High nitrates and Green Hair Algae

[J_Reagan]

Lol. Vibrant is probably just an algaecide, not a bacterial product as advertised. May be harmful to clams. Can be bought cheaper, such as Algae fix.

I always knew it to be algae help not bacterial product. Never knew this was debated by anyone lol.

 

[J_Reagan]

Lol. Vibrant is probably just an algaecide, not a bacterial product as advertised. May be harmful to clams. Can be bought cheaper, such as Algae fix.

I don’t have clams lol but that’s good to know it could hurt them. I heard clams aren’t easy to keep long past a couple years and that’s not something I’d never go for ya know? Spend 7k+ on this amazing hobby or more like 11k for the dream waterbox 220.6 plus all the high end equipment, just to have something for a year or two. Just my thinking.

 

[Freenow54]

Like say dumping pure bleach in the tank. Kill everything

 

[damsels are not mean]

I dosed it for about 12 months, about 15 years ago, saw no benefit. My mandarin lived for 10 years.

How much did you dose and what benefit were you after? When I fees phyto my tank really comes alive. Amphipods become suddenly very active and my shrimp comes out of his cave which is rare during day usually. Some corals show a feeding response too. I get a similar response from the tank when I clean the glass, but it is not as pronounced and I don't do that as much. I also started to see a lot more feather dusters and sponges when I started.

 

[Garf]

How much did you dose and what benefit were you after? When I fees phyto my tank really comes alive. Amphipods become suddenly very active and my shrimp comes out of his cave which is rare during day usually. Some corals show a feeding response too. I get a similar response from the tank when I clean the glass, but it is not as pronounced and I don't do that as much. I also started to see a lot more feather dusters and sponges when I started.

Can’t remember but I deemed it enough. I went on to growing copepods and rotifers with it instead, dumped them in the tank instead.

 

[Samgumbert]

Hi. i think most of you guys have seen a post like this before. Right now I have a green hair algae outbreak. I’ve been trying to manually remove them while doing water changes weekly.
my tank is around one year old, I’ve got a torch coral, a BTA, GSP, Yuma, and a Zoanthid in the tank. A clown pair and also a hermit crab.
after testing my water the other day, my nitrates seem to be at around 50ppm,whereas my phosphates were low at around 0.1.
I suspect that this green hair algae outbreak is caused by the excess nitrates in the tank.
I want to ask for some solutions to lower and stabilise this nitrate back safely, since I am still a beginner and budget is a bit tight, a reactor is quite challenging for me. I’ve read of carbon dosing with Red Sea NOPOX. Is my tank still considered new and still hasn’t matured yet that the biologal filtration of the bacteria is still low? Should I wait abit longer and not tinker on anything? Or do I need to take action to lower it? If so, what are the best things to do to lower nitrates and maintain the levels at a more safe magnitude? My corals seem to be fine except for my anemone. It’s been doing badly.

So a couple things happened to me. Number one I was using a test kit that was saying high nitrates and I did everything under the sun to lower it and I still had fish dieing ( not every day but maybe one every one to two weeks), so I took a water sample to my local saltwater store and turns out my nitrates where fine but my salt was a touch to high. So with that being said MAKE SURE you use more than one way to test because you can get false readings. And onto the hair algae, I had that issue a couple weeks ago in my 55 gallon tank, I bought two big snails and a lawnmower blenny. And literally within two days there was noticeably less algae and a week later it was COMPLETELY gone. Also I was always told that frequent water changes on a new tank isn't good. I think there is a window of time where frequent water changes are good. My tank is 2.5 years old and I do one every 2-3 months and according to testing it doesn't need it, I just do It for my own sanity. Anyway hope this helps in some way ! Good luck ! PS don't get discouraged ! It sucks when you can't figure something out but when you do it's a learning experience and great satisfaction !!

 

[J_Reagan]

So a couple things happened to me. Number one I was using a test kit that was saying high nitrates and I did everything under the sun to lower it and I still had fish dieing ( not every day but maybe one every one to two weeks), so I took a water sample to my local saltwater store and turns out my nitrates where fine but my salt was a touch to high. So with that being said MAKE SURE you use more than one way to test because you can get false readings. And onto the hair algae, I had that issue a couple weeks ago in my 55 gallon tank, I bought two big snails and a lawnmower blenny. And literally within two days there was noticeably less algae and a week later it was COMPLETELY gone. Also I was always told that frequent water changes on a new tank isn't good. I think there is a window of time where frequent water changes are good. My tank is 2.5 years old and I do one every 2-3 months and according to testing it doesn't need it, I just do It for my own sanity. Anyway hope this helps in some way ! Good luck ! PS don't get discouraged ! It sucks when you can't figure something out but when you do it's a learning experience and great satisfaction !!

It’s funny you say that cause I’ve made the same mistake before but I caught it myself with testing. 1.033 to 1.025
Which is insane to think cause when I mixed and tested the salinity in my 32g salt mix tank it was 1.025 so found it very odd. So needless to say even if the salt mix bin says 1.025 I’ll test the tank as well. Should always always test salinity is the lesson learned.

 

[Samgumbert]

It’s funny you say that cause I’ve made the same mistake before but I caught it myself with testing. 1.033 to 1.025
Which is insane to think cause when I mixed and tested the salinity in my 32g salt mix tank it was 1.025 so found it very odd. So needless to say even if the salt mix bin says 1.025 I’ll test the tank as well. Should always always test salinity is the lesson learned.

Yea man, I was keeping it at 1.026 which obviously is a big no-no. I keep mine right at 1.022 now and everything seems to be great.

 

[damsels are not mean]

Yea man, I was keeping it at 1.026 which obviously is a big no-no. I keep mine right at 1.022 now and everything seems to be great.

1.026 is pretty average for the ocean actually. If anything on the lower end.

 

[homer1475]

Yea man, I was keeping it at 1.026 which obviously is a big no-no. I keep mine right at 1.022 now and everything seems to be great.

1.026 is normal reef parameters, no idea where you got that is a "big no-no"?

1.022 if your going fish only is fine, corals don't like those low numbers, and your major/minor elements would be low with the low salinity also.

 

[Uzair Aiman]

So a couple things happened to me. Number one I was using a test kit that was saying high nitrates and I did everything under the sun to lower it and I still had fish dieing ( not every day but maybe one every one to two weeks), so I took a water sample to my local saltwater store and turns out my nitrates where fine but my salt was a touch to high. So with that being said MAKE SURE you use more than one way to test because you can get false readings. And onto the hair algae, I had that issue a couple weeks ago in my 55 gallon tank, I bought two big snails and a lawnmower blenny. And literally within two days there was noticeably less algae and a week later it was COMPLETELY gone. Also I was always told that frequent water changes on a new tank isn't good. I think there is a window of time where frequent water changes are good. My tank is 2.5 years old and I do one every 2-3 months and according to testing it doesn't need it, I just do It for my own sanity. Anyway hope this helps in some way ! Good luck ! PS don't get discouraged ! It sucks when you can't figure something out but when you do it's a learning experience and great satisfaction !!

Thanks for the advice! Ive just bought a relatively big turbo snail, just 1. Just in case it still had too little to eat if the algae was gone.

 

[Spare time]

Been dosing phyto for over a year in my 200gal. and tank does'nt look any different to my eye. In my opinion its a waste of time and money. I think it's more of a fad, just like cooking rocks were 10 years ago. Why put something in only to have your skimmer go nuts take it out?

I wouldn't call phyto a fad. Its a food. Whether it survives long enough in a tank (before being eaten) to consume nitrate and phosphate is another question that a think heavily depends on the tank, how much phyto is being dosed and how long someone has been dosing the phyto.


PS That is one reason I don't run a skimmer. I keep a lot of filter feeders and a skimmer is counter productive for me

 

[ReefGeezer]

Water changes will go a long way toward solving your problem. You can do 50% changes without stressing the system if you are careful with salinity and temperature. That's probably 10 gallons. This is a no-brainer for a small tank. I would do three separated by maybe 48 hours. Scrub the crap out of the rocks with a stiff brush, vacuum the sand, and do whatever else you can do to remove algae and detritus while doing these water changes. Then get back on your regular maintenance.

 

[Samgumbert]

Thanks for the advice! Ive just bought a relatively big turbo snail, just 1. Just in case it still had too little to eat if the algae was gone.

Definitely a good call, I know I over did it and now I have to feed the lawn mower blenny lol

 

[Samgumbert]

1.026 is normal reef parameters, no idea where you got that is a "big no-no"?

1.022 if your going fish only is fine, corals don't like those low numbers, and your major/minor elements would be low with the low salinity also.

All I know is at 1.026 I had fish dieing and now that I keep it at 1.022/1.023 everything is going great. But I also don't have corals...... Yet lol

 

[damsels are not mean]

All I know is at 1.026 I had fish dieing and now that I keep it at 1.022/1.023 everything is going great. But I also don't have corals...... Yet lol

sounds like you need to calibrate your testing device