Little bit of algae

[CeeGee]

I am currently having what seems to be a little bit of a phosphate problem. I am getting a little bit of hair algae on my power head outputs and there is some very fine hair algae on my reeferrocks that I added to the tank a few months ago. I am pretty sure that the hair algae is just a phase I am going through from adding the new base rock to the tank.

My question is that I have a couple of colonies of birdsnest (different colors). On one of my pinks I am getting some of the same algae on a couple of the tips. What can I do to get this off of there? The coral pretty much gets blasted with flow. I am only seeing this on this one colony thankfully.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[wentreefgirl]

I use marine s.a.t. for the hair algae but its hard to find. I also have a phosphate reactor.

 

[CeeGee]

no one else has any ideas?

I was thinking that I should break the pieces with algae on them off.

 

[Wiskey]

I think the problem is the algae, not where it is at. It is likely that there is a bit of STN at the top of that birdsnest as algae won't grow off of healthy tissue.

Perhaps try moving this peice and see if you can make it happy somewhere else? In the meantime attack your phospate problem, blast off the rocks that have algae before a W/C, crank your skimmer up, and see if you can't drive nutreants down.

If you have a SSB syphon it after the blasting settles. If you have a DSB I don't think you can touch it, if you are BB then shut off all your flow, blast your rock, and syphon what settles on the bottom.

HTH,
Whiskey

 

[CeeGee]

I have a SSB and truthfully I would like to get rid of it I just can't afford the high end pumps needed to keep a BB tank.

I like the look of sand but I think I could keep a BB in better shape if I could afford the pumps to get the flow up. I currently have 4 maxijet 1200's + my return circulating water in the top of the tank where the SPS are thus providing medium flow in the middle of the tank and low flow in the bottom.

Will it hurt to vacuum out a little bit of sand at a time until it is a little more shallow?

Thanks for the replies. Things are starting to turn around in my tank and I need to get the phosphate under control.

 

[JRistau81]

My birds nest is in the same boat and yet NONE of my other corals have ever had this problem.

 

[wentreefgirl]

Have you considered doing the maxi jet mods on those maxi's. Not to change the subject. You really need to get the nutrients in check and if you take that sand bed out now, it will get much worse before it gets better.

 

[thebicyclecafe]

Have you checked for phosphates and nitrates? A little bit of algae is perfectly normal, but if it's on the birdsnest then I would be a bit concerned. Breaking off the branches is a bit tricky as then you would be leaving open skeleton for hair algae to colonize. The best way is to remedy the nutrient problem and then break it off or hopefully it will just die off after the nutrients are taken care off.

 

[CeeGee]

nitrates test out at 0 and phosphate tests out close to that as well (salifert test kits). I know that can't be the case though as I am growing this algae on my powerheads every few days.

I have a fuge and the chaeto isn't growing though. There is definitely more chaeto than this hair algae I am talking about so I don't understand why the chaeto isn't beating it out.

I am thinking that I have simply blasted some of the tissue off of the birdsnest and algae grew back over it.

Have you considered doing the maxi jet mods on those maxi's. Not to change the subject. You really need to get the nutrients in check and if you take that sand bed out now, it will get much worse before it gets better.

It is a shallow sand bed so I doubt it is doing very much besides adding to the problem. When I set up this tank everyone said go 1-2 inches for a shallow sand bed and now everyone is saying 1/2 inch or less. I think there is too much sand but not enough to get the effects of a DSB.