bryopsis and hair algae taking over

Jeffs_Reef · 06/24/2012, 04:21 PM

I have a serious bryopsis and hair algae issue that has been running rampant in my tank for about a year. I've been battling this stuff with advice from my local fish store owner and another local professional tank cleaner but nothing has taken care of it. So, here I am. Please help!!!

Some details:
* Established tank ~ 8 years
* 24 Gal JBJ nano cube with lighting upgraded to 1 actinic, 1x 10K and 1x combo.
* 2 x nano koralia's added.
* Removed bio balls and ceramic rings
* Chaeto in back middle chamber with 12 hour light hanging in the middle - grows incredibly fast
* RODI water only - homemade with seachem salt
* biweekly water changes ~20%
* Live rock
* Live sand

* 1 clown, 1 coral beauty, 1x orchid dottyback
* Snails, blue and red legged hermits, 2x emerald green crabs

* Hammer coral - grows incredibly quick in my tank
* Mushrooms

The rest of my coral and livestock has pretty much gone away. I've tried bringing up the magnesium in my tank as well as adding different types of snails and crabs to see if that would help. The bryopsis and algae just laugh and continue to attempt world domination.

The rock, and coral are pretty much covered in algae until I come in with my scaper and toothbrush and do my best to clean/scrape it off. This takes forever and is accompanied by scooping out as much algae as I can, with a fine mesh net.

See attached pics... brutal.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!

Neptunes World · 06/24/2012, 04:34 PM

Well, so many ways to go about it. IMHO, I would try some GFO. I would start with a small portion (you will have to search the boards to see what is good for your size tank) and let that run for a week then up it to twice the amount once everything is accustomed to the original GFO. By then your water should have 0 readings, if not now, and then I would scrape all the algae I could on a weekend, run some lanthanum chloride for a round and then refill the GFO. That should do the trick, or, you could pull everything and cook it as i am sure you have nutrients all up in that tank.

RiddleEagle18 · 06/24/2012, 04:55 PM

I had really good luck with algaefix marine. It did kill me chaeto though. There is a huge thread in the chemistry forum about it.

edit.

After I killed it I got cyano a few weeks later. So moral of the story you still have to take care of the root problem.

brandon429 · 06/24/2012, 05:06 PM

Easy fix, one week. Go to nanos forum, see giant pico reef pest algae problem challenge, see what you think-really man your first results in 48 hours look how many people battled like you needlessly for months.

brandon429 · 06/24/2012, 05:12 PM

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2082359

Taking 30 minutes to read all 28 pages and the pictures/testimonies = worth ur time, imagine in about 7-10 days all algae gone. I keep an eye out on here for all problem growth threads and offer this option.

You have about 5 highly different currently accepted algae control methods, choose lol

Any of these methods if ran correctly has a track record of working, just a lot of different approaches/techniques

Jeffs_Reef · 06/24/2012, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neptunes World

Well, so many ways to go about it. IMHO, I would try some GFO. I would start with a small portion (you will have to search the boards to see what is good for your size tank) and let that run for a week then up it to twice the amount once everything is accustomed to the original GFO. By then your water should have 0 readings, if not now, and then I would scrape all the algae I could on a weekend, run some lanthanum chloride for a round and then refill the GFO. That should do the trick, or, you could pull everything and cook it as i am sure you have nutrients all up in that tank.

Thanks Neptunes World. I forgot to mention that I've tried phosban which seemed to help a bit with glass algae, but not with the bryopsis. I wasn't sure where to put it though, so I have a mesh bag of the phosban under the sponge in the first chamber. Any better suggestions as it doesn't seem to be doing as much as I had hoped?

Jeffs_Reef · 06/24/2012, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RiddleEagle18

I had really good luck with algaefix marine. It did kill me chaeto though. There is a huge thread in the chemistry forum about it.

edit.

After I killed it I got cyano a few weeks later. So moral of the story you still have to take care of the root problem.

Thanks RiddleEagle. I'll look into this stuff. And, the problem may have come after I lost my sea cucumber, and has grown into a major problem ever since. Sadly I have no protein skimmer so I am worried about recurrence even if I could get this under control.

Jeffs_Reef · 06/24/2012, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brandon429

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2082359

Taking 30 minutes to read all 28 pages and the pictures/testimonies = worth ur time, imagine in about 7-10 days all algae gone. I keep an eye out on here for all problem growth threads and offer this option.

You have about 5 highly different currently accepted algae control methods, choose lol

Any of these methods if ran correctly has a track record of working, just a lot of different approaches/techniques

This looks pretty promising brandon429, thank you!
I haven't read all the posts yet, but this seems like a great, potentially easy, and cheap, solution. Should be easy enough for me to try and dip some of my rocks and coral and see what happens. The back wall concerns me, but I'll read through some posts to see if others have dealt with this.

brandon429 · 06/25/2012, 07:05 AM

Great! At least its a fast solution then you can do something different long term. Back wall growth is taken with a razor blade

Neptunes World · 06/25/2012, 04:11 PM

Dont take the razor to anything yet. Think about it. If you have all that algae from junk, which is eating it all nicely, whats gonna happen when you take away the eaters of junk? You have to take it from a neutral state to a minus (starvation) state and then chop the algae. If the GFO you used in the past helped, double up on it. Wait a week for the water to be stripped and chop the back and dump more GFO in on top of what you have. Stir up your sand bed, a little at a time, blow the living heck out of everything and do a water change. If you can get ahold of a canister filter that maybe takes a cartridge, stir/blow, filter and do it again until there is nothing left to filter. Do a water change and start over 2 days later again. Leave the algae alone for now, get the stuff thats feeding it first.

brandon429 · 06/25/2012, 04:34 PM

We each have our opinions lol that's the catch with these algae threads. I recommend not stirring your sandbed and not doubling phosphate remover due to constant threads on coral bleaching, but to each his own. The razor removal is to reset the tank back to clean instead of hyper stripping what corals need to get back to clean, any way you choose-research well.

brandon429 · 06/25/2012, 04:44 PM

One key factor in the thread research is to seek out and find worst-case scenarios using any method, big threads will usually exist for the major methods and if you see recurring themes such as bleaching, trade off infestations (cyano with heavy gfo use) then at least you can plan ahead for the bad side.

In researching the peroxide thread I linked, you will see worst case out of hundreds of testimonies is 1 time it didn't work... no losses though, so it makes a great first attempt. if it doesn't work, strip away!
We discuss in there why phosphate management is often -not-a required component in a clean tank, its an optional method with pros and cons. I have pristine, long term reefs having ignored phosphate for a decade, others fear it meticulously, many ways to same ends

One way to know if you need to use po4 stripping is to clean your tank of algae and chart regrowth rates.
If after being clean your algae comes back as a tiny spot the size of a dime every four months and you simply kill it twice a year or so, you may want to rethink heavy phosphate stripping which is notoriously associated with bleaching corals.

Neptunes World · 06/25/2012, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brandon429

We each have our opinions lol that's the catch with these algae threads. I recommend not stirring your sandbed and not doubling phosphate remover due to constant threads on coral bleaching, but to each his own. The razor removal is to reset the tank back to clean instead of hyper stripping what corals need to get back to clean, any way you choose-research well.

Well, I guess I should have elaborated a little. First off, there is junk in the sand bed. Its not gonna clean itself and all come to the surface waving its arms to be vacuumed. Do a little at a time per every other day or so and suck up the nastys as they are in the water. Thats the ONLY way to clean the sand, unless he takes it all out.

I said to add GFO slowly. He said he still got algae on the glass. I doubt doubling up would strip it clean, and, he has to use his own judgement as to how much it takes to reach a level where it stops growing on the glass and THEN cut the algae back. I really doubt a clean stripped tank will shock corals within a few days. I could be wrong on that and someone thats in the know and not speculation or from reading please inform"us" if I am wrong.

Razor removal doesnt set the tank back to clean in the sense of the word. Look clean, yes, but, algae is actually good for cleaning the tank, thats why it is there. Take the algae away and the tank will be dirtier, until you fix the source of the goo thats in the tank.

Nitro49 · 06/25/2012, 08:34 PM

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1977420

Neptunes World · 06/25/2012, 08:54 PM

He already has an algae scrubber, it is his back wall!

brandon429 · 06/25/2012, 09:08 PM

Yep, all these methods can work I do believe in ATS as well I won't down any method

The thing I care about most is getting follow up pics in two weeks regardless of method chosen, I collect before and after pics of any method! All of it is good science, either way you go.

Jeffs_Reef · 06/26/2012, 11:23 AM

Here's what I did last night:

Used a turkey baster to stir up the tank a bit and syphoned some water out.
Dipped a few rocks in an even mix of tank water and 3% hydrogen peroxide.
Rinsed the rocks with clean tank water and placed them back in the tank.
Added more phosban to my little mesh bag.
~15% water change.

I don't have a canister filter. Would it be worth getting one just to use for cleaning?

I'm interested to see if anything changes over the next 48 hours. I'll keep ya posted.

Thanks all.

blackthunda77 · 06/26/2012, 12:48 PM

Best method that worked for me. Make sure you find out where your phosphates and nitrates are coming from and eliminate that. Last time i had algae problems it was coming from my RODI water. Filters and DI resin needed changing. Once i had Clean water available again i did water changes every couple of days. I also bought a algae eating sea hare. Those guys are amazing at eating hair algae. mine cleaned my 90 gal in about 2-3 weeks and i had to pass him on to another fellow reefer so i wouldn't starve him. Once he is done eating and you eliminated your nitrate and phosphate sources the algae should not come back.

How old are your light? Maybe they are in need of replacing.

blackthunda77 · 06/26/2012, 12:52 PM

Also i read that you changed your phosban in your little white mesh bag. Phosban is alot more efficient when used in a reactor with flow through it. I use about 1/2-1" of media in my reactor. any more than that and i have actually shocked my tank by removing too much phosphates too quickly. They run about $30 at drs. foster and i believe shipping is about $5-6. Good investment. Some people run both the carbon and phosphate media in the same reactor separated by a foam/sponge disk.

brandon429 · 06/26/2012, 01:41 PM

Nice clue catch on mesh bag missed that one

Jeffs_Reef · 06/26/2012, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackthunda77

Best method that worked for me. Make sure you find out where your phosphates and nitrates are coming from and eliminate that. Last time i had algae problems it was coming from my RODI water. Filters and DI resin needed changing. Once i had Clean water available again i did water changes every couple of days. I also bought a algae eating sea hare. Those guys are amazing at eating hair algae. mine cleaned my 90 gal in about 2-3 weeks and i had to pass him on to another fellow reefer so i wouldn't starve him. Once he is done eating and you eliminated your nitrate and phosphate sources the algae should not come back.

How old are your light? Maybe they are in need of replacing.

Funny that you mention this... I just ordered replacement filters for my RODI unit. Last I checked, I think my PPM was ~5-7 but maybe I need to make sure this is always 0. I've had this problem for so long that I think I've gone through a bulb replacement since it started. My current bulbs are coming up on ~6 months so I'll look at replacing these within the next month or so.

Jeffs_Reef · 06/26/2012, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackthunda77

Also i read that you changed your phosban in your little white mesh bag. Phosban is alot more efficient when used in a reactor with flow through it. I use about 1/2-1" of media in my reactor. any more than that and i have actually shocked my tank by removing too much phosphates too quickly. They run about $30 at drs. foster and i believe shipping is about $5-6. Good investment. Some people run both the carbon and phosphate media in the same reactor separated by a foam/sponge disk.

I think I'm gonna stop by my LFS today to see what I can do. The problem is that my 24G JBJ nano cube is a pretty closed system. Adding anything that hangs off the back might be pretty tricky. If anyone has suggestions on how to do this without flooding my living room, please chime in.

Thanks!

blackthunda77 · 06/26/2012, 02:57 PM

As soon as my tds reads more than 2 I usually find that my fresh rodi water has nitrates and phosphates in it. Worth checking out.

Jeffs_Reef · 06/26/2012, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackthunda77

As soon as my tds reads more than 2 I usually find that my fresh rodi water has nitrates and phosphates in it. Worth checking out.

This could very well be a big part of my problem. Will install those replacement parts as soon as they arrive.

Jeffs_Reef · 06/28/2012, 11:02 AM

Update:

The rocks that I dipped in my salt water / peroxide mix haven't changed much. The algae has changed color a little bit which leads me to believe that something happened. Maybe I just didn't hit it hard enough with the peroxide. I think I'll try again with a stronger mix.

I also set up a phosban reactor and have that running with about 1/2 inch of media currently. Seems like it isn't enough to really get that nice tumbling going. As I adjust, the choices seem to be no movement at all or little spots of phosban shooting up. At this point, I have it set to almost no movement at all.

I should get my replacement RODI filters today so I can probably get some better water in the tank late next week.

06/24/2012, 05:12 PM	#5
brandon429 Registered Member. Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3,460	http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2082359 Taking 30 minutes to read all 28 pages and the pictures/testimonies = worth ur time, imagine in about 7-10 days all algae gone. I keep an eye out on here for all problem growth threads and offer this option. You have about 5 highly different currently accepted algae control methods, choose lol Any of these methods if ran correctly has a track record of working, just a lot of different approaches/techniques Last edited by brandon429; 06/24/2012 at 05:47 PM.

06/24/2012, 04:34 PM	#2
Neptunes World Registered Member. Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: 10,000 leagues under the sea Posts: 363	Well, so many ways to go about it. IMHO, I would try some GFO. I would start with a small portion (you will have to search the boards to see what is good for your size tank) and let that run for a week then up it to twice the amount once everything is accustomed to the original GFO. By then your water should have 0 readings, if not now, and then I would scrape all the algae I could on a weekend, run some lanthanum chloride for a round and then refill the GFO. That should do the trick, or, you could pull everything and cook it as i am sure you have nutrients all up in that tank.

06/24/2012, 04:55 PM	#3
RiddleEagle18 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Palmetto, FL Posts: 689	I had really good luck with algaefix marine. It did kill me chaeto though. There is a huge thread in the chemistry forum about it. edit. After I killed it I got cyano a few weeks later. So moral of the story you still have to take care of the root problem.

06/24/2012, 05:06 PM	#4
brandon429 Registered Member. Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3,460	Easy fix, one week. Go to nanos forum, see giant pico reef pest algae problem challenge, see what you think-really man your first results in 48 hours look how many people battled like you needlessly for months.

06/25/2012, 07:05 AM	#9
brandon429 Registered Member. Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3,460	Great! At least its a fast solution then you can do something different long term. Back wall growth is taken with a razor blade

06/25/2012, 04:11 PM	#10
Neptunes World Registered Member. Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: 10,000 leagues under the sea Posts: 363	Dont take the razor to anything yet. Think about it. If you have all that algae from junk, which is eating it all nicely, whats gonna happen when you take away the eaters of junk? You have to take it from a neutral state to a minus (starvation) state and then chop the algae. If the GFO you used in the past helped, double up on it. Wait a week for the water to be stripped and chop the back and dump more GFO in on top of what you have. Stir up your sand bed, a little at a time, blow the living heck out of everything and do a water change. If you can get ahold of a canister filter that maybe takes a cartridge, stir/blow, filter and do it again until there is nothing left to filter. Do a water change and start over 2 days later again. Leave the algae alone for now, get the stuff thats feeding it first.

06/25/2012, 04:34 PM	#11
brandon429 Registered Member. Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3,460	We each have our opinions lol that's the catch with these algae threads. I recommend not stirring your sandbed and not doubling phosphate remover due to constant threads on coral bleaching, but to each his own. The razor removal is to reset the tank back to clean instead of hyper stripping what corals need to get back to clean, any way you choose-research well.

06/25/2012, 04:44 PM	#12
brandon429 Registered Member. Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3,460	One key factor in the thread research is to seek out and find worst-case scenarios using any method, big threads will usually exist for the major methods and if you see recurring themes such as bleaching, trade off infestations (cyano with heavy gfo use) then at least you can plan ahead for the bad side. In researching the peroxide thread I linked, you will see worst case out of hundreds of testimonies is 1 time it didn't work... no losses though, so it makes a great first attempt. if it doesn't work, strip away! We discuss in there why phosphate management is often -not-a required component in a clean tank, its an optional method with pros and cons. I have pristine, long term reefs having ignored phosphate for a decade, others fear it meticulously, many ways to same ends One way to know if you need to use po4 stripping is to clean your tank of algae and chart regrowth rates. If after being clean your algae comes back as a tiny spot the size of a dime every four months and you simply kill it twice a year or so, you may want to rethink heavy phosphate stripping which is notoriously associated with bleaching corals.

06/25/2012, 08:34 PM	#14
Nitro49 Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Posts: 3	http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1977420

06/25/2012, 08:54 PM	#15
Neptunes World Registered Member. Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: 10,000 leagues under the sea Posts: 363	He already has an algae scrubber, it is his back wall!

06/25/2012, 09:08 PM	#16
brandon429 Registered Member. Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3,460	Yep, all these methods can work I do believe in ATS as well I won't down any method The thing I care about most is getting follow up pics in two weeks regardless of method chosen, I collect before and after pics of any method! All of it is good science, either way you go.

06/26/2012, 11:23 AM	#17
Jeffs_Reef Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2012 Posts: 17	Here's what I did last night: Used a turkey baster to stir up the tank a bit and syphoned some water out. Dipped a few rocks in an even mix of tank water and 3% hydrogen peroxide. Rinsed the rocks with clean tank water and placed them back in the tank. Added more phosban to my little mesh bag. ~15% water change. I don't have a canister filter. Would it be worth getting one just to use for cleaning? I'm interested to see if anything changes over the next 48 hours. I'll keep ya posted. Thanks all.

06/26/2012, 12:48 PM	#18
blackthunda77 Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: East Coast/West Coast Posts: 4,887	Best method that worked for me. Make sure you find out where your phosphates and nitrates are coming from and eliminate that. Last time i had algae problems it was coming from my RODI water. Filters and DI resin needed changing. Once i had Clean water available again i did water changes every couple of days. I also bought a algae eating sea hare. Those guys are amazing at eating hair algae. mine cleaned my 90 gal in about 2-3 weeks and i had to pass him on to another fellow reefer so i wouldn't starve him. Once he is done eating and you eliminated your nitrate and phosphate sources the algae should not come back. How old are your light? Maybe they are in need of replacing.

06/26/2012, 12:52 PM	#19
blackthunda77 Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: East Coast/West Coast Posts: 4,887	Also i read that you changed your phosban in your little white mesh bag. Phosban is alot more efficient when used in a reactor with flow through it. I use about 1/2-1" of media in my reactor. any more than that and i have actually shocked my tank by removing too much phosphates too quickly. They run about $30 at drs. foster and i believe shipping is about $5-6. Good investment. Some people run both the carbon and phosphate media in the same reactor separated by a foam/sponge disk.

06/26/2012, 01:41 PM	#20
brandon429 Registered Member. Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3,460	Nice clue catch on mesh bag missed that one

06/26/2012, 02:57 PM	#23
blackthunda77 Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: East Coast/West Coast Posts: 4,887	As soon as my tds reads more than 2 I usually find that my fresh rodi water has nitrates and phosphates in it. Worth checking out.

06/28/2012, 11:02 AM	#25
Jeffs_Reef Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2012 Posts: 17	Update: The rocks that I dipped in my salt water / peroxide mix haven't changed much. The algae has changed color a little bit which leads me to believe that something happened. Maybe I just didn't hit it hard enough with the peroxide. I think I'll try again with a stronger mix. I also set up a phosban reactor and have that running with about 1/2 inch of media currently. Seems like it isn't enough to really get that nice tumbling going. As I adjust, the choices seem to be no movement at all or little spots of phosban shooting up. At this point, I have it set to almost no movement at all. I should get my replacement RODI filters today so I can probably get some better water in the tank late next week.