# Green Algea



## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

Hi all I'm new, and have a reef tank, 1200*600*500 and I have this problem of green algae, I have tried everything to try and get rid of it but it just continues to grown seemingly overnight, We lost all our corals and fish bar one female marroon clown fish. We cleaned the whole tank out, brought in some new live rock. and kept some of the old. we cahnge the water at the start every three days, now we do it weekly, normally 60 litres. The test for phosphates and nitrates are low, so I would like to know if I am doing something wrong.


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

what kind of skimmer, lights, feeding routine, types of food, exact water parameters, depth of sand bed/substrate, sump/filtration?, size of tank?, how old is it?, exactly what kind of green algae? like grass?, anything and everything else you can include. pictures help.

welcome to the forum.


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## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

onefish2fish said:


> what kind of skimmer, lights, feeding routine, types of food, exact water parameters, depth of sand bed/substrate, sump/filtration?, size of tank?, how old is it?, exactly what kind of green algae? like grass?, anything and everything else you can include. pictures help.
> 
> welcome to the forum.


 HI there, I am attaching a heap of photo's. The tank is actually now about 5-6yrs old but it started to get this algae about 18mths ago and have since slowly lost everything in it's path, I am only a learner and relied on advise from local fish stores. I did every thing they asked I changed food from frozen to dry I only feed now becuase I have 1 main fish left and I bought 2 green chroimi's and 2 domino damsels for water testing a very small amount two times a day. But I still have this blasted green algae growing it is becoming really frustrating, I have been treating the water every three days with Algae kill and have gone through almost two bottles now, I need advise BIG TIME. Hope the photo's help I have no idea what green algae it is.
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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

IMO i wouldnt use any algae chemicals esp when the problem isnt fixed so its a temp solution. it also could be trouble using things like this in a reef or any saltwater tank for that matter. 

just from what i see in the pictures your going to want to remove the bio balls. these are great for a freshwater setup but for saltwater they trap debris and detritus building up excess nutrients causing algae blooms like this. are you using RO/DI water? how old are the bulbs? the more info you can include the better we can help


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## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

Ok Ill stop the treatment it wasn't doing any good anyway. I brought two of the white light bulbs a few months ago, the store didn't have aymore so have been waithing for stock to arrive, I am due also to update my blue lights. Do you think these may be contributing to the problem. I'm not sure what RO/DI water is, we live out in the bush here in Australia and have only bore water,or rain water, we have had it tested on a regular basis and it is very pure. When all our fish died we cleaned out the whole tank, including the Bio Balls which were full of awful smelling stuff, but we were told to put them back in and when we had the tank up and running smoothly, start to take them out a few at a time to get the tank to slowly use the live rock instead, is this correct?. The tank has never come good though so have not started to remove the balls. Should I just remove them all at once or Gradually?? Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it.


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## conger (Feb 2, 2008)

remove them gradually, that way you don't disturb the bacteria population in the tank and you let the bacteria in your liverock and sandbed multiply to make up for the removed balls, without going through a mini-cycle.

It looks like your skimmer is working well, lots of good gunk in the collection cup :-D. If you have other mechanical filtration in the system (sponge blocks, filter socks, etc...) you might consider removing them too, or at least rinse them out very frequently, otherwise they will pose the same problem as the bioballs (trapping junk and allowing nutrients to build up). How large is your tank, and how many pounds of liverock do you have? Assuming you have sufficient liverock, then the liverock and skimmer together should be plenty of filtration for your tank, perhaps eliminating the bioballs and possibly sponges/socks if you have them will help. :dunno:

Good luck!


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

remove them over time. a handfull every few days or once a week. how much live rock do you have? good flow, a quality skimmer, enough live rock, good feeding habbits and a water change here and there should be the basics of your filtration. you can also have a UV sterilizer and carbon/phosban reactors ( which i suggest ) 
sumps are good to for added water volume and a place to hide this stuff. 
your water source may be the contributer to this. RO/DI is reverse osmosis water which is filtered water. your water may be high in phosphates and/or other trace minerals feeding your algae in your water source.


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## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

Hi Again one fish, I tested our water supply with no traces at all to phosphates or nitrates, and Conger thankyou and one fish for that advise on the bio balls, Iwill start to take them out a little every week, I;m not sure of the exact weight of live rock I have in the tank at the moment, I will have to try and weigh it, is it important to know this figue??? I know I pulled alot out and have about a third of my original amount, but will try and get a true weight for you.


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

no need to pull it out and weigh it. i was just wondering how much you had.


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## Kellsindell (Sep 15, 2008)

The reason your test kits aren't reading NO3 and PO4 is because they are bound in the algae. If you didnt have any of those minerals, you wouldn't have algae. You need to manually pluck the GHA out of the tank. Get a bowl full of water and pluck a pinch full out of the tank. Then dip your hand in the bowl to rinse the GHA and any spores released into the freshwater and then do it again. Yes, it sucks, but manual removal is the best. You then need to do a water change, 10%, and try to catch any GHA that's free floating. Then the next day, do it again and then the next day and you'll see you'll have success this way. I never recommend scrubbing the rock as that is only temporary and the roots just grow right back.

This could be the result of the bio-balls releasing finally and it's messing your parameters up.


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## conger (Feb 2, 2008)

Nessie said:


> I;m not sure of the exact weight of live rock I have in the tank at the moment, I will have to try and weigh it, is it important to know this figue??? I know I pulled alot out and have about a third of my original amount, but will try and get a true weight for you.



well we are just curious since the recommended guideline is 1.5 to 2 lbs/gal of tank volume, in order to provide sufficient biological filtration from your liverock. For example (an extreme example ) if you have 10 lbs of liverock in a 100 gallon tank, then that's really not going to be effective. If you've got 150-200 lbs of liverock in a 100 gallon tank, then you'll be fine.

But like onefish said, don't bother pulling it out and weighing it, no need to disturb the tank like that. Just try to get a loose estimate for yourself ("do I have a lot of rock in my tank, or just a little bit?"). If you've only got a little bit, you might consider trying to add some more, as liverock is more than something to make the tank took good, it's a very important part of the filtration!


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## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

Kellsindell said:


> The reason your test kits aren't reading NO3 and PO4 is because they are bound in the algae. If you didnt have any of those minerals, you wouldn't have algae. You need to manually pluck the GHA out of the tank. Get a bowl full of water and pluck a pinch full out of the tank. Then dip your hand in the bowl to rinse the GHA and any spores released into the freshwater and then do it again. Yes, it sucks, but manual removal is the best. You then need to do a water change, 10%, and try to catch any GHA that's free floating. Then the next day, do it again and then the next day and you'll see you'll have success this way. I never recommend scrubbing the rock as that is only temporary and the roots just grow right back.
> 
> This could be the result of the bio-balls releasing finally and it's messing your parameters up.


Oh sorry i must have mis-understood, I thought one fish was refering to our water supply RE: tank or bore water. This week end though we were so frustrated with the whole tank and took every rock out and scrubed every last bit of this algae off it and vacuumed out all the sand and replaced it with new. The results I will attach in photo's. the water testing 2 days after are as such:
Phosphates between 0.25 and 0.5
KH 11dkh - 196.9 ppm kh
calcium 420ppm mg/l
Nitrate between 10-20
PH between 8.4-8.2
Amonia 0ppm mg/l
Nitrite 0ppm mg/l
I don't know if what we done was right, and I hope that this is the last we see of that dreared green hairy algae, I just wish I knew why we got it in the first place and how to stop it in the future???? 
Here are some photo's though of the tank after cleaning.








































A BIG improvement, don't you all think.If any of you can tell by my testing anything I may need to do to keep this quality of tank I would really appreciate it.
OH and I have started removing the Bio Balls and we think our live rock is about in total between 40 and 60 kgs. We have 357ltr tank is this enough???OH and I forgot to add we changed 80ltrs of the water and replaced our blue lights, we are still waiting on two new white day lights or sun lights to come then all the lighting will be new as well.


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## Pasfur (Mar 29, 2008)

Removing the bioballs will be the biggest step to reducing your algae issues and phosphate levels.

I also think your live rock structure needs improvement. (sorry) The structure is tightly packed, allowing for dead spots of water flow. If you could spread out the rock a bit, and reduce the rock/sand contact areas, it would greatly improve water flow and help to eliminate areas of detritus buildup.


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## conger (Feb 2, 2008)

yeah, the nitrate and phosphate readings show why you were having algae problems. Scrubbing the rocks cleaned the tank up temporarily, but without reducing/eliminating the nitrates and phosphates (as removing the bioballs will help) it will definitely come back. Algae needs basically two things to grow: light and nutrients. Nutrients mostlly refers to nitrates and phosphates.

Ideally, phosphates should be zero, and nitrates should be zero or as low as possible. You should consider getting a phosphate reactor, they are pretty cheap and a good way to keep the phosphates locked in at zero. It is basically a tube/container that you put phosphate absorbing material in, and pump the tank water through. You can either build your own, or you can purchase one for around $30 (not bad considering the cost of most saltwater-related equipment). Phosban is a good media to use in a phosphate reactor... it lasts a while, and supposedly won't re-release phosphates into the water once it "fills up".

Phosphates will enter your tank through (1) water top-offs and changes, if the freshwater that you use for top-offs and mixing saltwater contains phosphates, (2) frozen cubes and other foods that you put in your tank to feed, and (3) the breakdown of organic wastes that don't get removed from your tank by your skimmer.


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## Kellsindell (Sep 15, 2008)

The reason you have the GHA in the first place is because of nitrates in the water. As long as you have more then 0ppm of nitrates and PO4 then you'll always have the chance of it returning. Scrubbing doesn't solve the issues it only temporarily gets rid of it... you need to lower your nutrient levels.


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## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

Thanks all for this advise. Pasfur I have started to remove the bio balls,Kelinsdell and conger, Nitrates have always been a problem for me, They used to have a reading off the charts. I was wondering about chaetomorpha algae that you put in the sump, I read it reduces nitrates and phosphates, do you think this would help in my case. If so where do you actually purchase it, I haven't seen it here in our local fish stores. THanks for the tip on the rock structure as well, that certainly makes good sense, I will try and move them around a bit. One more thing on the nitrates, I have been told if you have fish in the tank, then you will always have a reading of some sort of nitrates, because it is produced through the fishs wastes, the trick is to try and keep it down as far as possible, More fish more nitrates... I have not been able to get mine below 10 - 20. So I have one maroon clown, she is quite large, two green chromies and two domino damsels, which I brought mainly as water monitors, I feed them twice a day, a very small pinch of dry food, which I crush up finely. Is this too much feeding?, should I only feed once a day???????


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## Kellsindell (Sep 15, 2008)

I personally feed a pinch once a day every other day. Cheatomorpha will help reduce this. You can get it online, but if you go to you LFS and ask for some Macroalgae from their own refugium, they'll have some. Most LFS has a refugium becasue they are so well adept at decreasing nitrates and phosphates.


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

i have 0ppm nitrates in my reef. i have an overated skimmer, sump with chaeto, and i feed every 2-3 days. some corals or other things when needed. a mixture of food is best and if using frozen foods, prerinse them with ro/di water or alittle tank water in a fine mesh net or coffee filter until the water is clear before feeding. the bioballs im sure were one of your problems.


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## conger (Feb 2, 2008)

I also have 0 ppm nitrates and several fish in my 90 gallon, though I attribute that to my deep sand bed (no refugium in my sump... design mistake made it too small to be effective). I wouldn't recommend you add more sand to your display (might mess up the current bacteria population and cause a mini-cycle), but if you have a sump with a refugium chamber, you might consider putting a deep sand bed in there. Do you other guys agree?

As long as you can get at least 4" of sand in your refugium, deep sand beds are great at keeping nitates locked at zero (as long as you have a good skimmer and good flow to complement it). it may take a couple of months or more for the proper bacteria to grow and multiply, so it won't be an instantaneous solution, but once it gets established its a very nice thing to have.


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## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

Thankx again 4 yer replies, Conger I'm only a learner here and so forgive my ignorance, but I don;t know if I have a refugium chamber, can you tell me what that is, I took out more Bio Balls today that is about Approx 20 bio balls on Monday and the same today . Is this enough? if so I will continue this pattern of Monday and Friday take out about 20 balls,one fish I see now I may be feeding to much, but what if you have like corals or anemonies, that need feeding, how ofen do I do that??? I have a great deal of trouble keeping an anemonie alive, I feed them once a week with frozen shrimp, which I put in the tank and the Clown fish pick it up and feed them, But every time I get an anemonie, it just closes up and in the end shivels up and dies. How do we keep them happpy and open????? It has been one week since we did the major clean, and have had no green hairy algae. so far, fingers crossed we may have did something good.


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

a refugium is just an dedicated area of the sump that has a slower flow rate, usually sand or refugium mud and a marco algae ( im a fan of chaeto ) 
continue to slowly overtime remove those bio balls. you could even remove 1 a day, or 1 every other day. however you want to do it, just stretch it out over a period of time. nothing happens fast in this hobby, period. even if you go out and spend $50,000 on top of the line equipment and livestock, set it all up - it will prob. be dead the same day. everyone gets anxious but IMO waiting has its pleasures too. 
an anemone is something i dont suggest for someone new to saltwater tanks. infact im not really a fan of people having one of any experience level. i was given one ( and im far from an expert by any means) and prob. would not have went out and purchased one other wise. if you want an anemone for the soul purpose of having your clown host it, please do not buy one. clown fish will host anything and everything that they feel comfortable and safe in. this means it could or could not be the nem, and rather corals, rock, ive seen clams, algae scrappers.. really it is where they feel safe. i have heard that in the wild they live 200+ years and i have also heard they are eternal, meaning they live forever. either way that is a very long time and no one has yet to keep one for this length of time. honestly these are best left to the wild or at the very least until you have a well matured tank ( about 10+ months old atleast ) ANEMONE's REQUIRE A REEF ENVIROMENT, meaning your alk, ca, mag should be at proper levels along with your other paramters. you have to keep in mind nems are inverts and all inverts are sensitive to changes of any kind ( with some more so then others ) anemones can and will walk around ANYWHERE in the tank (including glass) finding a spot that they like regardless where you put them. on their stroll they will sting/kill just about any coral it comes in contact with, i have also heard of a bubble tip getting tangled in a torch coral and getting killed by the torch. when a nem dies it has a very very high risk of "nuking" the tank, meaning it kills everything inside of it. im not intending on discouraging you from getting an anemone but rather informing you. regardless *RESEARCH BEFORE BUYING ANYTHING.*
smaller chunks of silversides or mysis would be a better food choice for a nem. feeding it every 2 weeks to about a month should be alright. nems also require strong lighting, pref. metal halides but t5s will do the trick. 
what kind of nem and how did you acclimate it?
alot of corals have a symbiotic relationship with an algae. the algae is photosynthetic so it takes energy from the light and grows, the coral uses this as a natural food source. some corals just cannot produce their own food this way and need to be fed. a sun coral is an example and needs daily feedings for its health, other corals can be fed on occasion depending on what it is. every one will be different, same with their lighting and flow needs.


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## conger (Feb 2, 2008)

+1 on what onefish said about the anemone needing a reef environment. I went back and looked at the parameters you listed, and though your calcium and alkalinity are good, I think your nitrates are very high for a "reef". Ideally, nitrates should be kept at zero (or very close to zero) for keeping corals and anemones. I can't recall if you already listed what lighting you have for your tank.

But if I had to guess (and that's all this is, a guess), you've had trouble keeping anemones because of the nitrate levels in your tank, and possibly because they weren't getting enough light. Anemones are notoriously difficult to keep alive in a captive environment!


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## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

Oh Man this is really getting me frustrated, I have removed approx 25 balls monday and Friday, and will continue this pattern, I have cut back feeding to once a day a small pinch of dried food, I took out every rock and scrubbed them like you would not wanna know how, but I reallly had a sore butt the next day, and i test my levels today and find it still sits on 20 ppm nitratres, and I can see little bits of the hairy green algae appearing yet again on my rockks,HELP PLZZZ what am I doin wrong????


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## conger (Feb 2, 2008)

Nessie said:


> Oh Man this is really getting me frustrated, I have removed approx 25 balls monday and Friday, and will continue this pattern, I have cut back feeding to once a day a small pinch of dried food, I took out every rock and scrubbed them like you would not wanna know how, but I reallly had a sore butt the next day, and i test my levels today and find it still sits on 20 ppm nitratres, and I can see little bits of the hairy green algae appearing yet again on my rockks,HELP PLZZZ what am I doin wrong????




Seeing the algae come back is not a surprise, so don't get frustrated. Scrubbing the rocks removed the algae, but didn't fix the root of the problem so it's return was expected.

Also, nitrate reduction is not something that will happen quickly, but the removal of the bioballs is a step in the right direction. A water change will be more effective at reducing the nitrates, but a couple of things to keep in mind are (1) you should avoid a large water change, as that is stressful to the livestock in the tank, and (2) the nitrate reduction is proportional to the amount of water changed... i.e. if you do a 25% water change, you will reduce the nitrates by 25%. 10% water change reduces nitrates by 10%. And that assumes the new water is free of nitrates.

In addition to nitrates, the phosphates are as much, if not more of a problem. For phosphates, you can get a phosphate reactor (highly recommended), start using RO/DI water for top-offs and water changes, or both. That should keep the phosphates at zero.

But for nitrates, I'd suggest multiple small water changes over the next couple of weeks or more, and definitely keep removing the bioballs. I don't know how deep your sandbed is, or if you have a sump with a refugium, but a deep sand bed (either in your display or in your sump) is a great way to keep nitrates at zero.

In summary, don't stress! Getting rid of this problem will not be a quick process, but you can be successful in time :-D


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

can you please refresh me on your setup. everything from lights,skimmer, to water source, to water params esp ca,alk and mag, what else do you feed besides the flakes? anything and everything.

i would personally stop feeding daily. what do you have that needs this diet?


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## Nessie (May 14, 2009)

Hi guys thanks once again for your help. I will do all the testing tonight and post it for you and tke photo's of the sump to see if you can decide if I have a refugium. But I now have another dilemma, I took out more bio balls today and the tank has gone a milky cloudy color, have i taken too many balls out???? should I put them back in??? I started taking them out last Monday, then again Friday, and now today. Total balls taken out 80 so far, is this a natural process when removing them???


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