After the Holidays......Oh the Algae!! (Pics)

[MrsHaggis]

Hey Everyone,

We had to leave our new tank alone for a few weeks over the holidays.

We came home today to algae like I have never seen before......done my water testing straight away. The Clownfish disappeared on Christmas Eve (12 days after being put in the tank) and my assumption was that it had spiked nitrates and caused the algae bloom but it appears not.......here are my water params:

Salinity 1.025 (slowly increasing it to 1.026)
Temp 26 oC
KH 9
pH 8
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.1 (bit confused as to why it's a bit high)
Nitrates 0
Phosphate 0
Calcium 360
Magnesium 1240

The lights are on from 1pm to 9pm (I'm going to reduce that by a few hours in the meantime). The tank is 360 litres and our CUC is a little bit on the small side - 18 snails (different sorts) and 3 red legged hermit crabs (that I haven't seen since the day after they went in the tank!!). I need to get an emerald crab (you'll understand why when you see the pictures) and more snails.

But why the huge algae bloom?
And what do I do to get rid of it?
And can someone identify all the different types of algae?

Cheers

A HUGE piece of GHA

Identification anyone?

Red Hair Algae?

ID?

It's literally growing everywhere!!!

Black Hair Algae?

ID?

The snails have been busy in parts:

 

[MrsHaggis]

Oh, and I only ever used RO/DI water.
Not even a drop of tap water has been near the tank.

Also, the skimmer cup with full of green slime when we came back!!

 

[stingythingy45]

I see hair algae,grape caulerpa macro algea(where did that come from,is it in your refugium?)and red cycno on the HA.
Oh,looks like bryopsis also.
What a mess.Do you run a skimmer?

 

[MrsHaggis]

Yep, we run a skimmer (Tunze Doc 9010) and we don't have a refugium so the Caulerpa did not come from there!

 

[Little Lucy 27]

Is that a reeeeaaaalllly loooong one? wow...that's actually kinda cool.
Sorry about your problem though.
I may be wrong but doesn't the algae throw off the testing because it is using it (nitrates) all up therefore it doesn't read correctly on the test?

 

[stubby 58]

With that much algae your test will read 0 as all the algae are feeding off the nutrients. What is your TDS on your water (before salt) .

stubby

 

[Chi6488]

So sorry to see that. I thought my algae problems in the past were bad with green film and some on my outflow pipes, and overflow.

 

[stingythingy45]

Yep, we run a skimmer (Tunze Doc 9010) and we don't have a refugium so the Caulerpa did not come from there!

Get that skimmer running at full steam ahead and knock the lights out for now.Look into some of the HA algae chemicals that will not wreck the tank.
If possible,get a phosphate reactor and phosphate removal media.
I know a guy that had a mess of HA and knocked it out pretty quick that way.

 

[MrsHaggis]

With that much algae your test will read 0 as all the algae are feeding off the nutrients. What is your TDS on your water (before salt) .

stubby

Sorry, stupid question coming up.....what is TDS?

 

[Little Lucy 27]

TDS =Total Dissolved Solids

 

[Little Lucy 27]

you sometimes get a TDS meter with a RO/DI unit

 

[MrsHaggis]

Skimmer is cranked up.

Plan for tomorrow is to remove the worst rocks, put them in salt water and get the worst of the algae off them before putting them back in the tank.

We can get to most of them.

We will switch the lights off for a few hours (have to keep them on for the corals - for at least a few hours a day!)

Will try to find the missing fish!

I didn't think about the algae eating all the nitrates......damn it!!

Any other suggestions?

 

[MrsHaggis]

OK, I don't have a TDS meter!

 

[Sk8r]

You've got plenty of phosphate: it's just all locked up in the algae. Skim hard, turn out the lights for a few days: corals don't mind: happens every time there's a big storm like a hurricane. That'll help. But that ro/di is suspect: phosphate has run wild in there, and city water is a bet.

 

[stubby 58]

Ok lets start from the beginning , you use RO/DI water you need to check you output water with a TDS meter which you can buy fairly cheap under 20 US$$ . I change my DI resin when I get a reading higher than 0.03 some ppl say .05 . I hope this helps .

stubby

 

[MrsHaggis]

OK Monday I'm going to the LFS to see if I can get a TDS meter if not I will order one from Tunze! It could be that the RO/DI resin needs changed!

My skimmer is being funny too, when I open the screw fully to skim hard the foam decreases......just trying to fine tune that one right now! What a mess!!!!

 

[Aquarist007]

Skimmer is cranked up.

Plan for tomorrow is to remove the worst rocks, put them in salt water and get the worst of the algae off them before putting them back in the tank.

We can get to most of them.

We will switch the lights off for a few hours (have to keep them on for the corals - for at least a few hours a day!)

Will try to find the missing fish!

I didn't think about the algae eating all the nitrates......damn it!!

Any other suggestions?

The plan is good however I would only remove 1/3 of the rocks and give them a good scrub. You have a relatively new tank by your description so you don't want to chance an ammonia and or nitrate spike by removing all the rock at once.
In one week repeat and the third week do the remaining rock

Secondly take a turkey baster and once a day for the next week really blast the live rock with it. This will get nitrates, phosphates and other detrius back into the water column where it can be filtered out

Thirdly make sure you have a flow of 20 to 40 times the tank volume

Fourthly do a 30 per cent water change now and repeat each week for the next three

Although the rock and possible the water can be sources of nitrates and phosphates so can over feeding esp flake food.
I would feed very very minimally and just once a day for the next while.

Suggestions of phosban and carbon reactors are good but they can't compete with constant importation of excessive nitrates and phosphates

 

[MrsHaggis]

Thanks Captain!

It's only about a third of the rocks that are really bad - you wouldn't believe it from the pictures though!!

I will go on Monday and get new resin for the RO/DI unit and start making water with the new unit - no point in doing water changes with bad water!

Our flow should be fine but I think I may have to change the pulsing to a steady flow to improve things there. The multi controller allows to have the wave makers on different settings.

Turkey basters are impossible to find in France - unbelievable I know. I need to ask my folks to send me one over!!!

 

[Aquarist007]

Thanks Captain!

It's only about a third of the rocks that are really bad - you wouldn't believe it from the pictures though!!

I will go on Monday and get new resin for the RO/DI unit and start making water with the new unit - no point in doing water changes with bad water!

Our flow should be fine but I think I may have to change the pulsing to a steady flow to improve things there. The multi controller allows to have the wave makers on different settings.

Turkey basters are impossible to find in France - unbelievable I know. I need to ask my folks to send me one over!!!

you can use a small power head and direct it at the rock to clean them off if you can't get a hold of a turkey baster

good luck and keep us posted on how you make out. It make take 3 or 4 weeks but eventually it is possible to starve out the algae.

Also consider a foxface for a permament resident in your tank---they eat a great deal of algae varieties.

 

[BethanyM]

I was wondering, did you go away for a few weeks and leave the tank in care of someone? Or just didn't have the time to mess in it for the holidays? Not bashing you if it was the latter, I do that all the time. Just wondering if your tank sitter had no idea how much to feed.

I left a 40L cichlid tank in the care of an aunt for 3 days and came back to find about 12+ tubifex cubes rotting in it. (she was only supposed to feed the cats)