reddogf5
Active Member
I want to talk about my tank, and hair algae. I was told something along the lines of this yesterday:
"hair algae means you have too much nutrients, and that's your fault"
While not directing this at anyone, I call
Bull
Shenanigans
Let's go over my tank and see how this "too much nutrients" really applies.
My tank was set up in 2012, using RODI from the first fill through today, with dry rock.
I was well aware of “nutrients”, and this was considered in the design, the display was designed to not collect detritus. The rocks are all on a plastic riser to prevent dead spots under them, there is ample room behind them for flow to flush out stuff, and the shallow sand bed is stirred up with every water change to get out the dead bacteria.
For filtration, the first thing is a skimmer to give the lowest maintenance equipment first shot at the waste. Then there is a filter floss/pad chamber, next a chamber for heater, probes and reactors, then the return pump chamber with the ATO.
The tank was great for the first two years or so. But that is easy, it's getting to 5+ that is hard.
Let's consider the "nutrients"
The fish were underfed, way underfed, a half cube or so every other day, ‘cause that food pollutes! In hindsight, this likely lead to malnutrition, and the eventual demise of the fish. The water was changed, rocks dusted, sand stirred bi-weekly.
And yet the hair algae peaked its little head into the tank, and liked what it saw.
Must be nutrients!
Even though nitrates are undetectable by kits, and phosphate is zero or the very bottom end of the scale, and both have been since the cycle finished
Of course the answer to this is The Nutrients are still there! the algae are just getting it before you can measure! Gotta short circuit it!
OK, phosphates are detectable from time to time, let's use GFO. And thus a GFO reactor was added. And the phosphate was generally undetectable. But the algae spread, and killed things. It overwhelmed the SPS in the tank. It grew on the clam, eventually encroaching on the mantle, causing it to recede, and killing it.
Still must be nutrients! What else can we do?
Bacteria! We need bacteria to outcompete the algae and get those nutrients!
And thus began carbon dosing. Which produced a lot of skimmate, that oddly smelled like fresh garden dirt. And the algae budged a little. But then came back just as strong.
By now interest was waning, as the corals succumbed to the algae, the fish succumbed one by one, undoubtedly aided by malnutrition (Nutrients! Bad!), and algae took over the tank.
The GFO and carbon doser kept running, but water changes and cleaning became less frequent, and stopped once the last fish died. Not much changed, at this point all that was in the tank were some euphyllia, and a gorgonian that came with the Tampa Bay rock from the first tank we ever set up.
And yet the algae persisted.
With no feeding.
For two years.
But Nutrients! You are not controlling the Nutrients!
What about the latest thing, hydrogen peroxide! Tried that too, recently took all the rocks out and scrubbed them down in a pan with peroxide. Twice, a week apart. It did knock the algae back, but it returned. But peroxide isn’t really about nutrients, it is just something to kill the algae.
I have tried not feeding, GFO, carbon dosing, peroxide scrubbing (and chaeto on another tank infested with hair algae), none of them were successful in eliminating it.
Now I would LOVE to be proven wrong, if someone can show me a reef that was at least 3 years old, got infested with hair algae, then had it cured and kept it clean for at least 3 years, without a wholesale teardown or algae eating critters and only through P and N control, I would love to see it and copy the success.
The only thing I have personally seen that can reduce hair algae and keep it in check are algae eating fish like tangs and blennies.
I don't know the solution, but I have come to believe the problem is that bacteria lives on the rock. They are good at sucking organic phosphorus and nitrogen out of the water, and cleaving phosphorus from the rock. The bio-film grows, old bacteria die, and get shoved out by the living bacteria. Once the algae gets on the rock, it immediately sucks up that dead bacteria and grows like wildfire. And I don't see how to break that link. Nothing in the sump, or even in the DT - not GFO, not chaeto, not lanthanum chloride - is going to get that dead bacteria before the algae does. And the kicker is that if you do slow down the algae, when it dies, the bacteria on the rock sucks up its nutrients. So promoting other bacteria by carbon dosing can slow it down, but the P & N cycle back and forth between the algae and bacteria on the rocks. I don't think even carbon dosing is going to win out, unless you also eliminate ALL the bio-filter bacteria on your rocks and rely entirely on the carbon dosed bacteria, which does not seem like a stable situation, miss a dose, bio-filter dies, then everything else.
My point is hair algae is not simply “nutrients!”, there isn’t a simple way to get rid of it, and repeating that old wives’ tale doesn’t really help anyone.
"hair algae means you have too much nutrients, and that's your fault"
While not directing this at anyone, I call
Bull
Shenanigans
Let's go over my tank and see how this "too much nutrients" really applies.
My tank was set up in 2012, using RODI from the first fill through today, with dry rock.
I was well aware of “nutrients”, and this was considered in the design, the display was designed to not collect detritus. The rocks are all on a plastic riser to prevent dead spots under them, there is ample room behind them for flow to flush out stuff, and the shallow sand bed is stirred up with every water change to get out the dead bacteria.
For filtration, the first thing is a skimmer to give the lowest maintenance equipment first shot at the waste. Then there is a filter floss/pad chamber, next a chamber for heater, probes and reactors, then the return pump chamber with the ATO.
The tank was great for the first two years or so. But that is easy, it's getting to 5+ that is hard.
Let's consider the "nutrients"
The fish were underfed, way underfed, a half cube or so every other day, ‘cause that food pollutes! In hindsight, this likely lead to malnutrition, and the eventual demise of the fish. The water was changed, rocks dusted, sand stirred bi-weekly.
And yet the hair algae peaked its little head into the tank, and liked what it saw.
Must be nutrients!
Even though nitrates are undetectable by kits, and phosphate is zero or the very bottom end of the scale, and both have been since the cycle finished
Of course the answer to this is The Nutrients are still there! the algae are just getting it before you can measure! Gotta short circuit it!
OK, phosphates are detectable from time to time, let's use GFO. And thus a GFO reactor was added. And the phosphate was generally undetectable. But the algae spread, and killed things. It overwhelmed the SPS in the tank. It grew on the clam, eventually encroaching on the mantle, causing it to recede, and killing it.
Still must be nutrients! What else can we do?
Bacteria! We need bacteria to outcompete the algae and get those nutrients!
And thus began carbon dosing. Which produced a lot of skimmate, that oddly smelled like fresh garden dirt. And the algae budged a little. But then came back just as strong.
By now interest was waning, as the corals succumbed to the algae, the fish succumbed one by one, undoubtedly aided by malnutrition (Nutrients! Bad!), and algae took over the tank.
The GFO and carbon doser kept running, but water changes and cleaning became less frequent, and stopped once the last fish died. Not much changed, at this point all that was in the tank were some euphyllia, and a gorgonian that came with the Tampa Bay rock from the first tank we ever set up.
And yet the algae persisted.
With no feeding.
For two years.
But Nutrients! You are not controlling the Nutrients!
What about the latest thing, hydrogen peroxide! Tried that too, recently took all the rocks out and scrubbed them down in a pan with peroxide. Twice, a week apart. It did knock the algae back, but it returned. But peroxide isn’t really about nutrients, it is just something to kill the algae.
I have tried not feeding, GFO, carbon dosing, peroxide scrubbing (and chaeto on another tank infested with hair algae), none of them were successful in eliminating it.
Now I would LOVE to be proven wrong, if someone can show me a reef that was at least 3 years old, got infested with hair algae, then had it cured and kept it clean for at least 3 years, without a wholesale teardown or algae eating critters and only through P and N control, I would love to see it and copy the success.
The only thing I have personally seen that can reduce hair algae and keep it in check are algae eating fish like tangs and blennies.
I don't know the solution, but I have come to believe the problem is that bacteria lives on the rock. They are good at sucking organic phosphorus and nitrogen out of the water, and cleaving phosphorus from the rock. The bio-film grows, old bacteria die, and get shoved out by the living bacteria. Once the algae gets on the rock, it immediately sucks up that dead bacteria and grows like wildfire. And I don't see how to break that link. Nothing in the sump, or even in the DT - not GFO, not chaeto, not lanthanum chloride - is going to get that dead bacteria before the algae does. And the kicker is that if you do slow down the algae, when it dies, the bacteria on the rock sucks up its nutrients. So promoting other bacteria by carbon dosing can slow it down, but the P & N cycle back and forth between the algae and bacteria on the rocks. I don't think even carbon dosing is going to win out, unless you also eliminate ALL the bio-filter bacteria on your rocks and rely entirely on the carbon dosed bacteria, which does not seem like a stable situation, miss a dose, bio-filter dies, then everything else.
My point is hair algae is not simply “nutrients!”, there isn’t a simple way to get rid of it, and repeating that old wives’ tale doesn’t really help anyone.
