Completely redoing fuge because of algae...questions

[TruespeedEM1]

I am battling a severe hair algae/cyano problem in my tank, and I think it's coming from my fuge. My feed pump to my fuge messed up without me noticing and my fuge sat stale for probably 2 weeks without any flow. Now that there is flow going back through, there has been a huge GHA/Cyano outbreak down there and I believe it is now spilling over to my tank.

To give a breakdown of the tank I use Air,Water,Ice RODI, Red Sea Coral Pro salt, ASM G3 skimmer, and TLF Reactor 150. I use filter pads from the drains, and 10 mangroves in the refuge, along with DSB (which is turning black, anoxic or whatever), and LR rubble. Tank is 1 year old and never had any issues like this before. I have completely cut out additives like Brightwall Aquatics products, reduced feedings to once a day, and cut out food soaking products.

When the HA/Cyano started I upped my water changes to 20gallons a week and have been doing this for roughly a month and a half. I have been using AZ-NO3 and Marine Algaefix with no luck.

SO, do you guys think my fuge has become a algae factory? You can see in the pictures it is covered. If this is the case, how do I "restart" the fuge and make it beneficial.

[Palting]

I think the sequence of events give a different story. Here's what I think was the sequence.

Everything going well for a year.

Feed pump to fuge breaks down, fuge is stagnant. More importantly, fuge is now off-line.

Nitrate/phosphate that used to be treated in the fuge are now accumulating in the DT because the fuge is offline.

You find the fuge off-line and restart it. Co-incidentally, you notice algae in the DT.

Fuge is recovering from stagnation, and is unable to handle the increased nitrate and phosphate load from the prior accumulation, and you get an algae bloom both in DT and fuge.

Sound about right?

I would clean out and remove as much algae from both DT and fuge, maybe do a few extra water changes, and give the fuge time to recover it's function. BTW, I don't like mangrove as a refugium nitrate/phosphate consumer. I don't think it's as efficient as real macro-algae.

Just my .02!

[TruespeedEM1]

Sounds exactly right. I cant clean the hair algae out because it seems it just spreads when I do it? The fuge has been doing this for over a month, how long should I wait


everytime I use something like chaeto it just dies off and causes a huge mess

[jcw]

I had a huge hair algae period in my fuge. Even worse than what you have. Hair algae 4-6 inches long. When it was lit and the DT was unlit and cycling. I think the rock I used was leaching something (phos?) as they came from an OLD crashed tank from years ago.

It went away in about a month or so. About that time I started dosing vodka.

Only at the VERY beginning did I have issues with growing chaeto. Then something happened (maybe jump started with Iron supplementation) and I have never since had difficulty with chaeto. I could harvest tons every 1 1/2 weeks.

[TruespeedEM1]

Im the complete opposite, I had a huge amount of it at the beginning, and then all of a sudden it just completely died out, I dont know why but everytime I add it it dies.

I only have a spraybar going into my fuge. Do you think adding a small powerhead will help?

[Iskandar]

I started dozing sugar, added 2 turbos, 10 astrea, 10 cerith snails, added two bid power dads, reduced feeding and upped water changes. Hair algae was gone in a week or two.

[TruespeedEM1]

ive bebn doing this for a month and have had no luck