Help identify and solve algae problem

[serbusfish]

After I stopped carbon dosing my nitrates spiked, I now have a lot of algae growing. It is brown in colour, some of it is flat to the rocks but most is quite long hairy looking. There are also air bubbles on parts of it. I have started doing 2x water changes a week instead of 1x to try and get nitrates under control. So far I have managed to get them down from 40 to 25. I also put fresh GFO in my reactor.

Here are some pics (sorry for the quality):

 

[Japsican]

Looks like it could be a mixture of hair algae and dino. Does the brown algae look kind of snotty with strands and bubbles?

Any idea what your phosphates are at?

I'd keep up with the GFO, water changes, and also try to manually remove as much as possible. Might want to also think about doing a blackout a few times a month.

 

[serbusfish]

Looks like it could be a mixture of hair algae and dino. Does the brown algae look kind of snotty with strands and bubbles?

Any idea what your phosphates are at?

I'd keep up with the GFO, water changes, and also try to manually remove as much as possible. Might want to also think about doing a blackout a few times a month.

Phosphates always read 0.03. How long can I safely blackout the tank without hurting the corals?

 

[Drewl117]

Why did u stop carbon dosing? It is an easy way to keep nitrates down and cheaper than doing 2 water changes a week. Do you have a big bio load?

 

[serbusfish]

Why did u stop carbon dosing? It is an easy way to keep nitrates down and cheaper than doing 2 water changes a week. Do you have a big bio load?

Carbon dosing killed off most of my SPS, im not 100% sure exactly how it did it but a good theory is the added carbon caused bad bacteria (Vibro I think it called) to grow in excess which infected the SPS and caused them all to STN from the base up. Stopped dosing and the SPS I have remaining survived (apart from the Acros which died due to the spike in nitrate...)

 

[brutuscz]

For nitrates I use a product called AZ-NO3. I followed the dosing schedule until my nitrates hit zero. Now...I have been adding 5ml per day, and it has remained zero. I will attempt 5ml...every other day in my 90gal, and see if it also keep it at zero. It makes the nitrates into a larger particle and is taken out by your protein skimmer. They also state dosing iodine is useful...as it can also be removed with the extra skimming. My growth has been good with no ill effects. I definitely recommend trying it.

 

[OrQidz]

Keep doing what you're doing - going from 40 to 25 on the nitrates is good progress. The GFO may need to be changed out more regularly if you see the algae isn't disappearing. My guess is, it could take a couple months to sort itself out.