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love2skiutah View Drop Down
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    Posted: October 01 2014 at 9:06am
My tank is packed with SPS and I haven't lost any pieces for 6 months.  Things are going great in that department, but I've been gone on the road for 9 weeks and I've got some green turf algae to deal with. I'll go over my tank so you guys can help me with some suggestions. 

I am running GFO, bio-denitrator and a huge refugium with lots of macro algae that gets harvested every other week. The refugium light comes on opposite of my lights and it's doing great. 

Parameters have stayed extremely stable and within the desired range for SPS.  
Temp swings are from 77-77.3
Radions are running at 90% for 5 hours and then they ramp up and down

I don't have any hair algae, diatoms or cyano.   I haven't noticed anything in the water column and it looks clear to me.  

Clean up crew is 1 sand sifting star fish and 6 conches for my sand.  I have 8 emeralds, about 2 dozen of those huge snails and 30 -40 crabs.  I realize I may be low on the crab/snail side, but they don't touch the turf algae anyway and I believe most of my excess nutrients are sucked up by all my SPS.  The sand sifting crew does a great job keeping it White.  

Since I've been gone, my wife has been feeding the tank and I believe she has been over feeding and that's where the problem started from.  But as I read about Turf Algae, it feeds off of very very low excess nutrients and it's difficult to get rid of, so my initial thought of over feeding, may not be where it came from.  But I'm not really sure lol  

I do have a Naso Tang, but he doesn't pick at algae on the rocks.  Personally, I hate tangs and I refuse to put anymore into my system, so tangs are out of the question. It's hard to find any information about people resolving this issue on any of the big forums.  I did find a couple people that say Chitons will do the job, but no one can confirm it.  Snails, crabs and sea hairs won't touch it and I have not noticed any of my emeralds on it either.  It's very hard to get off the rocks and Mark suggested using a screw driver so I tried that.  I spent about 7 hours on Sunday and got about 5% of it out of the system, but most of it is unreachable. I really don't want to rip into my stack, but I guess that will be a last resort.  

I first saw it about 6 months ago on 1 single rock, but I didn't think anything of it and didn't really care it was there.  When I got back from Toronto the other day, it had spread like wild fire.  I have not changed anything on my tank or added anything since I've been gone which was around the 19th of July.  

I read an article of someone doing a black out for nearly 90 days and this algae was still in his system. Kind of frustrated, but I'm tempted to just leave it and keep moving forward with more corals and maybe have them battle it out for nutrients.  I have around 60 pieces of SPS with some fairly large colonies.  

Suggestions? lol 


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justchillinuno View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote justchillinuno Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 9:32am
What kinda rock are you using? I had a piece of rock that Rusty pointed out was BAD and sure enough within a month of putting in my tank started to sprout algea.... removed it and we are golden... But from what I was told some rocks excrete minerals thus supplying the algea with all the needed nutrients... 


Please correct me if im wrong on this folks....  But i dont know if this is related. 

Lace rock I think it was... 


Edited by justchillinuno - October 01 2014 at 9:32am
55g - RIP - Moved to 90g
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love2skiutah View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote love2skiutah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 9:58am
hmm... I never really thought about that.  

About 150lbs of my rock came out of my 120.  Another 200lbs of it was dry.  It was a combination of Marco and other random rocks that came out of another members reef.  I really don't know what some of it is.. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote justchillinuno Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 10:26am
here are some examples! 
https://www.google.com/search?q=lace+rock&espv=2&biw=2133&bih=1194&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=SyosVM5Gi5bIBMjqgOAL&ved=0CB0QsAQ&dpr=0.9
55g - RIP - Moved to 90g
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nick801 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 11:49am
Aaron Id take an hour or two and  toothbrush / scub brush and get most of it that you can =)   Ive had to do that in my 93... because my clean up crew kept getting eaten faster than the algae grew... would get little patches here and there

My 300 started to look like it was going to break out in algae and I just added another 100 snails/100 crabs and they did the trick for a minute I thought I was dealing with bryopsis... nothing was touching it.. it wasn't going away... =) It was gone a week after I added the extra snails/crabs




Edited by Nick801 - October 01 2014 at 11:50am
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Mark Peterson View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 12:30pm
Okay, I believe I can help. The background information is extremely useful. Thanks for the detail.

From what you have said, a little overfeeding would not have developed into an algae problem if there had been enough herbivores to keep the rock clean.

You said that you may be low on the crab/snail side. I'm sure you are. Coming from an experienced hobbyist like yourself, that statement indicates a definite need. Follow your hunches. My opinion is that just because Snails don't seem to touch the turf algae now, doesn't mean they weren't eating it before it became noticeable and long. Snails mow down tiny sprouts of algae when they are still too small for us to see with our naked eyes. Unfortunately, when algae gets long, Snails cannot easily eat it. That's where Hermits come in. 

Hermit Crabs nip at the base of an algae filament, especially hair algae, until the strand is cut off and floats away. 

There weren't enough Snails and Hermits but it's not too late to correct the algae problem before it gets any worse. Also when the rock is kept cleaner by what may seem like an overpopulation of Snails and Hermits, they turn to eating less desirable or less tasty algae, like hair algae and this turf algae, because they're hungry. The advice I would give here is a mimic of Nick's advice, to buy at least 150 Astrea Snails and 100 Hermits. Let them go to town helping prevent new turf algae. As long as tank feeding is kept light, the Hermits will probably start eating the existing tall growth of algae. The Blue Knuckle Hermit is also worth giving a try.

At the same time, I would also try one Collector (short spine) Sea Urchin. Collector Urchins are interesting and are easier to deal with than long spine urchins. Place it on the rock right next to the problem algae.

I don't agree that SPS Coral suck up excess nutrients such that algae won't grow. Algae, because it grows right off the surface of the rock can take up nutrients that are leached from nutrient rich rock before any other organism can touch that pollution. Rock that was once alive, allowed to dry even for a couple days, can be a rich source of nutrients while the dead bacteria, bugs and worms that were once living in the cavities and in the deep recesses of the rock go through the process of decomposition. 

Some reef rock is worse than others and we know from experience that Lace Rock, commonly used for freshwater aquariums, actually encourages marine algae growth because of its PO4 content.

You probably know what I think of animals that disturb the sand bed and spend their time hunting down and eating the animals living in LS, destroying the pollution processing attributes of LS. I won't rehash the value of a really live sand bed and the exceptionally negative effect of Sand Sifting Stars, Wink but I do need to reiterate that there are much better and less desctructive animals for keeping the sand looking white. 
 
Two last comments:
I believe your wife is not at fault. She was doing the best she could.
If you leave this algae alone, it will get worse, because in the "battle" for nutrients, algae always wins. 

Aloha,
Mark  Hug


Edited by Mark Peterson - October 01 2014 at 12:37pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote love2skiutah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 1:10pm
I will increase the cleaning crew this weekend and see how it goes.  As far as scrubbing it, it does not come off with a tooth brush.  Even pulling the rock out of the tank, putting it in a bucket and trying to get it off is nearly impossible. It's almost like turf algae is glued to the rock.  It's a pain.  

As far as the dead reef rock goes, I'm going on 9 months now, so I would think that if I had some excess nutrients from the rock, the majority of it would have already been released by now.  Of course, I could be wrong.  

Yeah, I know your thoughts on the sand sifting stars.  I'm still going to keep them though Wink - BUT, last night I did think in the back of my mind, that could be contributing to it.  

Thanks for chiming in
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote love2skiutah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 1:14pm
I wonder how destructive that short spine urchin will be with these sticks?...  These big snails with the huge shells are great, but they knock my newly glued acros around all the time. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote DMower Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 2:06pm
Urchins of any size (short spine, pencil, and long spine) will knock things around and/or break corals to get where they want to go. Little buldozers. I have kept several kinds of each before. I currently have a pencil urchin only. They are good algae eaters though.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 2:20pm
Urchins are quite delicate (takes a hammer to smash their shell) and in my experience don't push as hard as Pacific Turbo Snails. Urchins also are looking for coralline and other substantial algae which may not be growing much near a glued frag.

Aloha  Hug
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote love2skiutah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 4:18pm
Someone mentioned to me co2 issues was their problem with turf.  My PH isn't incredibly low, but it stays right around 8.  I may try to bump it up a tad bit.  I never chase my PH, especially when my other parameters are on, but I may want to increase a little bit.  What are your thoughts on that? 

Edited by love2skiutah - October 01 2014 at 4:22pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nick801 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 4:50pm
You don't even run a calcium reactor do you? Your Canopy top is open?
I know some people have ran extra long skimmer tubes all the way outside for better oxygen exchange especially in the winter.

I myself wouldn't worry about C02/PH When trying to control some algae...

 How about some pics??


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote love2skiutah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 5:06pm
Canopy is open. No calcium reactor. I'm going to go the invert route with some chitons. I'm going to try and get the oj up a little bit anyway
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote PDoug Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 5:41pm
Foxface Lo? You hate tangs figured I would ask
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote love2skiutah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2014 at 11:34am
Well... This is becoming a problem really fast.   I added 450 different pieces of inverts.  Not even making a tiny dent in the Turf Algae.  

I posted this on several of the other big forums and others are having the same issues.  No one has any solutions to this stuff other than pulling rock out and killing it by boiling.   Several others I know who are dealing with it tried the shotgun fish approach and added several rabbits and tangs and nothing is touching it.  Not exactly sure what I should do here.... This is not normal algae, I swear it will live on land for days.  
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote builderofdreams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2014 at 12:16pm
Have you tried WetWebMedia? They have a pretty extensive data base on most Alages.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2014 at 1:53pm
I believe any algae problem can be conquered. I'll take a look and see what can be done.

Aloha  Hug
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ReefdUp Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2014 at 8:53pm
Get your pH up above 8.4. I've dealt with this before...and think it's starting up again. Last time I beat it, I dosed bacteria and had my pH at 8.4-8.5.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote love2skiutah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2014 at 8:55pm
Originally posted by ReefdUp ReefdUp wrote:

Get your pH up above 8.4. I've dealt with this before...and think it's starting up again. Last time I beat it, I dosed bacteria and had my pH at 8.4-8.5.


Which bacteria? Someone mentioned to me to do Microbacter7....

I'll work on the PH
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ReefdUp Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2014 at 9:33pm
Oh...and don't ask for logic on that one...I've got nothing. It worked though.

Chitons do work wonders as well. I've had a ton and always see their paths through it. Get the big ones. They have metallic teeth that actually take the rock with the algae.

You can make an algae-killing paste for bad patches with hydrogen peroxide...google it bc I can't remember the other ingredient and am on my phone.

Some people dose hydrogen peroxide directly to the tank, bit I don't recommend that since it causes coral skeletons to have calcification problems.

I've had prodibio on hand for years. Works well. I'm sure others work well too.
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