Unhappy Corals

[mikellini]

Hair algae can bother corals, both by touching them and by releasing chemicals into the water. My first thought was that your water is too clean. I would get the hair algae under control first and then decide what to do next. Using a phosphate binder and snails, along with manual removal, usually works quite well. If it's particularly resistant, try starting with a couple of days of lights out.

The chaeto will not out-compete hair algae for nutrients, so I'd remove that off the bat. Then run separate carbon and GFO or Phosguard, using the full recommended amount for your water volume. Add 2-3 turbo snails, continually place them on the hair algae so they keep eating it, and manually remove what you can. Continue to feed your tank/fish well to ensure trace amounts of phosphate and nitrate are available for corals. Once the hair algae is gone, test for nitrates and shoot for somewhere around 2-4ppm. Easiest way to achieve this is to feed more. Hope this helps.

[RMC]

Originally Posted by canadianbudz604

I do see some hair algae in your pic. So it may be eating up nitrates/phosphates and ur tests will read 0, but it does seem like you have some algae troubles. What kind of water are you using (tap/Rodi)? What r u using to test your salinity?

Yes. It came back and I took a couple of hours today and removed as much as I could. Yes, I'm using RODI. Salinity is at 1.026, I calibrated my refractometer just prior to testing.

Originally Posted by Howie

Do you siphon detritus out of the back? I had a rsm with all upgrades but I would still get a build up below the tunze and below my pumps.

I did this a couple of weeks ago. You're right, it gets rather funky back there!

Originally Posted by FishyFishy!

I would try another nitrate or phosphate test kit. Maybe bring a water sample to your LFS. If you're battling hair algae, yet your tests are reading zero's, I would try different test kits to start.

Have you tested ammonia or nitrite?

Haven't tested nitrite for a few months. Ammonia test was 0.0

[RMC]

Originally Posted by mikellini

Hair algae can bother corals, both by touching them and by releasing chemicals into the water. My first thought was that your water is too clean. I would get the hair algae under control first and then decide what to do next. Using a phosphate binder and snails, along with manual removal, usually works quite well. If it's particularly resistant, try starting with a couple of days of lights out.

The chaeto will not out-compete hair algae for nutrients, so I'd remove that off the bat. Then run separate carbon and GFO or Phosguard, using the full recommended amount for your water volume. Add 2-3 turbo snails, continually place them on the hair algae so they keep eating it, and manually remove what you can. Continue to feed your tank/fish well to ensure trace amounts of phosphate and nitrate are available for corals. Once the hair algae is gone, test for nitrates and shoot for somewhere around 2-4ppm. Easiest way to achieve this is to feed more. Hope this helps.

I'm going to start the phosguard treatment tomorrow. Currently using Carbon. Is there any detriment to running the chaeto? I'd rather keep it in.
I'm in the habit of QTing everything (had a ich outbreak when I first started). The snails won't make it into my DT for 6 weeks. What can I feed them in the Qt during this period?

Thanks for the suggestions!

[mikellini]

I wouldn't bother with qt for turbo snails... If you're really paranoid, rinse them in new salt water. They can be sensitive to parameter changes tho.

If you're doing it right, the chaeto will wither and die with the hair algae, and just end up exhausting your phosguard faster. If you want to keep it, put it in your qt until the hair algae is gone, then return it and increase your phosphates a little by running less phosguard and changing it out less frequently.