Most SPS Losing color need suggestions

[afm32607]

Okay, I seem to be having a number of problems with my reef tank at the moment. They are all probably related but I am out of ideas as to how to deal with them. So I will take any suggestions. Please read through my post, I am sorry it is long, and let me know if there is anything else I need to try. I am at the point that I want to bleach the whole tank and start over if there is another equally drastic measure to get rid of algae I am all ears.

Problems:
1) I have had a steady growth of algae since I stopped dosing carbon in Early 2014 (I stopped dosing because my coral all bleached out and supplemental feeding didn't seem to be having any impact on their coloration). The algae is invasive, inedible, and exceptionally difficult to remove manually (I believe it is maidens hair/turtle weeds).

2) Almost all of my SPS have faded in color. I have a green slimer that is brown, some pale pink montipora that were orange a several months ago, a rainbow montipora that has vivid green polyps and no other color, and a few other corals that a similarly faded.

Background:
Coral color was good (sorta) up until a few months ago when, in a fed up effort to rid my tank of these massive amounts of algae, I brought back carbon dosing, despite NEVER having had any significant Nitrate nor measurable Phosphate levels I did, at one point, have a fairly algae free tank.

While the coral were healthy before the carbon dosing the algae was becoming a significant problem, it was clogging the overflow, out-competing the corals for space (from the zoas on the bottom to the SPS coral on top), covering the glass, and in general looking like crap. It was because of this algae that I decided to bring back the carbon dosing and run the tank so low on Nitrate and Phosphate I would finally get rid of all of it.

I realize the carbon dosing is probably (most likely) the reason for the corals current predicament. However if I don't get rid of the algae the coral will die anyway as the constant movement when I had to pull algae off their rocks and the competition for space and nutrients was killing the corals anyway.

A few things about my tank:
1) I add 4 ml a day NoPoX;

2) I make biweekly water changes of around 25% with RO/DI water;

3) I have a Diable 200xs (or 250 i don't recall) skimmer that fills with about 2 inches of green skimmate (color of dark green green tea). It is cleaned every three days;

4) Lighting:
4x Bulb ATI Powermodule with 2x coral plus bulbs, 1x ATI Super Actinic, and 1x 50/50 ATI bulb (forget the actual name); (on 2 bulbs for 6 hours and 4 bulbs for 3 hours)
One Reef Brite XHO Blue LED Strip; (on 10 hours a day)
Par (Apogee Par meter) is about 200 on the sand bed and 350 where the SPS are. Bulbs get replaced once a year in late July.

5) Water Values:
Nitrate: 0 ppm - Rea Sea Kit (Have also used API and Sea Chem)
Phosphate: 0 ppm - Hanna Checker (Have also tried API and Salifert)
Salinity - 35 ppt - Refractometer
Calcium - 375 ppm - Salifert
Alkalinity - 7.7-8.0 - Salifert
Magnesium - 1305 - Salifert

6) Feeding:
3x per week i feed 1/4 sheet of nori to a Kole Tang
3x per week I feed one rinsed cube of mysis
4x per week I feed a few pinches of NLS Pellets (on days they don't get frozen)

7) Live Stock:
1x Blood Shrimp
10x Banded Trochus Snails (Complete guess at this point I haven't bought any snails in over a year)
10x Blue legged dwarf hermits (Also a guess for the same reason)
2x Clown Fish (Mated pair)
1x Mandarin Goby (three years old at this point)
1x Kole Tang
Several typs of Coral (Montipora (encrusting and plating), Birdsnest, Acropora, Chrisata Corals, Palys, Zoas, Dendrophylia, one hearty ricordia (had it for three years has never grown or split), and a War Coral.

8) Things I have tried to rid myself of the algae over the past 4 years but it just keeps growing:
a) Lights out periods (after a week in the past I have no impact on the algae, though have only tried once since resuming carbon);

b) Refugium - With no discernible Nitrate/Phosphate the algae just dies, also most research seems to point to the requirement of a refugium needing to be gigantic to make a discernible difference for nitrate removal;

c) Carbon Dosing - including bio pellets, currently using liquid carbon

d) GFO - Tried with both types of carbon dosing, with no carbon dosing, with weekly, bi-weekly, monthly change outs, in reactors and passively, with GAC and without, Brands included - BRS premium GFO, Two Little Fishes, ROWAPhos, Regular BRS brand, and Premium Aquatics Bulk.

e) Natural Grazing pressure - Including Kole Tang, sea urchins, emerald crabs, hermit crabs, turbo snails, trochus snails, astrea snails, lawnmower blenny, nothing seems to touch the algae they either end up starving (urchin), eating corals (emeralds), or not eating the algae.

f) Scrubbing the rocks - this seems to be the best way to get rid of the algae, however it does not make for a permanent fix and generally winds up with me killing a fish or a half dozen coral frags in the process. Further, my larger coral frags are now the size of baseballs and bread plates so the rocks they are living on are no longer able to be removed for an extended period of time (though last time I took the tank apart (three four months ago to move it to the basement I did scrub the rocks off). Each week I do pull out some of the algae using bone cutters (coral cutter thing) I at least halfway fill an x-large acclimation jar with the algae.

g) Adding new rocks - this is a new thing I have been trying but buying dry rock and curing it in a five gallon bucket is time consuming and expensive when I have 150 lbs of live rock to cycle out. (some of which cannot be removed because **** is growing on it.

 

[jda]

You are going to have to find a consumer. The algae will outcompete the products that you are using and win.

I am sorry if I missed how big your tank is. If it is large enough, I had a magnificent foxface and a regular naso tang destroy the stuff. You could try a cheaper rabbitfish first. Mexican turbos will eat ANY algae as long as the easy stuff is gone, so they have to be hungry.

I never found kole tang to be much of an algae eater.

You will get better results if your clean up crew and fish are hungry.

Dry rock will hurt as much as it helps since it is usually full of phosphate.

 

[SpSChief85]

Ime, you should have never stopped carbon dosing you should have just kept cutting the dose in half until you found the sweetspot, that's what I've always done and it's resolved the issue, your rock could be leaching phosphate which is fueling the algae, you have afew options, to control the nutrients lanthium chloride, algae turf scrubber, carbon dosing, or go back to gfo, Ime carbon dosing or turf scrubber is your most cost effective approach. Keep us updated, your going to have to pull the phosphate out of your rocks either way, it's not going to happen over night it's a long drawn out battle of attrition, post up some no3 and po4 parameters full tank pics help as well.

 

[afm32607]

Sorry. After I posted my missive on algae struggles I realized I forgot to mention tank size. Its a 75 gal with a 30 gal sump (probably 80-ish gallons of system water). Again, sorry for the length I am just runninng out of patience.

Very little of the rock in the tank is, or was, dry rock. 90% was bought and purchased as live rock with sponges and stuff living on it (about 5-6 years ago for some of the pieces).

1) New Rock:

My process for dry rock is (for the one bucket I have made) to soak it in RO water for a month, emptying the bucket every two weeks, then soak it in fresh salt water for two months, emptying once a month. Current is provided for by an air stone the entire time. After the three months I being putting pieces in the sump for two weeks before moving to the display. Should I be treating the rock with something while it is curing? There are a few pieces that don't look so good (i.e. have more algae) that are either really old or are that reef saver rock. I would like to get rid of those pieces first. BUT, I have zoas and acros growing on most of them. Do I just break off the coral and toss the zoas? I was hoping to not have to do something so drastic.

2) Clean-up crew:

I have tried Mexican turbos three times. Each time they ended up dying within 6 months. My current clean-up crew is very sparse. Every time I try to expand it my old critter die, or in the case of urchins my new critters die. I understand the theory of competitive pressure but when it comes to live stock there seems to be little consensus as to what is going to eat the algae you have, the coral you want, or the fish you introduce. Any good reading material? I don't have the space for a naso tang (other than a tiny one) and I like my kole-tang it has spots and not stripes (apparently an African kole tang though the store just labeled it as a kole tang). Won't it also fight with the naso tang or the fox face?

3) Carbon Dosing:

With carbon dosing, I regret I stopped but my coral were all browing out and I had bubble algae that was ignoring my low nitrate and phosphate anyway. I must say that when I stopped my coral color was never better. About three months ago I was dosing 3 mls a day of NoPox. It did nothing at the time. Six weeks ago I bumped it up to 4 mls per day and that is when I got bacterial blooms in the tank (especially on my ATO sensor) and for a couple weeks after the algae looked like it was dying. It is back to a healthy green. Do I increase it more? Hold steady? I'm also trying cutting the lights for a few days with water changes.

 

[joaocdestro]

I had the same problem. You should increase your no3 and po4.
***with zero readings and alk above 8 it is very dangerous!

 

[afm32607]

As a follow up. I started using AlgaeFix Marine in my tank. It took maybe 7 doses before I saw any change. Now I am at 12-13 doses (one dose of 8ml every 72 hours) and I've almost got it beat. That being said I would still not recommend AlgaeFix as a replacement for regular maintenance, I didn't see any immediate negative effects but for all I know all my fish now have cancer, also I do not have anemones nor clams and only one shrimp.

Coincidentally this has likely increased both the NO3 and the PO4 in the tank, which in turn has brightened up the coral colors.

My game plan for stopping the algaecide is to replace my existing rocks with new rocks (which were soaked in a bucket for three months with frequent water changes, and then placed into my QT tank for an additional two months with biweekly water changes and phosban passively run in a HOB). The new rocks are set up in my QT tank so that they could be pre aquascaped (I can do half the tank at a time with the space available) prior to my adding them to the display tank.

Most of my clean-up crew has passed on, either from being eaten, starvation, or just old age (I think the last time I bought a snail was two years ago. Therefore I plan on rethinking my clean-up crew and diversifying the group (I had in the past one type of snail and one type of dwarf hermit crab).

I also plan on increasing the number of fish in the tank to create more ammonia, and therefore more NO3 without discontinuing the carbon dosing to ensure that phosphate is the limiting reagent for the algae.

I also plan on adding in a 40 gal frag tank to the system to house live rock and coral frags and to increase water volume.

 

[UTCReefer]

If you have algae growing then there is probably phosphate in your tank even if you cant seem to measure it. AFAIK algae wont grow without it. The phosphate will brown out your corals and stop pretty much all growth eventually. I had a similar issue as you.

In my case i finally got things under control by removing my sandbed entirely. After 4-5 years the sand bed was no longer was acting as a nutrient sink and began re-releasing it into my system uncontrollably. GFO and carbon dosing couldnt stop the algae from growing.
How old is your sandbed?

 

[Myka]

Sorry I missed this thread earlier. Could you please post a photo of your tank and a close up of the algae in question?

 

[afm32607]

For closure....

I had removed the sand bed, mostly, cut the lighting schedule, and used GFO/Carbon dosing to little avail. The algae fix seemed to have worked and I ended up replacing all the rocks in my system, which worked out well, though now it looks like I have too few nutrients, though my aquascaping has significantly improved.

In case anyone is wondering, the rocks were all dry rocks from BRS cured in 5 gal buckets and left in my QT tank, never used copper, for three months before I aquascaped them out of the tank and replaced 1/2 the display at a time (one month elapsed between each half). Retained some of the nicer existing display rocks for the sump and some for the attached frag tank.