Algae and Fish Food
 

After being chastised by Myka :sad: I took the suggestion to start a new thread:

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My algae issue was in pretty good shape until I added 2 clowns about 2 months ago (my first fish). Then the hair algae got out of control. I have done a lot of pruning and added Phosan in a media bag.

I am guessing that the extra phosphate came from the food. I am currently using: Hikari Marine-S Pellet Food and New Life Spectrum Small Fish Formula Pellet Food.

Is there any way of knowing with any certainty the phosphate level of a given food? Is it just a general assumption that all food has a certain level of phosphate?
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I had a huge algae problem with my old tank. I tried everything, phosphate remover, keeping the lights off for a few days to kill it, sea hares that wouldn't touch the stuff, switching water sources, switching food types, upgrading my skimmer, feeding only once a week, hair algae removal products, basting it with boiling water, etc.

Here is how I finally solved the problem:

I would take a small hose (like you get with an air pump) when I did a water change and squeeze the end of it on the hair algae, which would suck the algae up the hose and into my bucket. I kept doing this until the algae was fairly trimmed and then did small water changes everyday. Eventually it went away by doing this.

I think I will try that.

Did you get a handle on where your phosphate wascoming from?

I used tap water for the first few months when I set the tank up, so my guess was that the live rock was leaching phosphates from those days.

We talked about this a bit early, but to add to the comments on here already...

New live rock can leech phosphates for a long time, which is often the cause of algaes in tanks that are under a year old. The only way to fix that issue is to cure the rock better before adding in the first place, or use phosphate medias hoping to absorb the phosphates before the algae does! :D

I think you said you were already giving the HA hair cuts didn't you? That's even better than just sucking on it. When you just siphon on it you're only pulling out the stuff that is dead or already partly compromised.

Most tanks do quite well without fish in relation to algae. People who leave their tanks with no fish for awhile notice the algaes as soon as they bring in new fish. The system just has to balance out, and you have to help it by not overfeeding, and getting rid of the excess nutrients before they become an issue. :)

Did we talk about your skimmer at all? I don't remember...do you have one? What brand?

:lol: I hope you're joking about the :sad: !!

Myka: You are probably right, adding the fish just brought things out of balance and I will just have to wait for it to settle down again. Weekly haircuts, watching the feeding and phosphate capture should help.

I am currently running Seachem carbon and Phosban in media bags. You appear to be a fan of the Bulk Reef products. Are they more efficient?

I do have a no-name pin wheel skimmer that came as part of the tank package. It has a vague similarity to the Euro-Reef. It is apparently rated for 100G and certainly seems to work well from my limited experience, about 2 cups of green tea per week.

And yes I was just kidding about the :sad:

Thanks for the Chaeto and the delivery service. :biggrin:

Ya, the Chaeto should help too (you're welcome!). The quicker you can get it to grow (more light, more light!!), the more phosphate it will suck up. :)

I haven't tried the BRS carbon. I haven't run carbon in my tank for at least 6 months. I think I might start up again. I never noticed a difference before when I was hit and miss on changing it (which is really bad because once carbon is full it will slowly leech everything back out). In fact, I don't have carbon in any of my tanks. Just a big tub of Kent Reef Carbon! :lol: That will be my new experiment...see if adding carbon back (and changing it regularly) will show any changes in my reef. :D

I don't have any experience with the PhosBan media, but I hear it is quite good. I think RowaPhos is supposed to be comparable, and BRS HC GFO media appears to work a noticable amount better.

See if you can adjust your skimmer to get darker liquid aka running it "dryer". :)

Since the refugium is on the back of the tank and not down below in the stand the light acts as a giant night light. So I took the 9W flourescent out and replaced it with a 5W. Now that I have something to actually "grow" in the fuge I will look at reinstalling the 9W and trying to minimize the light it throws into the rest of the room. Some sort of temporary "shade" should work, actually just focussing more of the 5W bulb into the fuge instead of letting it spill would be a help.

Unfortunately the skimmer has virtually no controls with which to vary the flow. But I think if I increase the outflow pipe that might do it.

I'd try to figure out a way to get the 9w light back on there. If all else fails, and your pH isn't swinging like crazy (not likely) you can light the fuge during the day instead of at night.

Is the skimmer in a sump? If so, try raising and lowering it. That might change the skimmate.

I will have to track the pH to see if there is any swing through the day. Still trying to get the dKh up, so there might be a bit of a swing yet, but running the light during the day would be nice.

The skimmer is in a sump, chamber 2 in the back of the tank. Raising and lowering was my first trial, but I did not see a lot of difference. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the larger the flow through return, the drier the skimmate. I will have to look for that reference again.

Thanks for the input.

Alkalinity shouldn't be hard to get higher...? Ah yes, I believe that is right (re more flow) for a pinwheel...

I've been having a rough time with algae also. I'm curious Myka about what you said here:

Just how should one go about curing live rock? I want to get it right the next time I set up a tank. The rock in my tank now was in there for about a month and a half before any fish went in. I bought the rock from OA and it was not new, but had been there for a while so I assumed it was somewhat cured already.

Sorry about jumping in here Oscar, hope you don't mind.

No problem.

This question gets asked a lot, maybe I should go make a thread on it. I'll be back with a link. ;)

EDIT: 2 hours 15 mins later I have a new guide: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=44851

An update on my algae issues:

Water volume: ~25 gallons
Temp: 79-81
ph: 8.1
alk: 7 (still trying to get to 9 using Seachem Reef Buffer)
Mg: 1275 after lots of Seachem Mg

Flow: I have recently installed a Vortech20. Much better flow which you can really see when you get in to disturb the detritus.

Waterchanges: 4G weekly Seachem salt, making sure Mg = 1300 and alk = 8

Algae pruning: with weekly water changes. I pull out ~1/4 cup weekly

Detritus disturbance: every 2 days with turkey baster

Phosban reactor: Installed 2 little fishes about 4 weeks ago. Running Phosban in the main chamber with carbon in the miniscule upper chamber.

Chaeto: In refugium for the past 2 months?

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The algae is definitely less but still quite prevalent. I just reread Myka's sysnopsis on algae contraol. I forgot about her suggestion of raising Mg to 1600. I will head in that direction this week.

I also noticed that on sunny days like this morning between 7:00am and 10:00 one side of the tank gets direct sunlight. Guess what, the worst of my algae problem seems to be in this zone.

Is it the blue or red spectrum that is filtered out when sunlight passes through the atmosphere on an extreme angle? If early morning sunlight is more red and yellow then that would partially explain the algae issue.

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Any more thoughts or tricks on algae reduction?

Phoenix DE Hallide
 

I have had a serious hair algae problem since adding my first fish in July, 2008.
Since then I have:

-added chaeto
-installed a phosban reactor
-installed RO/DI
-weekly water changes
-weekly haircuts
-installed Geisman 420nm actinics
- watched my daily feeding
-numerous turkey baster blasts per week
-raised Mg to 1600
-added more snails and an emerald crab

This has only marginally improved the situation

Today I removed the CadLights hallide, which was only 9 months old, and installed a Phoenix 150W 14,000K DE.

Holy crap! Is my tank ever blue. This will probably do the trick. A colour shift in the original hallide was my final concern.

I will give the tank a serious pruning tomorrow and follow my most recent water change and hair cutting schedule. Hopefull this is it!!!

[quote=Oscar Any more thoughts or tricks on algae reduction?[/QUOTE]

Ya stop feeding flakes and pellets as your main food source. Most "claim" to be phosphate free. Left-over flakes and pellets will quickly dissolve into the water column, becoming nutrients for algae. I do feed flakes and pellets, but only when time restricts me from thawing something out.

Good point, I do get lazy and feed pellets too often.

Well 2 weeks after changing the hallide and some additional prunings I think the algae is under control. I still have some algae in the tank but this is the first time it has not continued to grow after its weekly pruning. So the hallide was the deciding factor.

Once I am close to eradicating the algae I will feel comfortable in adding some frags.