algae problems!!! need some advice please!

B

brewski4u1

Member
lets start with some back round!
tank specs
30g
250w MH
2-96w pcs
45-50lbs of live rock
40lbs of sand
tank age 3 years old
and a HOB filter 250gph and koraline nano's 250gph for flow

fish 2 clowns
cleaner shrimp
various snails and hermits( kinda slacking in this department)

did a water test yesterday
temp 81
ph 8.1
amm 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
phosphate 0
salilinity 1.026

i'm have been fighting w/ a bad algae problem for about the last month and a half witch was caused by my mistake in forgetting to change bulbs in the tank for a while! well all bulbs are new maybe a month old and i'm still fighting the algae its mostly a brownish green hair algae and reddish but most of that is gone.

to fight it i have been doing 5 gallon water changes every 3 days and trying to suck as much out as i can. the past week i have been removing rocks and scrubbing them and rinsing in separate bucket! that seems to be the most effective way i recently heard pellet food is not good i have been using "ORA GLOW" about 3 times a week but will be switching to night to frozen mysis and thawing and rinsing be for i feed the fish! so what i'm asking is am i missing anything to help get rid of the algae?? or could you give me any pointers or advise!!

also this weekend i was thinking about beefing up my clean up crew big time to see if that helps!

thank you again!
 
Have you had your water tested by someone else?
Where do you get your water from?
Any changes that you didn't mention? (New frags that may have introduced that could have brought it in?)
When was the last time you cleaned your HOB?
How often do you change media?

I'd add a nice CUC soon! I'd say two large mexican turbos, two astrea, 5 trochus, a couple ceriths, and a handfull of nassarius. Hermits are up to you, mainly I only see mine clearing detritus off of rocks (and wearing my past snails shells).
 
-What type of algae?
-How long are you running your lights for?
-What test kit are you using to measure p04?
-Do you run GFO?

Even if your phosphates are 0, which is very unlikely if you use a hannah phosphate meter, they will still be trapped in the algae itself. So when the algae starts to die off, phosphates will be released back into the water. If it's hair algae, manual removal would be best with some CUC to keep it in check.
 
There is always enough N and P in a tank to grow algae. If not, then most ture coral would not grow either.

Sounds like you need some algae predators. Do you have any snails? If not, then remove as much as you can and find some turbo or astrea snails. Turbos will work faster, but are larger and can move some non-secured stuff around. Astreas are good too, but you will need more. The other snails mentioned by saltyllama are good too, but don't eat as much IME. Emerald crabs will do a pretty good job too, but some report that they try and eat fish as they grow. If you get too many snails, you will need to get rid of some of them after they do their job or else they will starve and die.
 
Keep doing what you are doing. But run GFO while you are doing this. A bigger clean up crew will mow it down and then poop phospate right back into the water and then new HA will gobble it up.
Trust me I have been doing what you are doing for months with no luck, it just grows back. Until I got my Phospate reactor, best money I have spent on my tank. Finally I can see the existing HA falling apart and drifting into filters without even scrubbing. And the rocks that I could scrub dont have new growth.
The existing HA that I couldnt scrub is looking very sick. And falling apart!!!
 
You could get your water tested someone said once before that the Meijer they got water from had an outrageous TDS reading.
 
Sounds like a water quality issue to me(excess nutrients) since you already did the lighting these are the two most common causes. You could increase the turnover in the tank 250gph is a bit light even with a power head. A good RO/DI for topoff and waterchanges is a must and It would probably help to increase the size of the changes until it starts to receed. For hair or nussience algae I wouldnt go with snails or hermits for now,maybe get it under control and add a few later but keep in mind your tank will only support as many as there is food for them, I only keep 8-10 of each in my 180
 
Saltyllama said:
Have you had your water tested by someone else?
Where do you get your water from? i get my water from the LFS have had no problem in the past few years
Any changes that you didn't mention? (New frags that may have introduced that could have brought it in?)no new frags but have lost a few corals and shrooms and frogspawn arent looking as good as they used to
When was the last time you cleaned your HOB? i clean it at least every 2 weeks i take it out and scrub it down!
How often do you change media? at least every 2 weeks!
Click to expand...
 
jamesdong009 said:
-What type of algae?it looks like hair algae but no so green kinda brown and green and a little red in the sand bed!
-How long are you running your lights for?PC's 12-7pm MH 1-6pm
-What test kit are you using to measure p04?API
-Do you run GFO? whats "GFO" sorry thats a new one to me!

Even if your phosphates are 0, which is very unlikely if you use a hannah phosphate meter, they will still be trapped in the algae itself. So when the algae starts to die off, phosphates will be released back into the water. If it's hair algae, manual removal would be best with some CUC to keep it in check.
Click to expand...
i'm beefing up the clean up crew this weekend i found something that might work here is what i was thinking of going w/
currently prob 4 turbos and 4 blue leg hermits

this is what i was thinking !
20 dwarf ceriths
9 nassarius
12 florida ceriths
7 blue leg hermits
4 large nerite

hows that look??
 
sam08 said:
Sounds like a water quality issue to me(excess nutrients) since you already did the lighting these are the two most common causes. You could increase the turnover in the tank 250gph is a bit light even with a power head. A good RO/DI for topoff and waterchanges is a must and It would probably help to increase the size of the changes until it starts to receed. For hair or nussience algae I wouldnt go with snails or hermits for now,maybe get it under control and add a few later but keep in mind your tank will only support as many as there is food for them, I only keep 8-10 of each in my 180
Click to expand...

i have switched to frozen mysis and brine and was considering trying "rods fish food" any opinions on that food??
 
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