New nano tank struggling

[syte]

My aquarium is about a year and half old. I have no coralline algae at all. My levels seem to be perfectly normal.

Here is what I’ve done:
Tested my levels
Ensured there are no pests
Made sure heater still works


Note that my nutrients are almost non-existent. Both nitrate and phosphate come in at 0. I find this kind of weird since I have a little bit of green hair algae. It’s possible that GHA is consuming all available nutrients, but I’d expect to see a bigger outbreak of GHA if it were a nutrient issue. I do have a large collection of feather duster. I imagine if I were too low on nutrient they wouldn’t be able to thrive.

Filtration is simple:
I use filter floss
15ml of carbon
10ml of phosguard

Filter floss gets replaced as needed.
Carbon and phosguard get replaced every other week.

I also do water changes (about 15% every week)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I wonder if my lights are causing issues, granted my lights are bit much for this tank setup.
I’m running the t5s at 100% percent, and running the blue leds at 70%. The lights are about 30 inches away from the surface of the water. I have yet to see much coralline grow in my tank. Even at the base of the live rock, I only see one small piece of coralline.

 

[scottw]

For sure the algae is consuming your nitrates and phosphates.
How often do you change the carbon?

what is your calcium, mag, alk at?

what test are you using for your Low range PO4’s? They may just be lower than your test can say.

Have you ever sent your water off for testing?

 

[scottw]

Sorry I didn’t see the pic answering my questions about the basic 3. Those look great.

 

[scottw]

Can you post a photo with whites. Blue hide everything. Would like to get a better color of the algae.

 

[jcook54]

I do believe that the algae is depressing the NO3 and PO4 levels. If you have GHA, you have nutrients. I've been dealing with the same problems in my IM20 and usually "time" helps even things out. This hasn't been the case with my tank and it sounds like your having the same issue. Here are a few questions I have:

• How big is the tank?
• Your Ca, Alk, Ph & Mg all look pretty good. Have you added any coralline algae to the system as a "Seed"?
• We can set up a time for a PAR reading if you'd like so you'll know exactly what the light intensity levels are. (Not really a questions I suppose)
• There has been a really odd strain of bryopsis going around that looks just like GHA but it really hard to remove. Can you remove the GHA with a siphon when it's present? Usually regular GHS will come off in clumps if you siphon some of it out. The bryopsis stuff is really stuck and even the big clumps are hard to get with just a siphon.

I keep going back to the pictures and things don't really look that bad. My first guess was a nutrient issue with the algae taking it up quickly but I can't really see how "green" things are. Post a white light pic and that'll give us a better idea.

 

[civics14]

Is your goal to have a bunch of coralline growing? I know there are plenty of established tanks out there that just can't grow it at all, even after seeding. I have a bunch, but I wish I didn't. Its a pain to scrape off the glass and it covers the pores of my rocks.

 

[project1004]

You are not going to get a coraline algae unless you introduce it manually into your system from my understanding. Some like it and some don’t. You can get some from LFS or some gets from snails and crab shells with coraline and scrape it into the system. I personally will do all I can to keep it out of my tank. Lol.

I dose potassium nitrate

and Neophos to keep them up. I also have some hair algae in my tank and it’s just in a patch isolated to small rock. (Front left). I’m guessing if you had elevated nutrient, you will have gha all over the place but you don’t have that high of nitrate or phosphate. My tank is only almost 4 month old and I want some algae in my display for my cuc and hectors goby who only eats algae. It’s matter of controlling. Heavy in heavy out <>

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[syte]

Hey folks, I tremendously appreciate the comments. I tried covering all the questions covered above here.

1. How big is the tank?
   My tank is 8g’s in total. Maybe a little less with the live rock.
   
   
2. Your Ca, Alk, Ph & Mg all look pretty good. Have you added any coralline algae to the system as a "Seed"?
   Yeah, I’ve attempted to seed it twice. I use the algae barn supplement that contains crushed up coralline.
   
   
3. We can set up a time for a PAR reading if you'd like so you'll know exactly what the light intensity levels are. (Not really a questions I suppose)
   Oh that would actually be fantastic. I‘ve always wonder if my lights were being way too aggressive.
   
   
4. There has been a really odd strain of bryopsis going around that looks just like GHA but it really hard to remove. Can you remove the GHA with a siphon when it's present? Usually regular GHS will come off in clumps if you siphon some of it out. The bryopsis stuff is really stuck and even the big clumps are hard to get with just a siphon.
   So I’ve been able to pull off small chunks of it with tweezers. I’ve ran mine through a microscope though. It seemed as if it was diatoms + green hair algae the last time I checked. I’ll see If i can post pictures of the algae underneath a microscope later.
   
   
5. Is your goal to have a bunch of coralline growing? I know there are plenty of established tanks out there that just can't grow it at all, even after seeding. I have a bunch, but I wish I didn't. Its a pain to scrape off the glass and it covers the pores of my rocks
   It bothers me that I don’t understand why it isn’t growing. I’ve had a previous tank where coralline grew everywhere and now that I know more I’m struggling to have it grow
   
   I’ll try to get photos of the tank with white lights on Sadly this is the ATI power module without WI-FI. Since I only have a Mac I have to run their programming application in a VM.
   
   Tremendously appreciate it folks. Right now the water change schedule is a bit tame. Maybe if it’s not a lighting issue or anything else you folks can think of. I can double up on that or introduce a skimmer. I have a surface skimmer in the back, but I’m hesitant to say it does anything effective.
   
   Test kits used:
   PH - Salifert
   Phosphorous - Hanna
   Nitrate - Hanna (high range one)
   Calcium - Aquaforest
   Magnesium - Aquaforest
   ALK - Hanna
   Salinity - Hanna
   
   Will be submitting an ICP test this weekend.
   
   Current prevailing theories are:
   High lighting (Thinking it maybe causing a lack of coralline?)
   
   High Nutrients that happen to be getting eaten by GHA (I wouldn’t expect green star polyps to suffer from this). About two months ago I had a much larger outbreak of Diatoms + GHA. Maybe the green star polyps are still recovering from being smothered during this time. Although it’s been several weeks since. I also have no real filtration. Just primarily water changes and a small surface skimmer.

 

[civics14]

I see you have a few frags in the tank, how are they doing? Is it just a clown and a shrimp in there?

At 8g, I am surprised you have phosguard or carbon running. Water changes should suffice, especially since I only see 1 fish in there.

Are you making your own water or buying it from a LFS? Not saying all LFS has issues, but I been seeing post about how people getting LFS water that are high in nitrates and phosphates,. I had a friend who got some water from a LFS and the phosphates was unmeasurable because it was so high.

 

[scottw]

Hey folks, I tremendously appreciate the comments. I tried covering all the questions covered above here.

1. 
   
   Test kits used:
   
   Nitrate - Hanna (high range one)
   Will be submitting an ICP test this weekend.
   

If they are very low, you will need the low range test, I am certain you have both nitrates and phosphates. The ICP test should confirm this. In my 800 gallon tank, I never had Coraline, b/c I scraped it off as soon as it came, all it does is suck up your Calcium/Alk/Mag so for me I would never want it, I want my SPS to get all of that. So for me, not having it would be a blessing, not a curse. And not sure why people think you have to introduce it into your tank for it to grow, it simply isn't the case, it will grow naturally in a healthy system. No need to "seed" it, if in fact you do want it.

There is a simple fix to get rid of the algae, dose reef flux Fluconazole, that will take care of the green stuff, and if you have red stuff which I can't tell b/c of the blue lights, you can run a round of Chemiclean. It is very hard to just "let it go away" most of the time it will not on its own. Those are 2 easy fixes, then once it is gone, really pay attention and see if it comes back, then you need to figure out why. Could be lighting too high %, in something that short you wouldn't need anything more than 200-300 par at the sand bed, and will have no issues with Acros/LPS. If you are a lot higher than that, it could 100% be the reason. You can also bump up your cleaning crew, they will help. I use them b/c I am a HEAVY feeder, b/c fat fish are happy fish, happy fish don't fight as much. I never want them to think they have to compete for food. But... This will also lead to algae if you don't have a crew to clean up what they don't eat. I don't see any cleaning crew in the photo, but they may be hiding behind the rock or in the sand if they are snails.

 

[scottw]

I see you have a few frags in the tank, how are they doing? Is it just a clown and a shrimp in there?

At 8g, I am surprised you have phosguard or carbon running. Water changes should suffice, especially since I only see 1 fish in there.

Are you making your own water or buying it from a LFS? Not saying all LFS has issues, but I been seeing post about how people getting LFS water that are high in nitrates and phosphates,. I had a friend who got some water from a LFS and the phosphates was unmeasurable because it was so high.

you are 100% right, if they are not changing their filters often that can lead to the ugly stuff, cause you to have to clean the glass more often. Even people at home usually wait too long, I run 2 TDS meters, when I see 1 pop up, I change my filters, bad water just leads to major issues.

 

[syte]

Here are some photos that better reflect the algae.

To answer some questions that I probably should’ve answered earlier but forgot.

Is the water 0 tds
The water is 0 tds. I recently stopped making my own water and used distilled water from walmart. I’ve confirmed it’s 0 tds

How are the corals doing
The zoas open and the psammacora is fuzzy but I don’t see any growth at all. They’ve been in this tank for a while

Water changes should be enough for this tank, why are you running phosguard and carbon
I was seeing hair algae so upped my filtration.

Do you just have a clownfish and cleaner shrimp
Yes, pretty small bioload

What do you feed
12 Hikari pellets every other day

I would consider using reef flux but was hoping I could reduce the algae by reducing feedings and manual removal. One benefit of reef flux would be there would be no algae that would cause a false 0 reading.

Please let me know if I can provide any additional details. I’ll upload photos as needed. Also will include my ICP results.

There is a small bit of coraline on the bottom of the rock scape located to the right in the tank. It’s actually growing near the base of the rock and on top of hardened glue.

Thanks again!

 

[project1004]

Honestly speaking, that tank looks way to clean/sterile for being year and half old. Do you see any pods in the tank? It seems like it maybe that your tank is way too clean for too long? How often do you clean your glass?


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[civics14]

Honestly speaking, that tank looks way to clean/sterile for being year and half old. Do you see any pods in the tank? It seems like it maybe that your tank is way too clean for too long? How often do you clean your glass?


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I was thinking the same thing.

@syte Are those marine pure balls that are in the sand bed? Also, do you have any snails to help with algae control, from what I can tell there are empty shells and 1 hermit crab.

 

[DiefsReef]

Honestly speaking, that tank looks way to clean/sterile for being year and half old. Do you see any pods in the tank? It seems like it maybe that your tank is way too clean for too long? How often do you clean your glass?


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I think I agree with this as well. Looks like you used no live rock in the setup which would have given you the bio diversity your looking for to help mature the tank. I went through the same issues using all dry rock and at 2 1/2 years I'm just now starting to see the coraline take off. (and that was after seeding)
What do you all think of dosing Microbacter7 to help control the algae?? I think this tank just needs more time, more food and maybe a Tail Spot Blenny .

 

[syte]

@civics14 yeah they are marine pure balls . I need to put them back in my surface skimmer.

As for clean up crew, I only have a single hermit that I’ve had for the past two years. All the shells are empty.

It does seem like the tank is a big sterile. Even in the ULR phosphorous test by Hanna, I get 0.0, but then I can’t explain why I have bits and pieces of algae.

If the tank is too clean, is there anyway to know for sure. Trying to figure out how to determine if it’s too clean vs nutrients are being used up by small amounts of algae.

I have an available doses, I don’t mind dosing phosphates and nitrates into the tank, or possibly just feeding more. Or maybe, just getting ride of phosguard. Even though I use very little, I don’t think I need it . Would it being sterile affect there not being coralline at all for the most part? Maybe that’s just a side-effect of dry rock .

@DiefsReef I can try dosing some microbacter clean and vibrant . I think that would be a great idea.

One of the other options I was thinking of was to do a black out. I’m assuming that if the tank gets blacked out the GHA will die. Those nutrients will go back into the tank and my phosguard will pick them out. Right now I feel like any nutrients aren’t trapped in the water column. Not sure if that makes sense .

@project1004 I clean the glass maybe once a week. Not too frequently. Yeah it’s honestly not as mature as it should be by now.

This makes a lot more sense though. I’d expect GSP to thrive in nutrient rich environments and in this case it feels like it’s barely hanging on.

 

[civics14]

I do not recommend vibrant at all. You can read all about it on R2R.

Don't do anything too crazy and too quick. I wouldn't dose any phosphates or nitrates, you can easily increase nutrients by just feeding your livestock more.

I suggest getting an astrea snail or two, they are great algae eaters.

 

[DiefsReef]

Yeah I dont like Vibrant either. I dosed it once and it took a while for the tank to recover.

 

[project1004]

I would also suggest getting some pods and seed your tank and dose phytoplankton to give your tank more bioload. Add some bacteria like PNS and bring your tank’s nitrate and phosphate to least register on your test kit. And take that water to LFS or have other test kit to double check. And once it is registering keep that at stable and you can adjust little by little as needed.


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[syte]

Thanks folks. I removed phosguard from the system. See how that plays out inside the aquarium. I’m assuming the amount I used was just too potent.

How long would you expect it to take for the corals to bounce back?

The GSP doesn’t open at all for the most part. And the zoas open but seem to be getting smaller. Maybe I’ll wait a few weeks and see if it starts to improve the corals health. If not I can try reducing lightening. I didn’t want to try too many things at once. I can try to put some of the corals in the shade concurrently to see if that improves things. What do you folks think