i'm starting to get algae growth despite 0 phosphate and 0 nitrate readings. I am adding red sea parts a & b at 4 ml/day in 75 gal tank and sump. Lighting are 4 actinic blue 2 hrs am and 3 hrs pm, phoenix 250 watt 14k mh run 8 hrs when power compacts actinic shutdown. This the same lighting I have ran for months w/o algae problems. I also run gfo inmy sump. Any ideas?
algae growth
- Thread starter Tony44
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SynDen
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No red makes a few a&b supplements, one is reef energy which is amino acids, fatty acid, carbs and vitamins. The other (and potentially more common) is red sea coral color a&b are a) halogens/iodine (I2, Br, and F2), b) Potassium and boron, but yes these shouldn't add any phosphates or nitrates, but curious as to why you are adding these, and are you testing for iodine and potassium?
Agree though that raising you mag up will help some with slowing the algea growth, but in my experience it wont eliminate it. It can certainly help but figuring out where the nutrients are coming from and cutting those down or adding fast growing macros to counter it will work a lot better.
Another option that can help control gha is to once a month do a 3 day no lights period. I do this as part of my regular monthly cycle and it can help to also slow the growth of hair algae
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SynDen
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Ya I tried this when my gha was out of control, and it did seem to help slow but didnt even begin to stop it by any means and I held mine well over 1600 for quite a while. The things that made the biggest impact in my gha problem was rinsing food well and gfo. Although eventually I replaced the gfo with fast growing macros. Once the macros took off I took out the gfo and the tank has never looked better as a result.
Its the slowing that helps, but mag on its own wont solve the problem. When you increase mag, the algae is able to use less of the nitrates and phosphates in the water. This leaves more in the water column that can be removed by water changes or used by macroalgae that can be easily harvested. If there is a large nitrate/phosphate source that is not eliminated, raising mag will only slow the issue, but it most definately helps either way.
I've tried all the suggestions and still have the problem. Even though I have 0 phosphates I'm thinking that my problem is cyano and not algae. It is green in color but has a lot of air bubbles in it. Any thoughts on this and how do I control it. I just add a little bit of flake food for my fish and that's it until today I have not added any of the Red Sea A & B in about 10 days. My A & B are the amino acids and vitamins and "concentrated energy source".
Green with air bubbles is dynoflagellates. The only way aware of to get rid of them is elevating pH.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php