Need help with algae problem

[obrut]

I have had a algae problem with my fish tank for about 2 years now and I’ve tried everything with no success. I have 29-gallon salt-water tank with live rock, it’s a green algae that grows on everything. I can pull it off the rocks and stuff but it will just grow back in a week. I'm ready to just toss all of it and give up. I use reverse osmosis water and I don't add anything to the tank except a small amount of food for the fish. I've tried turbo snails but that didn't help. I also used phosphate removers but still nothing. What can I do to fix this?

[Drew]

What kind of skimmer do you have on the tank?
If it's a new tank then this is perfectly normal and will go away on its own. HTH

Drew

[obrut]

The tank is 3 years old, i'm using the cyclone skimmer. It looks like seaweed, its long and green.

[Drew]

Does it have any structure (like a plant) or is it slimey? If it is like a plant then it is some type of macro algae and this is not as big of a problem as micro algae would be on a 3 year old tank. Many people have macro algae growing in their main tanks and regular harvesting is all that's needed. If, however, it is micro algae in a 3 year old tank then there is something wrong with your import/export of nutrients. I would check your RO/DI filters, skimmer, and how many/how much of water changes. HTH

Drew

[obrut]

its macro algae, its like a plant. It grows back really fast (4-5 days) and it covers everything, i can't even see the rocks. I did regular water chances but kinda gave up after a 1 1/2 years. I still do water changes but not as often as i should. The last thing i tried was a 10 gallon water change, phosphate remover, cut the lights down to 4 hours a day. Started that on monday and did a 5 gallon water change every week for 6 weeks. It do nothing to the algae After that i gave up. I found this page and was woundering if you guys might be able to help.

[ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: obrut ]

[horge]

Are you feeding the tank a lot?
Maybe additives?
Indeed, if stuff has died in the rock, then that alone can fuel an algal bloom.

Herbivorous snails generally attack only short turfs. Long strands are something they have trouble getting a purchase on. So either you manually crop the algae very short and THEN let the snails at 'em, or you get a meaner herbivore like maybe a Diadema sp. urchin.

Those are very thorough (maybe too thorough, as even coralline algae isn't safe ), but need careful handling and acclimation. They are sensitive to pH and salinity changes.

It would certainly help we could ID the alga that's bugging you. Got a pic?

hth,
very sleepy horge

[ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: horge ]

[Doug1]

Sounds like hair algae, it tends to do better in low light, what kind of lighting are we talking about here? Perhaps a larger more aggressive skimmer would help

[Drew]

Well if it's hair algae I would check your skimmer. How much crap does it collect and what does it look/smell/feel/taste like?
The only thing is that it was described as green seaweed, and that sounds more like a macro algae, caulerpa and the like. Normally I would recommend a tang, but not in a 29. If it is macro, here is what I would do. I would rip out as much as I could, then introduce something to keep the remains (you will never totally eradicate it from your tank) in check. I put a so-called "common urchin" (what the LFS told me) in a 20 gal with a lot of macros and he took care of them in no time. Unfortunately I depended on those to feed my tang... Either way, I'm willing to go on horge's recommended urchin to do the trick. Remember, some people pay for this stuff, consider yourself lucky...maybe

Horge----->Dark Horge----->Sleepy Horge???

OK one more thing that a few other people have touched on. If your algae is growing to plague-like numbers so quickly there is some other contributing factor such as under-pwered skimmer, to much bio-load, to much food, or even old filters on an RO/DI. And yes, a pic would help. But does it look like any of these?







I hope I'm allowed to link to those (thanks FFE) If I'm not supposed to do that I'll take them down, don't wanna get in any trouble

hth,
very much awake drew

[obrut]

I'll take a pic tomorrow, drewman if i e-mail it to you can you post for me? Thanks for the help.

[jegel]

Drewman,
whats that third pic down called... the only picture there that doesn't have the words Flying Fish Express in it? I had some of that on a rock and wasn't sure what it was. My tang wasn't eating it and wasn't even sure if it was an algae.

[Drew]

A pic will really help us nail this one down obrut. But you may want to send the pic to some other member because I don't have have a server that will allow me to post images here (the pics above are off of FFE's server). If you'd like I could run the pic off of my website, then just link to it from here. My Email address is in my profile, feel free to send it to me, I'd be more then happy to get it posted somewhere.

Wookaka, that is Halimeda spp. Commonly called, you guessed it, Halimeda algae! But some people also call it "Money Plant" I got a whole truckload of this stuff on my gulf-view LR and I really like it. It's not normally thought of as a pest macro because it is slow-growing, and easy to control. Your tang won't touch the stuff because of it's calcium content. If you feel it, it is hard, not soft. It will however, deplete the calcium levels in your tank. Ever been to a nice white sandy beach and wonder, "Where does all this beautiful sand come from?" (Play along here ) A lot of the sand is from this stuff. When it breaks down the calcium is left and it turns into the sand. It's not the only way the sand is made, but it's a big one. Whew, oh boy, rambling again. HTH

Drew

[Alice]

Up here, our sand is mostly ground down from rocks. It feels like it, looks like it to, when you take a walk on the beach at sunset you see all these shiny little flashes from the....oh, what? Never mind, I was rambling

Macro algae! That's the topic at hand!

I had the nastiest macro in my tank awhile back, I even inadvertantly gave some to Doug on a frag and cursed his tank with it. (There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'll let it pass!) I called it "the green menace" Doug called it "Reef Kudzu" but it was a baddie. It was very vine like, the vines/rhyzomes/runners/stolons, whatever you want to call them, were very fine and grew over everything. The leaves were small, thin and pointed and grew in ladder-like fashion along the vines, unifacially. I would spend hours with tweezers pulling this crud out of the crevices in the rock and off of the corals. Sound at all familiar? We were never able to ID it.

In desperation, I took a big bag of the crud to the LFS and threw it in the tanks. I figured whatever ate it the most enthusiasticly was going home with me. I ended up with a Sally lightfoot crab and a baby yellow tang. No more "green menace;" haven't had any for months now.

Crabs come with their own problems but you may want to try a Sally. They can get large and at that point, I'd get it out of there but if you've reached the desperation level...(shrug)

One other question, how old are your lights? Lights that are reaching the end of their life span help to promote algae growth of all types due to the change in spectrum.

~Alice

[JJGeisler]

Hey.....that looks a lot like MY tank! At least all the green stuff, (no aptasia anenomes).

I can definatly relate Obrut! I've added a Sand-sifter Goby, Bi-color Blenny, crabs, latza snails and still playing Farmer John and doing the twice-a-week harvest by hand. I'm on my way to pick up a Yellow Tang tonight, see if it helps the cause.

As an FYI, I modified the sponge filters for a Pondmaster and installed them on the intakes on two of the MJ powerheads in the tank. Even though the water looks crystal clear, with in about three days they are so loaded with gunk that the suction from the powerheads start to collapse the filters! Also running a skimmer 24/7!

I have heard of some members having good luck with setting up and algea-sump and letting the algae in the sump consume the excess nutrients. Anyone else have luck with this one?
JJ

[cubera]

Can't see the detail all that well but is this some kind of bryopsis possibly? If so, you have to scrub/harvest/scrub/harvest or get a specialized nudi that will eat it. I have tried bullet gobies, several tangs, and blennies. It is toxic and nothing eats it. You might find some better photos and info. on John Rice's link (I think) HTH

[obrut]

Thanks drewman, looks bad doesn't it. What would happen if i pulled the rock one by one and used a scrub brush on them? I can't think of anything else to do. No i have never changed the bulbs. The bulbs were only 4 months old when this started to happen.