Algae, cyano, and vermetid snails

[reenact12321]

Hi there, I 'm hoping someone can provide me with a few stages of addressing my on-going struggles with my tank

I setup a 40 breeder with sump about 18 months ago. Things were going very well, I had some flashes of algae, then worms and various fauna came and went. I started installing coral after 9 months, and I had a pretty good thing going. 4 Fish later, and things were still going fairly smooth. Then one trachyphyllia shut down. Hasn't died, but just doesn't extend much anymore. I found vermetid snails on it, Tried scraping them off.

vermetid snails have continued to explode across my tank. I was feeding frozen and was pretty careful not to overfeed and rinse. I've stopped entirely. I've backed my feeding down to only 2-4 times a week and only pellets now.

I'm running a fuge, but I just can't seem to stem the algael growth. I remove it, I change the water, I have a good bit of crabs and snails, and I've been denying it nutrients. After about a week though, the algae is back, and it has a thick kind of goo on top of it that flakes/siphons off easily, I thought it was cyano at first but I think it might be vermetid snail mucus. It is also suppressing some of my polyps and I notice spiderweb type material covering a lot of the rock holding small particles of sand and detritus in place.

Last night I'd had it. I took apart a lot of the rock work and removed as much algae as was humanly possible. Used a little screwdriver to scrape off as many vermetid snails as I could down to the base, and siphoned all the gunk and a little bit of actualy cyano into a sock, and then did a 10 gallon water change while removing even more gunk.

Green/Brown algae still persists, but it's this goo growing on top of it that really concerns me as I think it's keeping the crabs from cleaning it up.

I'll post a chemical breakdown tonight, I don't have current readings.

[reenact12321]

I'm running a 110 SS Skimmer, a phosphate reactor, some chemipure blue bag, and now I'm running socks (I had been not using a sock in an attempt to boost pod production)

[ClownMan727]

How often are you doing water changes? and how much?

[reenact12321]

I had been doing 5 gallons once a week, but someone told me I might be upsetting the balance by doing it that frequently and to do 10 every 2-3 weeks.

This is the same thing as the feeding, I don't know where to stand, I've heard everything from 3 feedings a day to once a week.

[mcgyvr]

Just waiting on phosphate and nitrate readings?

A pic of the "vermetid snails" would be nice too to ensure thats really what they are..
We've had people go crazy thinking they had them and they were just spirorbid worms which are harmless..

And a pic of the algae to identify it properly also..

[reenact12321]

Okay, so I did a 10 gallon water change yesterday.
Salnity: 1.027
Temperature: 76.5 F
Nitrate: Off the bottom of the scale or at least below .25
Phosphate : .16 (rounding up) I'm posting pictures, I'm terrible with the colors)
PH: 8.3

I just dosed calcium today so I'll hit Kh and Ca tomorrow.

I don't dose with kalk currently

Pictures are uploading

[reenact12321]

http://imgur.com/a/2Qim3

My pictures can be found here

[reenact12321]

Nothing? I'll take readings again tonight, get Kh and calcium readings as well

[Bent]

Ok I'll put in my .02 cents

Throw away the po4 and no3 numbers. If you have algae growth, you have excess nutrients. I don't care what a test kit says. We have to export your nutrients somehow, and really there are only two basic ways to do it. Either by removal with absorbent media or bacterial processing or diluting it out (the solution to pollution is dilution) with water changes or added water volume.

Your options for physical removal out of the water column include:
1: soak it up and export it with GFO
2: soak it up and export it by growing algae in a more desirable and controllable location. Either with macro algae in a refugium or an ATS
3: carbon dosing with vodka or vinegar to increase bacterial growth
4: running biopellets

Your option for diluting are:
Increase water change frequency or volume or both.


Granted this is exporting nutrients. I'm working under the assumption that your source water is nutrient free and your not over feeding or have a insane bioload. So just quit testing, and implement one or more of these suggestions to see if the algae growth stalls or dies off completely.

As far as the snails go. The only thing you can do is kill them manually. I know of no predators that will eat them.