Algae issues

[Brandon42]

so my tank is a year old this month, Iv been struggling with a green hair algae outbreak for some time now. Iv tried nearly everything it seems at this point. It's a 125 gallon tank with about a 25-30 gallon sump. Running a skimmer, Gfo, carbon, uv sterilizer (needs a new bulb. Still running but it's a year old). Iv got a refuge with some cheato but has also been taken over with algae. I do weekly 30 gallon water changes and spend an hour or two ripping algae off the rocks each week and scrubbing them with a toothbrush in the tank then getting as much out of the water column as I can with a fish net and then my vac running back into the sump through a 100micron filter sock, then do my waterchange. Iv been watching my nuitrients but they always read pretty normal.
Nitrate between 5-10ppm
Po4 between 0 and .025 I'm running gfo but I'm gonna guess most of it is tied up in the algae.
Ph usually sits a little low, 7.8 in the morning and gets up to about 8.3 by the end of the night.
Alk 7dkh
Calc 440

Iv been using vibrant liquid aquarium cleaner for about 2 months and I have to say it has been working wonders but just can't keep up with the hair algae. I only have to clean the glass at the most once a week and it's a quick wipe, I don't really get it on the sand to bad either it's mainly just on the rocks. Iv had a sea hare for about 2 months as well and he does eat a lot but can't keep up either. I run my lights for 6 hours on full power another 2 with half and the rest of the day just moonlight leds. Iv been considering a black out but not sure as to the affects this could have on my coral, have also been thinking about pulling each rock out and scrubbing one by one but I have a lot of coral and fish living in or on the rock so not sure as to how much good this will do but at this point I'm willing to try anything. I'm planning on upgrading a lot of my system when I get my taxes back and would like to have this issue solved before then. Any input on best ways to destroy this algae once and for all would be much appreciated other than the green my tank is doing great, but I'm sick of looking at the green.

 

[brandon429]

you gotta try the fluconazole on that it seems to be working great on peoples challenge tanks

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Are you on an opposite light schedule with the refugium?
Have you run outside air?
Are you positive its GHA?
The Vibrant dosing not working is concerning. Are you following the manufacturer's dosing methods?

 

[Oldreefer44]

I had very similar issue with the same size tank. Your pictures look like they came from my tank. Used all the normal cures including Vibrant. Last week started dosing H2O2 at 1 ml per 10 gallons. Immediately noticed a difference and now after 5 doses hair algae is just about gone. Have not seen any detrimental effects on fish or coral.

 

[ahiggins]

have you tried peroxide dosing to the tank?
Ive heard a lot of positive results on that subject. and I think it may work better than vibrant.
I would hate to kill all nitrates and phosphates (if you run your tank that way) but peroxide "targets" a lot of unwanted algaes.

 

[Brandon42]

Are you on an opposite light schedule with the refugium?
Have you run outside air?
Are you positive its GHA?
The Vibrant dosing not working is concerning. Are you following the manufacturer's dosing methods?

Iv always ran the refuge light on a opposite schedule but most of the time my cheato will slowly die it seems every time, Iv got a decent light so I don't think that's it. I haven't added any in a long time sense the gha got down in there, I killed the light for a little while when I started using vibrant and it did a pretty good job of clearing the refuge pretty quick. but I haven't noticed any of the cheato that was in there anymore.
Iv run outside air into my skimmer before but I don't really have a good way to do it during the winter.
I guess I'm not 100% certain it's gha but that's what it looks like to me. I'll attach some close ups. My sea hare was doing a great job clearing it for awhile but has sense slowed down and Iv noticed him on the walls a few times.
I have to say the vibrant has improved my tank dramatically even with this algae. My back walls of my tank had been taken over with a really tough to scrape off green and within a couple of weeks it was clear and now caking with coraline. I barely have to clean my glass and for awhile it seemed it was really kicking back the green stuff. I was doing the bottle dosage but had kicked it up to twice a week after reading a lot of people saying that helped but after a couple weeks of the double dosage where as it was knocking back the green I had a new type of what looked like brown cyano, when I cut back down to the once a week schedule this brown stuff went away but now the green is pushing harder it seems.

 

[Brandon42]

Iv tried peroxide in the past when I had cyano and was doing it for awhile before I had started vibrant but wasn't really sure if I should mix the two so I stopped using it when I started with the vibrant. Iv never had a ton of success with it I guess. But I'm willing to try anything at this point.

 

[Brandon42]

 

[CodyRVA]

Man i'd get like 5 emerald crabs and let them do work.

 

[Brandon42]

Man i'd get like 5 emerald crabs and let them do work.

I have 3 lol

 

[CodyRVA]

I have 3 lol

haha good grief, do they eat the stuff? Consider getting a few more? I mean, if the GHA keeps growing, it's obviously getting nutrients to do so. Are you carbon dosing?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

it's obviously getting nutrients to do so.

it also needs and can survive on high levels of c02 and light. Thats were the PH swing is coming from.
And yes, he is carbon dosing. Vibrant contains a carbon source.

The pics are a bit fuzz to tell. if the leaves have ferns or feathers its bryopsis. There are several types.

 

[Antlrman]

Get on the Fluconazole treatment right away. I have been following the post that NCreefguy made on Jan 19th. I have even treated my tank on Friday last week the 3rd. And my GHA is already dying. I would highly recommend. It should work wonders. 1 capsule per 10gal of water. Works amazing and doesn't harm a thing. Read the post in full. Tons of info with a lot of people having success. Good luck

 

[Antlrman]

Search " Bryopsis Cure: My battle with Bryopsis using Fluconazole "

 

[BlueCursor]

Get 2 Halloween urchins. You will probably have to take 1 back after several months. I am convinced that because we can't keep 100% steady state in our tanks, CUC is critical.

If you can't get Halloween urchins, get 3 rock urchins. They are smaller, but really clean up well. A little too well if you like the look of aged live rock.

Dosing a bunch of liquids to kill the algae may work, but you get locked into it. Just let the urchins feed and be done with it. LiveAquaria carries both urchins.

 

[midtnmike41]

I don't know anything about Fluconazole but I know @brandon429 really helped me get my tank under control last year. Took 2 weeks and a lot of scrubbing but I am algae free now. Here is a link to my thread.

http://reef2reef.com/threads/algae-outbreak.249581/

 

[brandon429]

So glad for the updates that's great work documentation

 

[biga1106]

I would try a sea hare

 

[acidtablockshifty]

three words...algae turf scrubber, seriously, you can build one for like 12 dollars. If you can use your return water to run it after the uv or something, you get the added benefit of not using a pump to run it, and the light shedding off should be enough for the macro algae, opposing light schedule. I have 160 gallons of water using a very small ats it like 8 inches long hangs about 14, high nutrients, no unwanted algae in the display, 3 hermit crabs, 1 turbo snail, 7 shrimp that pretty much have nothing to eat until i feed the tank or they get at the nori clip. They are so simple to maintain, little tricky to fine tune at first, but the way your growing that algae it should transfer itself to growing on the screen, if you build it right you could probably be pulling handfulls of algae once a week, then when its under control anything else looking to grow will grow on the screen.

 

[acidtablockshifty]

also like someone mentioned oxygenate the water, air stones in the sump, algae likes low flow low oxygenated water, think swamp marshlands tidepools, so where low flow can be an issue in a tank it's not really the issue, in nature its more or less the exchanging of water thats oxygenated is less in all these areas and that promotes growth. Every one says skimmers are enough but they just help, if you have a crashing water setup like sump on another level and open tops you might have enough, but if you have a quite system with lids skimmer wont be enough. The ats if cut off right before water level will pull some air down into the water while still being relatively quite, get a really nice tupper ware with gasket lid put the lid down flat, put an air pump on the lid put the tupperware on the air pump, and put a big hose going outside feeding the tupperware and your airstone tubes going through, all the air will come from outside, run it 24 hours day until it fails perferably on a different circuit then your tank just in case and gfci in case you run into condensation issues. stop dosing anything to solve this problem, and check that your not dosing iron somehow some way. If you want to dangerously help stave it of you could try letting your alkalinity fall but you would need the airstones to help the ph anyways, so start there