Battling Brown Algae on Glass

[JMorris271]

Urchins wiped the growth I had in about 4 days just in time for my display room to flood.

 

[whosurcaddie]

I would do a daily water change. 1 cup out 1 cup in every day. You wont get the big swings and the export will be constant.

 

[nath514]

I will hopefully have a sump plumbed this weekend which should double my water volume.

 

[bat21]

How often do you change your filter floss? I don't use a skimmer either, so my floss gets very dirty very quick. I change it every 2-3 days.

Also, what is your flow situation? Maybe you need to bump it up a bit.

 

[jstack]

Hello,

I have a 8 gallon nano that has been setup for about a year now. For the past two months I have been battling a constant buildup of brown algae that only shows up on the glass. By the end of the week if I haven't scrapped it down every day it completly covers every part of the glass. I never find it on the sand or rock only the glass.

I am running an ai prime with an 8 hour photo period. I use red sea salt and do a 1 gallon water change ever week. I run purigen and chemipure blue as well as filter floss normally. For the past month I have also been using phosban and activated carbon to try to combat the algae but that doesn't seem to have any effect. I feed very lightly ensuring my clown fish finishes what I put in. I forgot to measure my water params before I did my water change today but will measure over the next few days. I use ro water.

Here are some pictures of the algae in question and help would be greatly appreciated as it has been getting worse each week.

polypadspolypadspolypadspolypadspolypads polypads thank me later

 

[Galaxyreef]

Sounds maybe like Dino's/nutrient problem.

 

[nath514]

Thanks for the suggestions. I got my sump plumbed up today which I am hoping will help. It makes it much easier to change out the filter floss and to do more frequent water changes. I am hoping that the next few weeks will show improvements. Here is the sump if anyone wants to take a look

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2561356http://

 

[nath514]

My algae problem is much less now that I have the sump, I also built a protein skimmer last weekend and am hoping that will help as well.

 

[reef master 25]

brown algae

brown algae

Hello I'm still new to the hobby but I'm having a very bad time with either cyano bacteria or diatoms I'm not sure which it is. My tank has been running for about 8 months now so I don't think it's diatoms but my p.h keeps bottoming out but my nitrites nitrates ammonia alk. Is all fine my alk is at 8 all other levels are at 0. My p.h at the moment is just under 8 and that's where it stays most of the time. But just recently it would not even read on the test it was so low but yet everything else was ok. I have a 75 gal. With a hob reef Octo 100ss skimmer and a hob filter which I'm fixing to get rid of and get a Br gfo/ carbon reactor but I can't get rid of this bacteria/algae please help I'm going crazy.not letting me post pictures

 

[Ryan1190]

I have a very similar problem as this - Can't figure it out. I run carbon and GFO. If I let it go a week the glass is totally covered.

 

[Ejb]

I know this is an older thread but I am curious if the problem went away. I am starting to have this same issue in my tank and it is almost 5 months old. I have been running carbon and gfo for a while now and it doesn't seem to stop the problem. My test results are exactly the same as nath514. If it was dinos wouldnt it grow on the sand and rocks? Also I have heard that nothing will eat dinos but snails have been eating this but cant rid it completely. I do weekly 30% water changes since the tank cycled. So I am curious if this problem just went away after a while. My problem started when I changed my light to the kessil a360.

 

[Ejb]

Also since there is not much algae in the tank only on the glass could it really make the readings as low as they are? My corals are happy for the most part, I do think I should stop running the gfo since I believe it is starting to bleach one of my stylos.