Red Algae outbreak from hell.

Well we had a small patch of red slime on one of the power heads a few weeks ago so i took it out and cleaned it off and put the powerhead back in place. This was about 4 weeks ago and i havent seen any until the end of last week, when a patch about 5"x10" broke out on the substrate, then it was on several pieces of rock, and even jumped to an area on the glass. It is bad. All my params are within good areas the nitrate was at 0.02, phosphates where 0, ammonia 0, salinity 1.024, temp 78.9. Running a skimmer, running carbon and bio rings in a can filter, lighting is 8-24watt T-5's 2-420nm, 2-460nm and 4-10k. Power heads include a eheim powerball and a zoo med one that rotates, together about 300gph. The can filter is 350gph.

Do i need more flow, i know the can filter isnt the best but dont have room for a sump. Looking at getting 2 Koralia 3's and moving the other powerheads to other tanks.

Any help is appreciated.

On the bright side, the Clownfish love playing in the algae but its everywhere.

 

Hey. I had a bad outbreak a about a month ago myself. You should upgrade your flow to move things around a bit. But, the first thing is figuring out the source of the outbreak. If not it will just keep coming back. Manual removal is good. I did a few water changes, got the stuff blowing around in my tank and vaccumed it up.

 

Are you using RO/DI water? Are you running a phosphate reactor?

Thread moved to algae forum.

 

No have been using Distilled water in and instant ocean in all of the aquariums. THis tank has been setup since Feb of 09 and did a full cycle before adding anything, never had a bad algae outbreak till lately. No we dont have the space to run a phosphate reactor. We are running a XP-3 with carbon, filter pads and bio rings. I have heard of the phosphate pads etc but havent really been able to locate any.

Now we are planning on moving into an apt within the next few months and we where talking about when we break the tank down to move it to scrub the rocks and let everything die and start from scratch. WE have a spare rank with a Wrasse that we can put back with the lion fish till the tank cycles. We did add a few more fish that we acquired with some live rock and another filter.

Im thinking the new lighting and lack of flow are contributing to it mainly, but i do need to work on getting the nitrates and phosphates perfect. Looks like its time to work on the algae scrubber.

 

new lighting + nitrates due to filter pads and bio rings = trouble
you need to be cleaning those pads twice a week - the bio rings are a double edged sword but conventional wisdom is make sure you have enough live rock and dump the rings.

 

60lbs live rock, think im gonna ditch the biorings and filter pads. Just use it for carbon and some sort of reactor. The spray bar i made for it gives nice surface agitation as well.

So should i run phosban? Is there something for nitrates or is that all freshwater? I know i should run a sump but lack space. Might need to get a custom built cabinet for it.

Telgar never got to ask about the tank, sorry it took so long to get up to you. Long day before hand with a bunch of stuff before hand.

 

no problem, some days are like that.... been talkin to my house mate, think we are gonna make that tank into an african ciclid habitat

 

If you are able to put media in the XP-3 you may want to consider Seachem SeaGel which will provide you with both carbon and a phosphate remover. I used that with my hang on cannister with great success and now days throw some in my reactor.