Algae Probs On A Upgraded 90 Gallon

[Chef G]

Hey Guys I recently upgraded from a 55 gallon to a 90 and also upgraded my 17gal sump to a 40 gallon this was a month ago.

However now im getting small amounts of GHA growing on the rocks. Adding 25 banded tronchus snails this week hope they help pick those as they can prop them selves back up easier if they tip over.

From the old tank i have about 6 cerith snails, 1 fighting conch, 4 nerite, 10 nass. snails and 4 tronchus I also plan on adding 2 black and white clowns also as my old dart fish didn't make it during the upgrade( carpet surfed ). Perhaps my cleaner crew is lacking?

As for nitrite & nitrate mine are 0ppm also my phosphates are 0. Im running Carbon by polyps lab and HC GFO in media reactors. Ive also added a "poly filter" in my corner over flow 4 days ago.

For Flow I have two Jebao's RW-8 and a Jebao DCS 7000 return that splits into 2 loc-line nozzles (return is not drilled) Do I need more flow or reposition my heads?

For lighting i have 2 hydra 26's 5 inches above the tank
(thinking bout maybe looking for a new preset for my AI director, anyone have any they would recomend to use?)

Heres a few pics dont mind the heater temporary moved it to rearrange some things in my sump.
Also ive re positioned the return lines to get more flow on the rocks.
-been changing my filter socks also every week.

is it possible I have new tank syndrome? or I need to do more water changes?

I do a weekly 10 gallon change, I did one 3 days ago and tonight just did another 5 gallons.

Loosing my mind as to what else could be causing this please someone help me regain some sanity.

 

[nathan]

As far as clean up crew goes I found the best snail is the spiny star snails. .. they gobble that stuff up... I started vodka dosing and it's slowly dieing off

 

[kapelan]

Light:
http://www.marinedepot.com/AquaIllu...I_(AquaIllumination)-3Z48121-FILTFILD-vi.html
this light 90 watts at full power. You have Total 180W.
In order to provide enough light to corals with 90g tank you need long daylight.
Long daylight it the best you can do to grow algae.
Basically with reef we have two options:
- low power light + long day = enjoy fight with algae
- high power light + short day = acceptable amount algae

 

[Chef G]

so your saying having a total of 180 watts of power i need to run daytime longer which is why I have algae?

 

[Chef G]

As far as clean up crew goes I found the best snail is the spiny star snails. .. they gobble that stuff up... I started vodka dosing and it's slowly dieing off

il have to look into it, getting the banded tronchus this friday, prolly next month il get 15 or so of the spiny

 

[Hong]

If the GHA Gets out of hand, a sea hare can clean that up in a hurry. They are voracious. GL.

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[Kman]

I find the best approach to GHA or any problem algae for that matter is a multi pronged approach. This is how I handle any algae problems. I never do one approach.

Decrease input into the tank so you are not adding in more organics and nutrients usable to the algae, increase export so you are exporting more then you are adding into the tank. This allows you to limit nutrients available to algae.

Clean up crew, fish, snails, urchins, crabs etc go a long way. I am not a crab fan as they are treacherous at best and always end up eating something that they should not if they don't get enough food so I stick to fish and snails. I also don't recommend things like a sea hair as once the algae is gone so is the sea hare till you get more food source. To me this is not a good choice of critter for my tank. Stick to the ninja star kind of snail they work best I find for all around algae eating. Urchins are great but they are indiscriminate with the type of algae they eat so they do eat coralline algae. But combined with manual removal they will plow through the shortened algae threads like it is going out of style most times. (See manual removal below.)

Manual removal like a scrub brush is one of the most important steps. This part is very important. When you scrub the rocks you damage the algae and tear off sections of tissue. This achieves a few things by acting like a grazer. You make the algae short enough so things like snails\crabs can crop the short strands that attach to the rocks off and help polish the algae off. Most snails do not eat the long strand and they prefer the short parts that hold the algae in place or the damaged cell walls after you scrubbed the rocks that are easier to get through. Depending of Species this varies. Some algae even go so far as to build up bad tasting flavors in the cell so it makes it less enjoyable to eat and can taste quite bitter. By rupturing the cell wall you leak out some of these flavors so it makes the algae more palatable and easy to eat. So the nuisance algae become more eatable to your cleanup crew that might other wise not touch it.After manual removal you end up doing a form of nutrient export as most of us filter the strands out of the water by filter sock\filter floss when you take the excess out of the water or do a water change. The constant damaging of the algae make the algae use up stored energy reserves to repair all the damage to the cell walls that was done so it can't remain in growth or reproduction phase as it is eating up the energy budget on repairs. So at the very least you slow down and can halt any new growth. If you continually damage the algae in time it will go into a spore phase and die off so it can go to a better location in order to survive. You can then filter out the spores by skimmer, some corals, inverts and mechanical media.
Temperature and PH also play an important part. To warm and it will grow faster cooler slows growth. Higher PH say around 8.2-8.4 I find help limit some forms of nuisance algae I find.

 

[Hong]

Agree sea hare is temporary band aid, not a permanent solution. Similar to file fish, harlequin shrimp. Once food source is gone, those guys gotta go.

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[Skim]

I would just increase the amount of GFO and as for the lights shut off the Red and lower the White and Green levels for now. Just remember if something eats the Algae that is full of Phosphate it is going to poop it back in.

 

[Aquatic Dreams]

On top of the excellent advice already given I would also suggest some Macro algae in your sump if you don't already have some there. And I've recently been doing some research on Algae Scrubbers. I'm not sure how effective they are but the theory behind them makes sense. Good luck and keep us posted on what ends up working for you.

BTW - My Trochus snails had babies in my 29 Biocube and I still have algae in it. One of my favorite snails but they definitely won't touch the long algae.

 

[Chef G]

Thanks for all the advice guys good news is the algae isn't growing or spreading. Slowly dying off easy enough for me to pull it off most rocks with the siphon tube.

Been using high capacity GFO changing that every 3rd week, upped my cleaner crew, been dosing NOpox by red sea also and manual removal. Thanks to all the great advice on here! I will continue to battle this and keep you guys posted.

 

[reef keeper]

That po4 is bound up in the rocks and leaching. The GHA is taking it up to grow. It's good it's dying off though. It may return one day.

 

[Chef G]

and today less than 3% of algae in tank, params all steady and holding! The yellow tang i got helped by loosing any hard to get algae in crevices and i bought another 3 7 inch filter socks that I change one every 4 days, always have 1 or 2 clean and ready to go. Now I need to replace my media reactors gunna switch to 2 phosban 150's to replace my dual catrtrige style one from BRS I dislike them because you cant control flow properly and the filter pads are hard to find replacements mine seem to last 3 weeks before clogging.... overall bad product IMO.

But yeah in my sump i have 2 mangroves, a softball size clump of cheato.

My next battle on keeping everything clean and prestine in my tank is ive noticed some glass anemones and a tiny bit of cyano.
For the glass anemones im gunna get 3 pep shrimp as the glass anemones are tiny so il hold off using joes juice, i have some on hand if the shrimp dont do a good job.
for the cyano, I am going to get a 3rd wavemaker prolly 1025GPH max flow as I have 2 jebaos rated at 2000 GPH each just think a third one will help plus I can dial it down as needed.
Think with extra flow in the area will help get rid of the cyano, if not I have zeovit cyanoclean and red slime remover.

Other future upgrades I would like to add are another 2 hydra 26's to have a total of 4 to have more PAR