Algae problem

I bought a piece of coral in the store. On that little piece of coral there was a tiny bit of algae on it. So i removed it from the rock it was on.

Now i have big problems in my tank. The algae have spread across the tank. Its growing over my corals and i cant get rid of it. Do you know what kind of algae this is, and how i get rid of it? My tank is 2,50 mtr by 09 meter and 0,9 mth high.

See the pics.:-/

 

Looks like GHA or Green Hair Algae. It apparently has a great food source in your tank go grow as rapidly as you said. Hmm... there are a few questions most will ask you to help as much as we can.

What kind of lighting do you use?

Pointless for me to ask your phosphate levels as any testing right now would probably read 0.

What are your water parameters:
Ammonia
Nitrates
Nitrites

Do you have any fish? If so how often do you feed them?

These questions can help us hammer out what the cause is and work towards fixing it so the algae stops reproducing

 

Yea looks like gha, a lot of fish love to munch on it, great food source

 

I have a lot of Tubastraea coccinea in my tank. They love food
But before the new piece i didnt have trouble in my tank. There was just a very little very little piece on the rock, that i thought was gone.

What is the best way to get rid of it? I did it by hand, but that is nt working. I take it out and a day or two later its back.

Can i use the products of dr tim for this or is there an other option?

 

If you think it will help that is your call. I know a few members on here have NPS corals as well but they have to do very frequent large water changes to keep their parameters in check or things like this can happen quickly. Do you have a water change routine and how large is your tank?

The way algae generally grow is that they eat up all of the nutrients they can and store them. If they are to die they release them back in to the water. If you are removing the stuff by hand it is probably releasing a lot of nutrients back in to the water or there are a lot already from feeding the NPS and it is just feeding this stuff like a forest feeds a fire. If you can get the nutrients in check and manage to kill it I would be doing frequent water changes to get as much of the nutrients out of the water as possible. Do you have a refugium or have you thought of trying to grow a not so invasive algae on your own so it eats the bad nutrients and starves the bad stuff out? There are ways to handle this but mostly if you add meds to the tank you are treating the symptoms and not the problem. Without treating the problem you will have reoccurring issues. Some people may even recommend a reactor to pull some phosphates out of your water. Another question is do you use treated tap water or do you use any type of filtered ro/di water to mix your salt with? It isn't always the most horrible thing to do but it can contribute to problems like this if you aren't using filtered water.

Sorry to ramble but if you don't fight the source of why it is spreading so fast it is just going to keep doing it.

 

If you can try to remove all the phosphates with stuff like chemipure elite it will slowly work but between that, water changes and your cuc it should get under control

 

Hello Cees:

More than likely the high rate of feeding lead to high nutrient levels which caused the algae to grow so fast.

To effectively get rid of it long term you need to add a competitor for the nutrients -- which would be bacteria. Short-term you can use Re-Fresh to kill the algae. Long-term you need to add waste-away on a regular basis (I assume you have a skimmer?). Or you can add a reactor and NP-Active Pearls which will grow bacteria on a continuous basis and eventually out-compete the algae.

You can also remove some of the live rock and try to remove the algae by hand but this will not solve the long-term issue. Also you can reduce the amount of feed you putting in the tank.

Cheers

DrTim

 

Thanks all,

Above my tank i have a glass roof. At daytime the light is just sunlight, and in the evening i have leds. (pacific sun)

My tank is 8 ' by 2 ' with a water depth of 2'. (or 2,50 X 0,9 x0,9 metre) I have a hugh sump, and on this system i have a second tank with only Tubastraea in it. In this little tank i have a deep sand bed filter.

What i did so far, I reduced the amount of food of the Tubastraea, installed a seaweed filter, and that is reducing the nitrates and phosphates. I removed a lot of the algae in my tank by hand, and change a whole lot of water. (i use fresh seawater)

I never had this problem. My tank was running for years without any problem.
It did get it in my tank with a piece of coral i bought. I know that the algae had a blast when they get in to my tank, because of my feeding of my Tubastraea. The food is also going for a part to my big tank, so they had a party. Thats why my Tubastraea getting less food, and you can see that they dont like that.

All of my water parameters are ok now. Phosphate you cant measure. The algae are eating that?

Im thinking to set the tank with only the Tubastraea in a separated system, so my big tank doesn't have a problem with the food.

I have to get rid of the annoying algae because the corals in my big tank are getting problems with them. The algae are growing over the corals. I remove that as much as possible by hand.

I dont have a reactor, so i think im gonna buy one, and use the pearls also.

 

did the deep sand bed get disturbed in any fashion before the bloom in algae?

 

No, it didn't.