Maze like algae on glass

[VintageReefer]

I have a 2 yr old Waterbox that’s been ugly for a while and I want to get things under control. Main issue seems to be two things

1) maze like algae grows on glass
2) snails die. Hermits live fine

Tried adding snails a few times. They become weak, and fall from surfaces and end up sideways and don’t try to correct it. Tried a strawberry conch, loved a few weeks then died. Hermits have no issues.

Livestock - single clownfish since the tanks startup over 2 years ago. Several scarlet hermits and a Halloween hermit.

Tank - 15g Waterbox peninsula

Lighting - ai prime 16hd

Feeding - this is my office tank. Weekdays I feed the clownfish a pinch of small pellets. Maybe 8-10. He gobbles every one up before they even begin to sink. There’s no excess feeding here. I skip weekends.

Filtration - media cup with matrix in space where filter sock would go, couple bio blocks, bag of chemi pure, algae turf scrubber (which did great for about 2 months then stopped growing algae)

Coral - acan colony, 1.5 yrs no issues. Few zoa as well. Had a thriving Cynarina for 6 months, only removed because it was so nice a vendor reached out and made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Other corals started getting algae on plug bases so moved them out before it became a problem for the corals

Coralline algae is everywhere. Clownfish and corals and hermits do fine. This algae is all over the glass and power head mainly. Not really on my rock or shelf’s or sand.

Also had outbreak of aiptasia. I introduced 2 berghia Nudibranch, they eliminated all the aiptasia over a few months.

 

[VintageReefer]

Acans are closed because lights were out for several hours, I turned them on just to take some algae pics

 

[VintageReefer]

Rock structure is a custom ordered bonsai shelf setup, there is a ceramic/artificial rock trunk and 6 shelves that appear to be 3d printed, not sure, they are some type of plastic the company custom made. I have some live rock behind it and in front also.

 

[Doctorgori]

I didn’t see a phosphate or nitrate reading…
…my snails make “maze” like algae patterns on the glass
…usually coralline growth like that suppresses hair algae,
what are you dosing.

 

[VintageReefer]

I didn’t see a phosphate or nitrate reading…
…my snails make “maze” like algae patterns on the glass
…usually coralline growth like that suppresses hair algae,
what are you dosing.

I don’t have snails
I admit I left a key part out. I have not taken nitrate or phosphate readings in a while. My main wonder was what type of algae grows like this as it seems unusual to me. And why would snails die but not coral, fish, or hermits.

I don’t dose anything

Parameters will be taken and posted

 

[VintageReefer]

Double post

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Do you have any flow in the tank? I don't see any powerheads.
How do you oxygenate the water? The fish are higher up in all your pics

 

[VintageReefer]

Do you have any flow in the tank? I don't see any powerheads.
How do you oxygenate the water? The fish are higher up in all your pics

Return pump is a Sicce .5 connected to a rfg return and I have a jebao Ow-10. Hard to see in my pic but it’s in there

Fish is up high because that’s one of the spots he sleeps in and i turns onthe lights just for the pics

Kraken mesh lid

I can get more pics and test results today

 

[VintageReefer]

Lights starting to come on

 

[Reefer Matt]

Hello! When’s the last time you cleaned the tank and did a water change? Also, some snails will fall off the glass and need to be flipped over on a regular basis.

 

[VintageReefer]

Hello! When’s the last time you cleaned the tank and did a water change? Also, some snails will fall off the glass and need to be flipped over on a regular basis.

No, snails behavior was strange. They would be fine for about 2 weeks then would fall in front of me as if they were weak. They wouldn’t try and get back up.

Been keeping snails in reef tanks almost 25 years, this wasn’t normal / occasional fall. When you add 10 snails and 2 weeks later you see 8 sideways on the ground…you fix them all, and later that day you see 8 on the ground sideways again…something is going on. Haven’t tried snails again.

Front glass is magnet cleaned every few days. Back glass is harder to get to and cleaned every few weeks. Last water change was 20% last month

 

[VintageReefer]

Due to only being 15g I’m thinking easiest thing to do is fully scrape glass clean. Siphon out all water. Remove sand bed. Add 15g new sw. And start over bare bottom

 

[VintageReefer]

Phosphate .06
Nitrate 26.6

I guess I have a nitrate problem to deal with

This prime does not photograph the same as my photon does. Even with a filter it still comes out way more blue than in person.

 

[Doctorgori]

I’ve had mass snail die offs, not all of em, but many…
You got a urchin by chance?

 

[Naekuh]

Due to only being 15g I’m thinking easiest thing to do is fully scrape glass clean. Siphon out all water. Remove sand bed. Add 15g new sw. And start over bare bottom

Yeah but if its something in your rocks, and you restart the tank, you give that something a fresh chance to out compete even more, seeing how its already winning.

 

[VintageReefer]

Yeah but if its something in your rocks, and you restart the tank, you give that something a fresh chance to out compete even more, seeing how its already winning.

No urchin

 

[Garf]

Due to only being 15g I’m thinking easiest thing to do is fully scrape glass clean. Siphon out all water. Remove sand bed. Add 15g new sw. And start over bare bottom

I know you are experienced in keeping tanks so I'm going to bypass the new folk questions. I'm glad you have accepted that turf scrubbers are not the be all and end all, in avoiding nuisance algae. I previously pointed out that insufficient lighting (blue) may promote algae that's not ideal in nutritional content for herbivores. Have you got whites on?

 

[Garf]

Also, are you using one of those "surf" scrubbers? Is this the tank where you said you will prove scrubbers are the dogs? I have also told you what goes on with scrubbers if you don't clean the substrate. To recap, they age. This reduces production (happens to be why older tanks are less susceptible to algae incursion). If you want your scrubber to produce, you must clean it. Although, these minimal output scrubbers are mainly a sales bonanza for SM.

 

[VintageReefer]

I know you are experienced in keeping tanks so I'm going to bypass the new folk questions. I'm glad you have accepted that turf scrubbers are not the be all and end all, in avoiding nuisance algae. I previously pointed out that insufficient lighting (blue) may promote algae that's not ideal in nutritional content for herbivores. Have you got whites on?

This tank has been neglected for a year and had one water change a few weeks ago when I decided I’m ready to get it fixed up.

I did install a turf scrubber and it did eliminate hair algae over the course of a few months but this is what remains and it’s something different

I respect your opinion and experience even if we have had bits of debate before. Allow me To add more details. These pictures are from December / early January. I had multiple algae issues at once - different forms. I added the scrubber first week of January. I did get growth out of it and harvested several times. I had a issue with my leds being too intense and had some white burned algae so I shaded the leds and that resolved.

The majority of the algae died off.

 

[VintageReefer]

Then…the scrubber stopped growing algae completely I might have depleted a trace element like iron or manganese. I decided a few weeks ago to do a water change, which had little effect. But I understand several would be needed in short succession to start to replace an element of it was bottomed out, or I can supplement elements directly. I have moonshiners manganese on hand