7 Month Wild Algae Battle

[tylersarah]

Think about getting a tang?

I'm not much of a fan, I think they thrive in 5' tanks. We do have a Bristletooth Tang, although, he's not interested in the algae.

 

[tylersarah]

Not out of the woods yet, but it's uplifting.

 

[tylersarah]

The magnesium is sitting at 1750 ppm. I've read I can leave it there for weeks, but can it be left until the bryopsis is completely gone?

Noticed a bit of a salinity increase, will reverse with water changes.

 

[aleggett321]

I have left Mg at 18-1900 using kent tech m for two months with no ill affects on anything including snails. Unfortunately, the algae survived too. Guess it wasn't bryopsis.

 

[rocky25]

Nobody has brought this up so I'm going to ask. What are using for salt?

 

[tylersarah]

For the past 8 years, Reef Crystals

 

[rocky25]

algae

algae

We ditched the phosphate leaching Brute container, added DI to our RO unit and TDS and Phosphates test 0.00.

Went with a High Density Polyethylene 55 gal sprayer tank for storage and a 20 gallon brewing container for water changes. Phosphate, an inorganic chemical is leached from many plastics and although, this is perfectly safe for human consumption, we've all seen what it does to reef tanks.

Still waiting to see how quickly the GFO needs to be changed.

Magnesium from Kent sitting at 1700 ppm. Algae is still there, but it's not looking healthy.

This is the thread that began the series of changes to better our tank. Thank you all for contributing.

:bdaysmile:

one of the only ways to measure organic phosphate is elos professional series test kit.

 

[ReeferKimberly]

Just wanted to say I still think it's bryopsis and you are doing the right thing, that tang will probably develop a taste for it once it's weakened a bit.

Also, I just love your scape!

 

[tylersarah]

Just wanted to say I still think it's bryopsis and you are doing the right thing, that tang will probably develop a taste for it once it's weakened a bit.

Also, I just love your scape!

Thanks for the aquascape compliment, still have some coral wishes in mind to fill in certain areas, but I think we're getting close to the desired look.

The hair algae is much shorter and has browned, there are some green patches of short regrowth. I'm going to continue with Mg in the 1700s and turkey basting, GFO and weekly W/C.

Added some turbo snails, they like the pink hair algae on the overflow box, but that's it for now.

 

[ReeferKimberly]

Thanks for the aquascape compliment, still have some coral wishes in mind to fill in certain areas, but I think we're getting close to the desired look.

The hair algae is much shorter and has browned, there are some green patches of short regrowth. I'm going to continue with Mg in the 1700s and turkey basting, GFO and weekly W/C.

Added some turbo snails, they like the pink hair algae on the overflow box, but that's it for now.

Don't give up before hitting the 1800s, that's what I hear everyone else say....with little harm done to anything but the algae.

Also consider adding a few urchins. Pretty sure that is what helped mine the most. Tuxedos/royals.

 

[tylersarah]

Update!

Update!

This was the most problematic area, it's coming around.

As you can see, the Kent Mg is working, it's in the 1700-1800 range. According to the Hanna Checker the phosphates in our water have sky rocketed to .14 ppm whereas, when the algae was thriving and able to soak up the phosphates the level was around .03 ppm. Due to this we've had some filmy outbreaks on the sand. The snails cleaned up the overflow, the bubble algae has weakened and I manually remove it.

We continue with our weekly w/c and hopefully the phosphate level will decrease.

Our chaetomorpha is a sad story, kind of green, but may be dead. We keep a Marineland LED light on it for 23 hrs/day and it has shown no growth.

The battle continues!

I'm really looking forward to how I think it will look in early summer and then we can order some new corals to fill in the awkward spaces.

And check out that healthy sunset montipora! It was a little higher up at one time and almost died.

 

[tylersarah]

After a weekly 20 gal w/c the phosphate in the water decreased from .14 ppm to .11 ppm. So, I'm on the right track, need to keep changing the grotesquely expensive BRS GFO, keep the Kent Mg up and do the water changes til the excess phosphate is flushed out of the system. It does feel good to have a handle on things, I look back at the pictures and remember when we couldn't figure it out.

 

[danil]

Nice progress! About this expensive GFO... you can recharge it or you can look into liquid lanthanum based phosphate remover like PhosFree for pools. I've been using it for four months now (in sock dripping) and it's amazingly effective, convenience to use and cheap. The only thing with it no one seems to have run it for very long time to see any negative effect on tank if any.

 

[BHD]

tylersarah,

So to sum it all up, your main problem was the Gray Brute container that was leaking phosphate into your RODI water and cause all of those algae problem?

I have been keeping my 75 gallons for a more than 5 years now and never have algae problem before. And before I kept a dirty sandbed and only change 14 gallons once or twice a month. Still didn't have algae problem. But in the last year or so I have so much hair algae, uncontrollable. I changed to Bare Bottom, Run GFO in a reactor, and change 14 gallons water RODI every week. But still so much algae. Reading your thread made me realize that I have been using the same gray Brute container from Homedepot for the last 5 years as well. Maybe it is getting old and leaking phosphate into my tank.

Anyway, Thanks alot for sharing your experiences. I will change it to a glass tank or a better quality plastic container to see if it helps.

 

[eskymick]

It's the Brute!!! The same thing happened with me a few years ago. I now use a glass container for RO/DI. End of problem.

The Brute containers are great for salt water storage .. just not for RO/DI.

tylersarah,

So to sum it all up, your main problem was the Gray Brute container that was leaking phosphate into your RODI water and cause all of those algae problem?

I have been keeping my 75 gallons for a more than 5 years now and never have algae problem before. And before I kept a dirty sandbed and only change 14 gallons once or twice a month. Still didn't have algae problem. But in the last year or so I have so much hair algae, uncontrollable. I changed to Bare Bottom, Run GFO in a reactor, and change 14 gallons water RODI every week. But still so much algae. Reading your thread made me realize that I have been using the same gray Brute container from Homedepot for the last 5 years as well. Maybe it is getting old and leaking phosphate into my tank.

Anyway, Thanks alot for sharing your experiences. I will change it to a glass tank or a better quality plastic container to see if it helps.

 

[JimmyS]

I had a problem with my cheato not growing while under 24 hr lighting. I read that macro algae needs 6 hrs of no light to grow right. I changed my light to 18 on 6 off and my cheato took off.

 

[tylersarah]

tylersarah,

So to sum it all up, your main problem was the Gray Brute container that was leaking phosphate into your RODI water and cause all of those algae problem?

I have been keeping my 75 gallons for a more than 5 years now and never have algae problem before. And before I kept a dirty sandbed and only change 14 gallons once or twice a month. Still didn't have algae problem. But in the last year or so I have so much hair algae, uncontrollable. I changed to Bare Bottom, Run GFO in a reactor, and change 14 gallons water RODI every week. But still so much algae. Reading your thread made me realize that I have been using the same gray Brute container from Homedepot for the last 5 years as well. Maybe it is getting old and leaking phosphate into my tank.

Anyway, Thanks alot for sharing your experiences. I will change it to a glass tank or a better quality plastic container to see if it helps.

Yes, it was the Brute. Additionally, we added DI to our unit and lowered the TDS from 2 to 0.

I spent many hours of my life pulling, basting and scrubbing algae. Now that I know the Brute was contributing phosphate it makes a lot of sense. Overall, the amount of money I spent reversing the problem I could have bought the expensive HDPE sprayer tank to hold water in the first place, and a new guitar.

 

[tylersarah]

I had a problem with my cheato not growing while under 24 hr lighting. I read that macro algae needs 6 hrs of no light to grow right. I changed my light to 18 on 6 off and my cheato took off.

I will give this a shot.

 

[Rare Angels]

This is a really great thread and thanks to everyone in helping to get this situation under control. The other great thing was the you tylersarah listen to people, researched various approachs and stuck with it...well played.

Keep up the great work and soon that tank will be ready for some more coral/fish

Dave

 

[MondoBongo]

This is an awesome thread! I've been battling some algae issues of my own, but never thought to check my holding buckets.

I know what I'll be doing tonight.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed here, and Tyler Sarah, you guys do have a really nice looking 'scape.