potentialy killing $300 worth of inverts or a specialized fish because of bad advice from a keyboard jockey. Or an industry that is hell bent on seperating me from my money.

The OP's tank problems can be controled if not cured of it's problems with just a small amount of conviction.

I'm sorry if I upset you.

I would rather keep the toothbrush out of the tank and have my snail do the work instead if I can.

Even pods are part of a CUC.

Just my opinion based on 30 years of reefing not from anyone selling something.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Happy Reefing!

 

[paintman]

This is the way.

Thank you! your previous post was spot on.

 

[cooltowncorals]

Well, I think it’s safe to say the point of asking people in a community setting who have had tanks for along time what should I do for a problem is to gather different perspectives on what to do.

To say that one way is right or wrong based on an opinion when there is ample evidence that many different ways and styles work is wrong.

The reason to have a CUC is more than just to try and avoid tank maintenance they are also interesting and fun to watch.

So yes one could say, do Triton, do Zeovite, do Brightwell, do carbon dosing, run the Red Sea system or say it’s all trash just do maintenance don’t be lazy and can argue THIS IS THE WAY, THE RIGHT WAY.

But the truth is there are lots of ways to successfully run a tank and lots of it has to do with what inhabitants and what you want to keep.

Posters asking for help can read suggestions from different points of view and try things based on their tank and situation.

Declaring one way of tank management as THE WAY is misleading. Seems to me when I have a problem I would like to know what works for others and then decide if it’s something I would like to try for myself.

 

[Dburr1014]

Well, I think it’s safe to say the point of asking people in a community setting who have had tanks for along time what should I do for a problem is to gather different perspectives on what to do.

To say that one way is right or wrong based on an opinion when there is ample evidence that many different ways and styles work is wrong.

The reason to have a CUC is more than just to try and avoid tank maintenance they are also interesting and fun to watch.

So yes one could say, do Triton, do Zeovite, do Brightwell, do carbon dosing, run the Red Sea system or say it’s all trash just do maintenance don’t be lazy and can argue THIS IS THE WAY, THE RIGHT WAY.

But the truth is there are lots of ways to successfully run a tank and lots of it has to do with what inhabitants and what you want to keep.

Posters asking for help can read suggestions from different points of view and try things based on their tank and situation.

Declaring one way of tank management as THE WAY is misleading. Seems to me when I have a problem I would like to know what works for others and then decide if it’s something I would like to try for myself.

Thank you, well said.

 

[paintman]

I don't think anyone is claiming there is only 1 way to run a reef tank. I certainly didn't say anything of the sort. I also never said you shouldn't have a CUC in your tank. Hell I have some snails and starfish in my tank. However mine where added more for givng my tank another layer of interest.

What I did say is that it is overated and a waste of money, when most/if not all of the problems that occur in todays fish tanks can be avoided without the reckless approach of adding a CUC. There are far to many examles on R2R where randoms just go and recomend CUC's because that's all they have read, and only want to rejuritate what they have been forced to swallow by the industry. I might also add that alot of people on R2R have no business giving any advice as most of them don't have a clue as to what they are looking at. Instead these keyboard jockey's will just throw out "up your CUC" because it sounds sexy and they aslo feel better about themselves because they think they gave sound advice.

Furthermore the problems with the OP's tank could have been avoided with a little bit more of a preemptive approach.

 

[littlefoxx]

Hey guys! New to posting to the forum here, but this community has been an amazing resource for me on my saltwater journey the past year. Looking to see if y'all could help with my specific situation:

I've had the pictured tank for about a year now, and over that last week and half I've seen this outbreak of this algae come through twice. I scraped it off 3 days back and swapped out my filter sock / cleaned my protein skimmer, but this stuff came screaming back quick.

I'm hoping that an accurate ID of what this various stuff is can help determine what exactly I should use to get rid of it. I've used chemiclean in the past for red cyano, and algae fix in the past for a green hair algae outbreak. But this stuff looks a bit different, so don't want to commit to using one of those just yet if there's another way I can tackle what y'all see here.

Water parameters:
- will update tomorrow after testing, won't have a chance to test until tomorrow

Other tank details:
- 75 Gallons
- Refugium with a filter cup & floss, octo protein skimmer, and some dying chaeto growing in the last chamber (this stuff used to grow awesome until I had to dose algaefix to kill the green hair algae)
- jebao CP 120 cross wave maker
- last water change was about 4 weeks back

My observations:
- bubbles on the backwall are likely air bubbles stuck to the hair algae
- This seemed to happen soon after feeding nori 2 weeks back after purchasing the convict tang

Thanks in advance and happy to provide any other info to help!!

Hair algae… Im fighting this in my tank now and recently employed a long spine urchin to my clean up crew. He is killin it. Also a lawnmower blenny would help

 

[Dburr1014]

Keyboard jockey's also say don't add a CUC it's all just hard work.

It really good both ways.

My statement was to add a few and see how it goes. I do not ever say add a whole bunch like I have seen. I know they starve and die, I was very careful in my wording.

I never tell people to get out of the hobby of they can't do the work. Yes, I have seen that posted.

We should be more civil how we write postings here.

 

[Reef Knub]

Appreciate everyone's input guys!

I ended up taking the route of scraping off algae, letting it catch in my filter floss each day and discarding it. Did this about 5 days straight while keeping the lights off as y'all suggested.

Pretty much all the algae is gone and growth has definitely slowed.

Any suggestions on how long I should keep lights on each day to limit growth? Also how do you limit growth when you are trying to keep corals if you have to keep the lights on ?