Algae ID and how to get rid of it?

[MissSquishy]

This has been growing for about a month now. It's getting out of control. I'm doing water changes, cutting hours of light and food, but nothing. This stuff is tough to get off. It's corse and my cleanup crew are not eating it.

I'm using two tests for parameters and they vary.

Red Sea: 0 Ammonia, 0, phosphate. Maxed nitrates.
API: 0 to 0.25 ammonia, 0 nitrates, and just got rid of nitrites.
Salt is 1.025
Mag 1500
Alk 8.6
Calcium 440

 

[2smokes]

Its called green hair algae.It grows that much because your rocks are leaking phosphates.It will dissapear on its own after a while when the rocks will get covered with a thin layer of calcium that will stop them from leaking phosphates(it takes up to a year and a half).If you want to shorten that perriod you would have to raise the ph because at a lower ph the rock dissolves and is releasing calcium but also the phosphate that the calcium binded.If you kill the GHA chemically i bet you will trigger a verry agressive cyano bloom because the roks will still be leaching phosphates.I would let the nature to follow its course.Patience.

 

[OoNickoC]

Old say your phosphates and nitrate treading are either false or misread. Target feeding the sea apple is enough in that size system unless you have massive nutrient removal.

 

[MissSquishy]

Its called green hair algae.It grows that much because your rocks are leaking phosphates.It will dissapear on its own after a while when the rocks will get covered with a thin layer of calcium that will stop them from leaking phosphates(it takes up to a year and a half).If you want to shorten that perriod you would have to raise the ph because at a lower ph the rock dissolves and is releasing calcium but also the phosphate that the calcium binded.If you kill the GHA chemically i bet you will trigger a verry agressive cyano bloom because the roks will still be leaching phosphates.I would let the nature to follow its course.Patience.

I've seen hair algae as I got it in cycling but this is shorter and very rough to the touch?

 

[MissSquishy]

Old say your phosphates and nitrate treading are either false or misread. Target feeding the sea apple is enough in that size system unless you have massive nutrient removal.

I have a protein skimmer, would that remove nutrients to an unhealthy level?

 

[Tom39]

Looks like it may be mixture of green hair and green turf algae.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[OoNickoC]

Sorry I used speech to text for that (mistake lol) . It depends on the skimmer and your water changes. General sea apples are a big nope in the long term for any size system due to feeding and the massive amount of nutrient export required. Some say they've had them alive for years, yet no evidence (keyboard warriors). If you have a monster skimmer and or a massive macro dump maybe? That all said the only way your getting algae growth of that sort is a huge excess of nutrients. Could be feeding, leaching of nutrients for the live rock, or a multitude of factors combined. The only thing I would try befor nuking that system is maybe some sea urchins or an army of sea urchins you can return.

 

[MissSquishy]

Looks like it may be mixture of green hair and green turf algae.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

I think it's turf. Anything I can do?

 

[MissSquishy]

Sorry I used speech to text for that (mistake lol) . It depends on the skimmer and your water changes. General sea apples are a big nope in the long term for any size system due to feeding and the massive amount of nutrient export required. Some say they've had them alive for years, yet no evidence (keyboard warriors). If you have a monster skimmer and or a massive macro dump maybe? That all said the only way your getting algae growth of that sort is a huge excess of nutrients. Could be feeding, leaching of nutrients for the live rock, or a multitude of factors combined. The only thing I would try befor nuking that system is maybe some sea urchins or an army of sea urchins you can return.

I love that sea apple but he makes me nervous he's going to die and tank my tank lol.
Sea urchins or sponges. Will they upset the apple or corals?
Any specific ones I should get?

 

[MissSquishy]

Sorry I used speech to text for that (mistake lol) . It depends on the skimmer and your water changes. General sea apples are a big nope in the long term for any size system due to feeding and the massive amount of nutrient export required. Some say they've had them alive for years, yet no evidence (keyboard warriors). If you have a monster skimmer and or a massive macro dump maybe? That all said the only way your getting algae growth of that sort is a huge excess of nutrients. Could be feeding, leaching of nutrients for the live rock, or a multitude of factors combined. The only thing I would try befor nuking that system is maybe some sea urchins or an army of sea urchins you can return.

Wait do you think the apple is giving off to much nutrients? You think it's causing the algae outbreak?

 

[OoNickoC]

Your killing it, no offense. So don't feel bad for it, as it is going to die most likely. Tuxedo urchins are fine as long as they have algae to munch on, once it's gone or under control they get returned for store credit. As far as the source of the algae...you'll have to isolate that by tinkering with your own routine. Or you could run a non photosynthetic setup that embraces higher nutrient loads and filter feeding to keep the apple going an it longer before it dies.

 

[MissSquishy]

Your killing it, no offense. So don't feel bad for it, as it is going to die most likely. Tuxedo urchins are fine as long as they have algae to munch on, once it's gone or under control they get returned for store credit. As far as the source of the algae...you'll have to isolate that by tinkering with your own routine. Or you could run a non photosynthetic setup that embraces higher nutrient loads and filter feeding to keep the apple going an it longer before it dies.

No offense taken. But how am I killing it?

 

[Tom39]

I think it's turf. Anything I can do?

Can you provide a bit more information about your tank? Its age, size, equipment, frequency of a water change, light duration, use of RODI, number of inhabitants, feeding schedule and anything else you can think of that might help to build a solution to your issue.
Also, if you can, add the basic info about your system in your signature. This is very useful to others looking at your posts when they are making suggestions for an issue you may have.

 

[MissSquishy]

Can you provide a bit more information about your tank? Its age, size, equipment, frequency of a water change, light duration, use of RODI, number of inhabitants, feeding schedule and anything else you can think of that might help to build a solution to your issue.
Also, if you can, add the basic info about your system in your signature. This is very useful to others looking at your posts when they are making suggestions for an issue you may have.

I have 7 small fish, several corals and a cleaner shrimp and sea apple.
I have a over the bag hang on filter that leads into a 25 gallon sump, which has a octopus skimmer. Main tank is 75g.
Light are usually on from 5pm to 11pm, I target feed daily mostly consisting of frozen Brine shrimp or Mysis. I was doing weekly drops of photo, but stopped cause of the algae outbreak. My tank is almost 4 months along.

I usually do a 5g water change weekly along with an extra gallon or two during the week.
What do ya think?

 

[Smoke Inator]

I had a similar outbreak and its slowly getting under control.
I found my daughter was feeding the fish twice a day.

I moved to feeding less, I vary it but its random once every 1-3 days.
I also started doing lights out for 3 days once a month.

After getting the cause under control, the cleanup is slow I usually use a toothbrush to break it up and remove during water changes. I up'ed my water changes to 20% weekly

 

[Smoke Inator]

I also started using less pellets and more frozen foods...pellets are very dense in nutrients