Tank has been up for over a year and still struggling with poor coral health and extreme algae growth
- Thread starter Thanos
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Like I said I'm going to add 2 female emerald crabs, manually remove as much as possible, and then swap my filter pad weekly. By the sounds of it I had good nutrient import, it's just that there's so much bubble algae that there's nothing left for the corals. I'm hoping that as I get the bubble algae under control, phosphates and nitrates creep back up.
My experience with bubble algae was I killed coral trying to starve it out.
Sounds like you are doing the same.
Personally, if I had it again, I'd just use algaefix and make sure to avoid letting my nitrates and phosphate bottom out.
I've killed way more corals from stripping nutrients than I've ever killed algae.
And it sounds like that is what you are currently doing.
Pulsing xenia dying is usually a sign of really low nitrates.
Sounds like you are doing the same.
Personally, if I had it again, I'd just use algaefix and make sure to avoid letting my nitrates and phosphate bottom out.
I've killed way more corals from stripping nutrients than I've ever killed algae.
And it sounds like that is what you are currently doing.
Pulsing xenia dying is usually a sign of really low nitrates.
Like I said my plan isn't to starve it out, I'm going to try and remove as much bubble algae as possible through the use of emerald crabs and manual removal to free up phosphate and nitrate for coral consumption, until there's so little bubble algae in my tank that the emerald crabs can handle it themselves. My nutrient import is fine, before the algae took over my nitrates were consistently around 10 and the coral looked much healthier.
Why would he want to export nutrients more than he already is if Phosphate is 0 and nitrate below 5?
He has 0 phosphates. He has 2 problems. Bad coral health, which is possibly from the low phosphates, and algae, which in my personal opinion is probably lack of clean up crew.
1. Coral issue: Get your phosphates up above 0 by power feeding or dosing.
2. Algae issue: Manually remove literally all algae from tank by scrubbing rocks and glass tediously. Get a good brush from Amazon. This will lower the production rate. When there’s a lot, cleanup crew can’t keep up. So wipe it out manually, then see if cleanup crew keeps up, if not, add trochus and some other snails to keep it down, and tangs for when snails miss it and it gets too long for the snails to eat.
This is my suggestion and I have been dealing with same issue. It’s not fully solved, but making great progress this way. Have some tangs in quarantine that should be the finishing blow. They’re eating ton of algae of rocks I put in QT lol.
How much CUC you have brotha?
Yep. The algae is taking up all the nutrients. Happened to me multiple times during algae outbreaks. Had to turn my refugium down to 2 hours a day, turned off protein skimmer, and power fed like crazy.
When I manually removed all DT Algae the low phosphate nitrate problem went away.
Dude yes. Low nitrates and phosphates will never stop algae lol. I’ve never seen this happen personally, and many pros say it’s more of a myth than an actual solution. If you lower them too much you may slow it down a bit, but you’ll also sacrifice your coral health. Maybe low nutrients works in fish only, but not if you have coral in my opinion.
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Agree.
Is there anything I can do to help remove bubble algae faster. Like I'm not exaggerating when I say that almost all of the algae in the tank is bubble, I have numerous Trochus snails, cerith snails, and a tomini tang so pretty much all other algae gets mowed down before it has a chance to get going. From what I've heard, scrubbing the bubble algae just breaks it open and spreads the spores, so you have to go slow with an airline and more or less remove the bubble individually.
Test kits will test 0 if you got algae. It’s because the algae consumes it. I feed 2x a day Red Sea AB+ daily got 5 nitrate. I don’t even pay attention to phosphate if I see algae I use some phosphate remover and pull it and doesn’t come back for a while. Cyano is a good example of low to non nutrient algae you could use but if you got wave makers no cyano can stay down because they need still water.
Why change filter pad more often? Your issue is low phosphates. I would even consider turning off the pad.
I think you said you have other algae than just bubble? It’s really more simple than this whole thread is making it out to be.
you need to increase your phosphates for coral health, and you need more CUC for the algae.
When you get the CUC for your type(s) of algae. Do MEGA manual removal to help them get started. They won’t be able to keep up if problem is out of control, so you help them at first.
*edit* I see now you have just bubble. I have always just manually removed my bubble algae when I see it, but I’ve been lucky it’s never broken out. I only see it pop up in small spots once in a while and I take it out quick lol.
Typical solution of emerald crabs is what people always say. Maybe need many of them combined with initial manual removal.
No just pull it out, don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Herbivores break it open when they eat it too. This is a myth because people don't understand correlation vs causation.
I think the concern is by not changing the filter pad more often, phosphates are building up in the system fueling the algae. I suspect once the OP removes the bubble algae manually the phosphates are going to be through the roof.
My short term advice is manually remove every piece of green algae you don't want in your tank manually. Take a few hours and pull everything out-remove the rocks if you need to. Blow off all the rocks and do a large water change. Then fore medium term solution add some additional clean up crew (get different species to keep everything in check) and change the floss/pads weekly and cut back on feedings to export nutrients as a long term solution.
Gotcha, seems like at its core all the advice here boils down to manually remove algae, bulk up the CUC to target bubble algae, and then assess if there's still a nutrient issue once that's under control. Thanks for the advice
I 100% agree. Algae = nitrates phosphates.
Life is an opperunitist if it has the right things it will grow it wouldn’t grow if they were not avaliable.
Do you think it would be better though to eliminate or at least reduce the algae as much as possible before addressing phosphates. I just want to get a clear picture on what my nutrient situation actually is before I start altering stuff.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I wouldn't even worry about the nutrients for the next month-it's just going to distract you. You aren't going to get reliable readings with a massive algae outbreak in the tank. Go hard with the manual removal and once you have it under control, start trending your nutrients again. You need to think of the algae like a biomass of nutrients.
Algae is always going to be in the tank, the key is to manually remove it yourself or have things to outcompete it (CUC and corals).
Once the algae is out of there, you can monitor the nutrients and "ride the line" as people like to do.
I think if people put as much effort into manually cleaning a new tank as they did worrying about chasing numbers we would have a lot less of these plague-level algae outbreaks.
Lower phosphates makes it easier to remove algae. Try yanking green hair algae with a lot of phosphate versus low phosphate. With lots of phosphates its like pulling hair. With low phosphates its like pulling string.
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