Algae Woes- Phosphate and Nitrate Ohs...

Bill_Moorman

New member
Pardon the punny title, but I need some help.

I am battling GHA and Turf Algae. Getting frustrated, quite frankly. The tank is a 40b mixed reef with the only inhabitants being two clownfish. Tanks been up since January 2017.

I've got a handful of hermits, and two trochus snails. 1 fighting conch named Eddie.

I have super stable parameters as follows:

Alk: 9 (Hanna)
Calc: 425 (RedSea)
pH: Don't know. Threw away my test per previous post instructions. (Apex reads 8.0-8.3 daily)
Salinity: 35ppt (Apex)
Mag: 1600 (RedSea)
Nitrate: 0ppm (NYOS)
Phosphate: 0ppm (Hanna)

I recognize my phosphates and nitrates are not likely legit 0, but the coral and GHA are using it faster than my test kit can detect it.

My lighting is 2 AI Prime HDs running the David something schedule. (One of the presets from their website.)

I run GAC through a reactor, I skim 24/7 with an AquaC Urchin Pro, I have a sump w/ chaeto chamber running opposite the DT schedule.

I feed rather sparingly (honestly I could feed
more) usually 1 time per day only enough for the clowns to eat. Rotate between frozen mysis, NLS pellets, Mysis Pellets and Flake.

I also reseeded my copepod population maybe a month ago with AlgaeBarns 5280 pod jar.

Everything above seems like I should have a wonderful reef with no algae. Well that's not the case. If I let the tank sit for a week, I hve a forest of GHA that grows on everything. Pumps, exposed rock, overflow weir, the minisule space between heads on my beloved acans, and even the shell of my fighting conch.

I have been manually removing the GHA weekly, but I can't seem to slow it down. Today I got upset and decided to bring out the chemical warfare and added 5tsp of GFO to my reactor. I haven't made any other changes at this point.

I'm not throwing the towel in yet, but I need help. I have been thinking about getting a pincushion urchin to help, but I'm not sure if it would.

Help?




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Sure.. try some GFO for a bit and see how that works..
That small amount is unlikely to be that beneficial though..

An urchin can certainly help too...
Got pics? Often time people over exaggerate an algae "problem"..

How is the chaeto doing? Doubling in size every month? If not then you definitely want to make a change there.. more light possibly..

You can also try fluconazole (reef flux) as a chemical means to wipe it out..
 
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