Hi!
So this was my first bad (unexpected) algae outbreak after nearly a year in the hobby. Thank you all in advance for bearing with me here.
15 gallon nano with 20 gallon sump. 30 lbs LR.
System is almost a year old. Been maturing nicely, and then out of nowhere, crazy hair algae began growing all over everything (much more than the normal green haze that I mag-float off every few days). Began a couple weeks ago at most.
Went on and seemed to get better with water change over the last 2 weeks or so, but these last few days it was awful.
When testing, only slight phosphates just in these last few days (.25ppm) and no nitrates, ammonia, etc. Water was always stable and no undesireable levels at all of anything. I tested again today before water change, and that's when I found the elevated phosphates. Last week there were none. FWIW, I dose every few days with Fritz's 2-part between water changes.
Finally, at the end of my rope, I started digging through sump during a water change. Found my biggest turbo snail (bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball), dead on the bottom of the sump. I'd say I saw it there, but more accurate to say that I smelled it first once the water level in sump was low. Rotted to almost nothing. Good lord did it smell.
Now, I'm assuming that this was the source of the nutrient dump into the water that was causing the outbreak. I removed as much algae by hand/siphon as possible.
I stirred up quite a bit of algae in display, removed a lot, and rest seems to be settling/going to sump and skimmer. I swapped my crappy odyssea ps75 skimmer out with a newer SCA 302 I recently acquired. I also added a wooden airstone w/ air pump just to help oxygenate DT. Also added sock of phosguard to sump to help pull out the phosphates. I've had success with this in the past.
Livestock in tank is 1 ocellaris, 2 rbtas, acan head, small favia, a few euphyllias, 1 monti cap frag, 1 cleaner shrimp, and standard CUC of blue legs and a few turbos. Not worried about my xenia. One hour after water change and all corals are opening back up. Nems, not yet, but they don't look too bad.
Questions are these:
1. Is my assumption likely correct with the huge dead snail in the small system causing nutrients, and thus algae? (I've never had this problem until I stopped seeing him. I should've checked for him a week ago in hindsight.)
2. Will stirring up all that gunk/algae cause a tank crash? Everything seems healthy up to this point. In fact, my 2 RBTAs were HUGE and open before the water change/ stir-up.
3. Given the gross stuff now stirred up (algae, sump detritus), will the larger SCA 302 skimmer I threw in help export a lot of that stuff and keep tank safe? (My old skimmer was junk). I'm already emptying cup of dark brown yuck, and it's only been an hour. Wet skimming for now.
4. Will the air stone near top of DT be necessary for now? I figured with all the gross turbidity floating around for now, the extra oxygen would be appreciated by my single fish.
Any advice on answering the above questions, or anything else, is much appreciated. Thanks everyone!
So this was my first bad (unexpected) algae outbreak after nearly a year in the hobby. Thank you all in advance for bearing with me here.
15 gallon nano with 20 gallon sump. 30 lbs LR.
System is almost a year old. Been maturing nicely, and then out of nowhere, crazy hair algae began growing all over everything (much more than the normal green haze that I mag-float off every few days). Began a couple weeks ago at most.
Went on and seemed to get better with water change over the last 2 weeks or so, but these last few days it was awful.
When testing, only slight phosphates just in these last few days (.25ppm) and no nitrates, ammonia, etc. Water was always stable and no undesireable levels at all of anything. I tested again today before water change, and that's when I found the elevated phosphates. Last week there were none. FWIW, I dose every few days with Fritz's 2-part between water changes.
Finally, at the end of my rope, I started digging through sump during a water change. Found my biggest turbo snail (bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball), dead on the bottom of the sump. I'd say I saw it there, but more accurate to say that I smelled it first once the water level in sump was low. Rotted to almost nothing. Good lord did it smell.
Now, I'm assuming that this was the source of the nutrient dump into the water that was causing the outbreak. I removed as much algae by hand/siphon as possible.
I stirred up quite a bit of algae in display, removed a lot, and rest seems to be settling/going to sump and skimmer. I swapped my crappy odyssea ps75 skimmer out with a newer SCA 302 I recently acquired. I also added a wooden airstone w/ air pump just to help oxygenate DT. Also added sock of phosguard to sump to help pull out the phosphates. I've had success with this in the past.
Livestock in tank is 1 ocellaris, 2 rbtas, acan head, small favia, a few euphyllias, 1 monti cap frag, 1 cleaner shrimp, and standard CUC of blue legs and a few turbos. Not worried about my xenia. One hour after water change and all corals are opening back up. Nems, not yet, but they don't look too bad.
Questions are these:
1. Is my assumption likely correct with the huge dead snail in the small system causing nutrients, and thus algae? (I've never had this problem until I stopped seeing him. I should've checked for him a week ago in hindsight.)
2. Will stirring up all that gunk/algae cause a tank crash? Everything seems healthy up to this point. In fact, my 2 RBTAs were HUGE and open before the water change/ stir-up.
3. Given the gross stuff now stirred up (algae, sump detritus), will the larger SCA 302 skimmer I threw in help export a lot of that stuff and keep tank safe? (My old skimmer was junk). I'm already emptying cup of dark brown yuck, and it's only been an hour. Wet skimming for now.
4. Will the air stone near top of DT be necessary for now? I figured with all the gross turbidity floating around for now, the extra oxygen would be appreciated by my single fish.
Any advice on answering the above questions, or anything else, is much appreciated. Thanks everyone!
