BeachBum843
New member
Hey guys. I have a relatively new reef tank set up with 45 lbs. of Fiji premium rock, and i'm experiencing a tenacious brown algae bloom.
It's a 30 gallon tank with 300 watts of 14,000k MH light and an Aqua-C remora skimmer with a MJ 1200 powerhead. Parameters are: ammonia undetectable, nitrite undetectable, nitrate less than 10 ppm, phosphate undetectable, temperature 78-80 deg., pH 8.2, Calcium 420 ppm, alkalinity 10 dKH. Circulation is from a Vortech pump. I'm also employing purigen in the outflow cup of the skimmer and Caulerpa prolifera for natural nitrate reduction, which I pinch back weekly.
Originally, I thought it was diatom algae as it sprang up in small patches and was dusty/powdery an easily removed with a mag float off of the sides of the tank. I added a few snails (nerites, nassisarius, astrea, margarita, etc.) to keep it in check and they've only done a marginal job so far.
Then, the algae started encrusting every square inch of liverock in an algae matt. When a snail does manage to eat through it, you can visibly see the edges of the matt waving in the breeze. It's coated the glass and the substrate as well.
I use deionized filtered water which should strip out all of the phosphates and the silicates from my source water, and with the way it's spreading I don't think that it's true diatom algae. It's possible I have a little diatom algae combined with this stuff.
Knowing that new tanks often go through these microalgae cycles before they stabilize, my treatment regimen has been to cut back the lights to six hours on a light timer and add more snails. Only the astreas seem to be going at this algae with any gusto.
The liverock has subsequently bleached/faded out underneath the matt, as cleaned areas by the snails are now bleach white. I'm worried that the algae has perminantly killed off the pink/purple calcarious algae perminantly.
Aside from daily scrubbing off the rock with a toothbrush (only to have it grow back), employing a small army of snails (probably my next step) and/or tossing out the rock and starting again from scratch, i'm at a loss on what to do.
Any other tips or tricks that would help me get rid of the brown stuff in favor of the pink/purple/blue stuff would be greatly appreciated.
It's a 30 gallon tank with 300 watts of 14,000k MH light and an Aqua-C remora skimmer with a MJ 1200 powerhead. Parameters are: ammonia undetectable, nitrite undetectable, nitrate less than 10 ppm, phosphate undetectable, temperature 78-80 deg., pH 8.2, Calcium 420 ppm, alkalinity 10 dKH. Circulation is from a Vortech pump. I'm also employing purigen in the outflow cup of the skimmer and Caulerpa prolifera for natural nitrate reduction, which I pinch back weekly.
Originally, I thought it was diatom algae as it sprang up in small patches and was dusty/powdery an easily removed with a mag float off of the sides of the tank. I added a few snails (nerites, nassisarius, astrea, margarita, etc.) to keep it in check and they've only done a marginal job so far.
Then, the algae started encrusting every square inch of liverock in an algae matt. When a snail does manage to eat through it, you can visibly see the edges of the matt waving in the breeze. It's coated the glass and the substrate as well.
I use deionized filtered water which should strip out all of the phosphates and the silicates from my source water, and with the way it's spreading I don't think that it's true diatom algae. It's possible I have a little diatom algae combined with this stuff.
Knowing that new tanks often go through these microalgae cycles before they stabilize, my treatment regimen has been to cut back the lights to six hours on a light timer and add more snails. Only the astreas seem to be going at this algae with any gusto.
The liverock has subsequently bleached/faded out underneath the matt, as cleaned areas by the snails are now bleach white. I'm worried that the algae has perminantly killed off the pink/purple calcarious algae perminantly.
Aside from daily scrubbing off the rock with a toothbrush (only to have it grow back), employing a small army of snails (probably my next step) and/or tossing out the rock and starting again from scratch, i'm at a loss on what to do.
Any other tips or tricks that would help me get rid of the brown stuff in favor of the pink/purple/blue stuff would be greatly appreciated.
