Ap24?

[ScubaAaron]

My friend has a 24gallon AP and has a horrible algae problem. He also was having problems with his corals not opening and not looking good at all. He recently took the stock hood off and added T-5's but still none of the corals are opening. Today we took the bioballs and clay things out because a lot of people were saying that may be causing the algae problem. In its place we just put live sand and rubble rock and he is getting a light to grow chaeto.

So first of all I am wondering if anyone thinks this will solve his problems.

Second I am wondering if anyone else had these problems.

Third should he put the foam back in or just do sand, rr, and chaeto.

Lastly is there anything he should maybe do to get his corals to open.

oh and all his water perameters are fine which is why we can not figure out the algae problems.

Things we have tried:
turbo snails
grey legged hermits
emerald crabs
phosphate pads

NOTHING IS WORKING

 

[Illuminati]

The reason to leave the bioballs and ceramic rings in the tank is they provide surface area for good bacteria to grow, similar to liverock.
The reason to take them out of reef tanks is that they catch debris and that gunk breaks down and causes elevated nitrates.
I doubt his water is 'fine", if it were the algae wouldn't be there.

Replacing the bioballs and rings for liverock and sand is like swapping out a Ford Pinto for a Chevy Aveo, you think you have something better but you really stayed the same. The rock and sand back there with limited flow is just going to trap detrius again.

Putting a skimmer or at the very least chemical filtration media (Chemi-Pure or Purigen or both) would have been an upgrade.

What is the water source here?

 

[ScubaAaron]

he uses r/o water

 

[laszlo805]

also try leaving the lights off for three days it worked great for me but i had to do it twice
i did it at the first of the month and at the end of the month
it helped me

 

[ScubaAaron]

alright we did a 50 percent water change and i guess it was all red slime and not bubble algae we siphoned all of that out but the hair algae is still left i picked out what i could but he has coral in his tank so any recomendations besides turning the lights off?

 

[ScubaAaron]

alright we did a 50 percent water change and i guess it was all bubble algae we siphoned all of that out but the hair algae is still left i picked out what i could but he has coral in his tank so any recomendations besides turning the lights off?