Is my lighting causing algae?

[plancton]

So this is how it started guys;

Its a 175gal tank,was lighted by T5 lighting brand JBL 5x 15000k 80 watt bulbs and 3xatinic 80 watt bulb.
Each bulb has individual parabolic reflector. ICECAP ballasts.

The tank was fine for a year with little algae blooms here and then, but I didn't change the lights for a long time, and more algae started to grow.

So when I saw that, I changed the bulbs, same brand, but less bulbs and different lineup. I did this because 8 bulbs was to much so now I keep 6 bulbs total.

Before the lineup was like this



After it became like this



I do water changes every 2 weeks, I use seachem salt mix, I have a phosphate reactor, Fuge with Caulerpa, RO unit with new filters, only 7 fish, the largest one is a 2.5 inch blue tang.

I do not overfeed.

I have an ASM G3 skimmer which I clean often.

fotoperiod is atinics 12 hours and 15000k 8 hours aday.

Nitrates read 0 phosphates 0, but alge grows like crazy my only possible explanation so far is that algae grew so fast that when nutrients are low then the algae dies and this dead algae feeds new algae.
Either that or there's a problem with the distribution of the light or something, the bulbs are 6 months old now.

This is how the tank looks now

[masonicman]

Wow that's alot of algea..... I was just about to try and answer but based on your details. I'm stumped with this one. That's alot of algea. I'll leave this one up to the experts

[plancton]

Yeah to be honest with you, its crazy, specially when I can't find the reasons.

[DT's_Reef]

Be sure to check your magnesium level, as well as alkalinity and calcium.

Your magnesium should be around 1250-1300'ish.

I believe that when the balance of the water isn't ideal for your corals to grow, they can't use up nutrients in the water and algae takes hold.

I bet your magnesium is low.

Check your water, fix it if needed, feed every other day a little, make sure skimmer is skimming well, clear out what algae you can.

I doubt it's your lights. My tank used to look like yours a long time ago and my magnesium was really low. When I fixed it and the alk/calcium level, presto, it cleared up fast and hasn't returned.

[tkeracer619]

You don't show nitrates and phosphates because the algae is using them up.

Suck that stuff out daily with a small hose. I prefer a hard plastic tube with a soft hose attached to the end. Toothbrush the stuff if you have too.

Confirm you have 0tds water, if a single DI doesn't get you this add a second canister. Start doing 10-20% weekly water changes and change your phosban. Phosban does not last long at all trying to pull phosphates out of all that algae, probably in the range of hours. You need to get ahead of the curve for it to last longer then a few days.

I also think you should check out mag and boost it to 1300.

Remove any filterpad, bioballs, or detritus in the sump.

Have you modded your skimmer at all? You need to pull more out. If you can make it skim wetter or do the mesh/gatevalve mods that would help.

[Chihuahua6]

If you have a shallow sand bed (nonfunctioning) it will serve as a waste trap unless you clean it. I have a very shallow bed of coarse sand that I vacuum every week along with water changes. I also blow off the rocks with each water change to remove as much as the trapped detritus as possible.

I feel that after some time our tanks can trap too much detritus to be processed and then algae problems occur. If I were you I would vacuum out your sand, remove the rock to a bucket of tank water and manually remove the algae and then swish around the rock to remove the trapped detritus. Just basically do a big clean up and then a big water change. When you see what comes out of that sand and rock you will see what the algae is feeding on.

This is my opinion based on my experience over the years.

[plancton]

Ive done that, its impossible, can only suck about 35 percent of the algae out, but it grows so fast that its getting pointless. And yes I have even tried weekly water changes with no success. Yeah I know the algae is using nutrients so fast.

The only thing I havent tried is that mag boost.

I am getting 6 sea hares today, my guess is that if these 6 hares can eat all the algae, which they are really good for, then by keeping good alk and calc level then coraline will start to grow again and this will make it difficult for algae to grow again.

What do you think.

I´m getting

[tkeracer619]

You have to remove what you put in. It does come back, very fast. I didn't say that it would be easy. You just have to keep up with it untill its gone.

You could try vodka dosing. Even then you still need to manually remove the algae.

Another option is "cooking" the rock for a few months in a tub. This would require breaking your tank apart.

[speedo2wet]

them sea hares going to eat it up. I've got some video of one I caught for a little while then let go.. The neatest thing but once the algae is gone think about feeding them some substantial algea

[DT's_Reef]

I personally wouldn't buy all the sea hares....I've tried that too. The problem of course isn't the algae, but rather "what's wrong" in your system causing the algae.

Once the source is gone, the algae will weaken very fast and be WAY easier to suck up via water change.

The sea hares will eat algae and poop it out. I consider them polishers. I've also heard of them dying a lot in tanks and it mucks stuff up again.

Check your magnesium, clean your sand, etc.

[JER-Z]

phosphate reactor

[plancton]

Exactly, but if the source cannot be found, then what?

Right now the most likely source I still describe as algae bloom that went out of control and now even though everything else is good, the algae that dies feeds new algae so fast.

The sea hares are in, although they came very small like 2 inches at most, they are of the variety that dont seem to have hard shell on the back. Are they still good?, do they grow larger?, I used to have a 8 inch sea hare before the whole problem, and it was an algae eating machine, but it was very big too. I don't know if this non shell variety that I've just bought grow that large.

[fasteddie99]

I have been fighting it for about 2 months now. It sucks. I had brown algae a few times but snails eat it right up so it never lasted long. But this green hair algae is a PITA. I think I pretty much have it under control now but every weekend I removed the rocks and scrubbed them all down in a bucket of fresh RO water, rinsed them good and put it back in. It was easy for me to do this because its a fairly new tank going through its cycles and I dont have corals, just a few pieces of LR and 5 fish. Srub them weekly with a toothbrush, srape your back wall while you have the rock out. I didnt want to scrape mine down because I was just starting to build coraline algae but I fealt I needed to. Bought a few snails (turbos worked great for me), got a lettuce nudibranch, and about 20 blue legged hermits. It is still growing faintly in a few places, but I now just reach in the tank and srub what little there is off without removing the rock and let the filters pick up the floaters along with a 20% water change each time.

[fasteddie99]

Check out the hair algae on this poor feather duster.

[Chihuahua6]

Originally posted by plancton
Exactly, but if the source cannot be found, then what?

I told you the source. It's all the junk trapped in your sand and rocks. Take the rocks out and scrub and swish them like the other guy mentioned he did. Didn't he mention his algae is getting under control now? Get rid of that filthy sand. If it's not a deep sand bed you need to keep it clean. If you haven't done that siphon it out and add some new sand.

[plancton]

My sandbed is not very deep, and I always syphon detrius out.

[Akerfeldt]

Can you get a close up of the algae? I'm not so sure it's an algae at all. From afar, that looks like a horrible dinoflagellate outbreak.

I don't see any snails in there either, have you tried any? And if you did, have they survived?

[plancton]

What are you talking about man, thats hair algae. Snails dont do a good job, would need about 200 to make a difference and they are getting expensive, they probably got killed by a mantis shrimp.

[Akerfeldt]

If you don't want help, that's fine.

If you do, I'd suggest getting a close of up the algae. The stuff on the feather duster I assumed was a picture from a different person. The brown stuff in your tank doesn't look like hair algae to me, but then again, there isn't a close up.

I'm not suggesting that you go out and buy 200 snails. I'm asking if you had any snails to begin with. Dinoflagellates release a toxin that snails are extremely sensitive to. If you have them, your snails drop like flies.

[Voltekker]

I had a small outbreak at one point, I raised my magnesium and suctioned as much of the algae as possible. It is long gone, something about magnesium makes the algae not thrive.

[plancton]

I just bought a magnesium test and magnesium level showed 1280mg/l

Would this indicate a problem related to magnesium?

[plancton]

anyone?

[DT's_Reef]

1280 mg is normal, so no, your issue isn't magnesium.

When I combatted my HA problem, I removed as much as I could every day (without spending ridiculous amounts of time) while freshening my phosphate reactor media regularly. Don't use the white pelleted phosphate remover....use Rowaphos or Warner Marine's brand.

I assume you're doing your water changes with quality reverse osmosis water and have verified a low or non-existent TDS. Years ago I was doing water changes with store bough saltwater and boy what a mistake that was, as it apparently became contaminated in the store's storage container, and was the cause of my algae issues.

In my experience, you're beginning to win the war when you find that the algae holds on to the rock more weakly and is easy to pick sheets off, exposing clean rock.

[wetjet43]

A handful of turbo snails would have a blast cleaning up that tank! I threw a few in my tank that started to get hair algae, and I've never seen it since. I have 3 snails in a 55gal tank.

[redfishsc]

I'm pretty sure that's NOT standard issue hair algae.

It really does look like a dinoflagellate invasion to me. I am in the midst of one right now.