Reef nutrition

Needing some advice on an algae bloom

Jhawk01

Jhawk01

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Hi all, at the moment in my larger 65 gallon. I having an algae bloom that’s lasted about 2-3 weeks been trying to do water changes ranging from 5-20 gallons, changed out the bulb on my uv sterilizer, even tried using algae fix. The algae just keeps growing back. I’ve decreased the lights to try to slow it down that way. A little bit of a back story on this tank it’s not a new tank, it was set up at the start of 2020 during Covid and has been running since than. About a week or two before this happened I had to tear apart my rock work to catch a gold head goby because he was moving too much sand a was attempting to kill some of my corals. Once he was caught I took the opportunity to fix my rock work and added roughly another 30-35 pounds of dry rock to the tank. I had about 60 ish pounds of rock already in the tank. So my question is should I think about doing something like a blackout for a couple of days or should I just bite the bullet and make like 50 plus gallons of water and do a 80% or more water change?
 
It sounds like you could benefit from more herbivores in your tank. Richard Ross has some great talks about algae. I think Richard would argue that water changes will do little to nothing to help limit algae. I think water changes are great for many things but not so much for limiting algae.

Here is a talk Richard did at High Tide Aquatics ("Algae is really good at life"):
 
Patio said:
It sounds like you could benefit from more herbivores in your tank. Richard Ross has some great talks about algae. I think Richard would argue that water changes will do little to nothing to help limit algae. I think water changes are great for many things but not so much for limiting algae.

Here is a talk Richard did at High Tide Aquatics ("Algae is really good at life"):
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This right here. If nothing is eating the algae - it's gonna grow out of control. That's the bottom line. Algae needs the same stuff to grow as corals do, so if you eliminate that stuff your corals won't grow either. Get some (more) herbivores!
 
If the rocks are removable, you could take them out one by one in a bus tub type container filled with tank water left over from a water change and scrub them. Save another portion of the water to clean the scrubbed rock of afterwards.

Another option if all else fails not saying its the best but I have done it in the past. It depends on how bad it is if would I consider it or not.

Take out a rock if its incredible bad, and squirt peroxide on the alage, let is sit on it a few mins and it kills it. I scrub the heck out of it afterwards and dunk it good in another bin of old tank water.

Same with frag plugs a drop or two where I saw alage. Just avoided get any on the coral.

This won't work on bryopsis fyi.
Last time I did this was 2 years ago.

Don’t do this in your tank!!!
 
derek_SR said:
This right here. If nothing is eating the algae - it's gonna grow out of control. That's the bottom line. Algae needs the same stuff to grow as corals do, so if you eliminate that stuff your corals won't grow either. Get some (more) herbivores!
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And that is why smaller tanks are so hard in my opinion. Once you can add tangs, its much easier. I like urchins though in tanks where tangs cannot be kept properly/long term as an alternative.
 
Alexander1312 said:
And that is why smaller tanks are so hard in my opinion. Once you can add tangs, its much easier. I like urchins though in tanks where tangs cannot be kept properly/long term as an alternative.
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Would saltwater converted mollies be a option? I saw someone mention them for something similar. Kenny at hightide has some he recently updated
 
Alexander1312 said:
And that is why smaller tanks are so hard in my opinion. Once you can add tangs, its much easier. I like urchins though in tanks where tangs cannot be kept properly/long term as an alternative.
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Yeah I think tuxedo urchins are crazy underrated. I guess people are afraid of them because they eat corraline or whatever? They work the hardest of any CUC I've ever had - always busy, work a ton of area, very thorough. And they are neat!

I noticed the Steinhart had a bit of an algae bloom a few months back - then I noticed on my next visit they had apparently added a ton of new urchins. Last time we went the algae was basically all gone. One cool reason it's fun to have season passes - we go often and you can observe changes in the exhibits over time.
 
Thank you guys for the replies, we are dealing with a different type of algae though( will definitely learn to post pictures initially). I have pretty much had little to no algae on the rocks for about a year or more. It’s more of the water born variety.
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derek_SR said:
Yeah I think tuxedo urchins are crazy underrated. I guess people are afraid of them because they eat corraline or whatever? They work the hardest of any CUC I've ever had - always busy, work a ton of area, very thorough. And they are neat!

I noticed the Steinhart had a bit of an algae bloom a few months back - then I noticed on my next visit they had apparently added a ton of new urchins. Last time we went the algae was basically all gone. One cool reason it's fun to have season passes - we go often and you can observe changes in the exhibits over time.
Click to expand...

Urchins can leave both wrasp marks, and scrapes on acrylic.
 
Jhawk01 said:
Thank you guys for the replies, we are dealing with a different type of algae though( will definitely learn to post pictures initially). I have pretty much had little to no algae on the rocks for about a year or more. It’s more of the water born variety. View attachment 56275
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Can you create a tank journal so we know what you're working with? I'd lean towards bacterial bloom here but you mentioned you're running UV. Are you skimming?

Also @BAYMAC the tuxedos I've kept for the last 15 years haven't visibly scratched my acrylic on my viewing pane at all. My own scraping or rock drops however...lol
 
Darkxerox said:
Can you create a tank journal so we know what you're working with? I'd lean towards bacterial bloom here but you mentioned you're running UV. Are you skimming?

Also @BAYMAC the tuxedos I've kept for the last 15 years haven't visibly scratched my acrylic on my viewing pane at all. My own scraping or rock drops however...lol
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Almost all my tanks have wrasp marks, and most have scratches from debris the urchins drug along.
 
Jhawk01 said:
Thank you guys for the replies, we are dealing with a different type of algae though( will definitely learn to post pictures initially). I have pretty much had little to no algae on the rocks for about a year or more. It’s more of the water born variety. View attachment 56275
Click to expand...

That looks like a bacterial bloom not just alage. Any chance of a few more pictures different angles?

If the water is actually that cloudy and picture isnt just blury. You definitely need a uv running.
 
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Darkxerox said:
Can you create a tank journal so we know what you're working with? I'd lean towards bacterial bloom here but you mentioned you're running UV. Are you skimming?

Also @BAYMAC the tuxedos I've kept for the last 15 years haven't visibly scratched my acrylic on my viewing pane at all. My own scraping or rock drops however...lol
Click to expand...

Same here. I have both tuxedo urchins and black rock urchins and have witnessed them chewing on my acrylic and have never seen any marks or damage. Can't speak to other urchin types.
 
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