Pale Green Algae

[LEEB]

Hi Ladies & Gents,

I've been lurking around forums like this for about a year and a half now and in books for even longer...a year before I started and now half a year trying to iron out problems

My Stats:

450 gal tank built in to my wall, with the side pantry as the filter room and pump room etc...

All water parameters are excellent, 1.025 sg + around 400ppm ca, and continually buffered with RO mineral buffer. Entirely RO water system, with reef crystal salt.

15 x 46" (54watt) T5 whites, 8 of the same size etc actinic blue.

I got 300lb of live rock initially 6 months ago, which has now spread to my home-made porus concrete rock (which i guess is now live too! - BTW people, this saved me a shed load of cash if you're thinking of doing it.) SO in total I've got around 570lb live rock & 6" LS bed.

x3 Voilitans Lion's, x1 (unusually friendly) picasso trigger, x4 fuzzy dwarfs, x1 choc starfish and the lucky shrimps, snails and crabs that have so far survived the lion's and picasso. Various creatures and plants etc growing from the LR & various corals which the trigger hasn't snacked on (trial and error that one!)

I seem to of been able to solve all the complicated mis-haps along the way but this has continually bugged me. From about the second week onward, I began to see my rocks develop a green pale algae, not hair or slime - looks exactly like the coraline type but just, how to put it, grayish.

I know that the little devil orange claw crab crew may be partially to blame for this, but I always see them feeding on what I feed them so I can't see why they would of caused this. I've read many other articles on what can cause this but to be honest I really can't see what it could be in my situation. The purple algae did initially only bloom at lower levels out of the light, but now the bulbs have aged a little it has crept up.

This isn't an urgent problem but just highly annoying since it simply doesn't look as great as the rest !


Many thanks in advance + please don't hesitate to shout at me if you see that I've got something massively wrong...


Cheers!

Lee

 

[Anonymous]

Lee,
:welcome:

Or at least, welcome to your first post!


You mention using RO, but do you know the TDS of its final product water?

Again, welcome!

Norm

 

[LEEB]

Hi there!

Many thanks for the welcome, yes of course ... I knew I'd forget to mention a few things.

TDS = 40,000ppm (After buffering, product water pure is something like 200ppm)
pH= 8.2
Temp = 78 Day / 82 Night

I've probably forgot other bits too

Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

The temp swings might stress some of the more sensitive stonies, but that shouldn't be an issue with this algae you're asking about.. (My temp swings about that much right now too..)


So...... - Let me get this right.. - You mean the "clean" water coming out of your RO is reading around 200 ppm on a TDS meter?

If thats the case.... 8O 8O


I see the TDS coming out of my RO at around 5 ppm.. - I then put it through a DI resin chamber where the final output of my RO/DI tap water filtration brings it down to a nice 0 ppm TDS.

At just 5 ppm (which is the RO and prefilters alone, with no DI) I will start to see cyano develop on my sandbed after a few weeks.

If thats the case, and you're seeing around 200 ppm coming out of your RO, I'd have to say your RO membrane is probably shot.

Do yourself a favor and double-check that.. - Or fill me in if I'm misunderstanding I suppose...

Norm

 

[LEEB]

That's pretty funny - a prime example of why not to trust instruments. Yep - TDS Metre has shot it, got a new one this afternoon, measuring 0ppm out of the DI like yourself..... phew....water is also measuring fine now!

The mystery continues....

 

[Anonymous]

Hmm.. - Yes it does..

How about your photoperiod? - How long are the lights on?

Is there any way you can post a pic of the stuff?

 

[Anonymous]

I'd like t osee a pic of that tank anyway! It sounds schweet!

 

[LEEB]

I can indeed, I've not long been back from a diving trip to the red sea, where my apparently water-proof camera wasn't all that water proof, so jessops are on the case. I'll take a couple with the normal cam and get them devleoped incase they take a long time to return the cam to me....I'll post some pics of the trip too when I get the memory card back!

Photo-periods:

8.30am - 10.30am blue only
10.30am - 8.30pm blue & white
8.30pm - 10.30pm blue only
10.30pm - 8.30 am lights off.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok, so the easy stuff is out of the way now then.. - Photoperiod is good. - Time to roll the sleaves up a little more on this one I guess.

How about a battery of questions? - Up for that? - Maybe something can come out of this. (Give as detailed as possible answers please..)

1: Skimming: What sort of skimmer are you using on this tank and what sort of skimmate are you getting out of it? (Are you getting little wet skimmate / lots of wet / little dry / lots of dry..)

2: Feeding: What are you feeding and how much / how often and just how in general? (Silversides on tongs to the lion or live stuff? - Are you feeding the live stuff until the lion finishes them off?)

3: Phosphates: Testing for them? - Whats it reading? - What test kit is it? - Done a reference check with it to make sure its giving good results?

Also.. - Its probably not too much a factor in this, but just out of curiousity, whats your water flow like? - What sort of equipment are you using for it and whats producing flow for the area(s) you're having problems with?

 

[LEEB]

Hi Grateful Diver, thanks for your continued support

Skimming: I'm using a purpose built DIY skimmer that I built with a local professional's advice. It's 5ft high and uses a high powered pond pump as power, returning to the tank with a home made - bubble stop (a little like the ones you get with the TMC V2 skimmers) to stop re-entry of bubbles. It normally collect around a cup and 1/2 every two days ... I've got the flow rate set to produce fairly wet skimmate, which it seems to do just fine, although every so often for a couple of weeks in a row normally - I'll get very little dry skimmate, even though nothing mechanically has been altered, I've watched the tank very closely and this doesn't seem to correalate with anything (i.e. fish still eat fine, behaviour.. etc..)

Feeding: I have a plastic box with a hinged flap lid, surrounded by cooling packs in the cieling of the pantry next to the tank, what I do is fill this at feeding time, and then the flap opens out above the tank and i push the food out in to it. Feeding is usually blue light hours (so I can see them hunting the rocks..really is an amazing sight.) I'll feed them ghost shrimp, crab meat and mostly a variety of seafood meats if I can get hold of them - sometimes king prawns...all the meat (depending when I can get it) is soaked in beta glucan, vitamins and garlic. Likewise with the shrimp.

Phosphates: 0.01, this fluctuates a little, never more than 0.03 at the heaviest of times. Using a Local brand test kit, which I have ref.'d against the RO etc and has come out correct.

Flow: I'm using 10 Aquaclear 802's (1514lph) and a standard drain pipe above the water for the return of skimmer etc, which adds a nice level of oxygen. Been careful to avoid the dreaded washing machine effect! Also a couple of those hydor aero colours which really are no use at all, but they look nice and for £5.50 each off ebay I couldn't pass up on them !

**Edit: Forgot to add, I try to count how much bits of food I put in, and watch them eat it....they normally get through it all, if they don't I'll remove it as soon as I can round them all in to a corner which is becoming very difficult! The wife won't help at all since she got stung! (had to laugh after she recovered from it though!)


Hope that helps!

Many thanks,

Lee

 

[Anonymous]

Wow.. - Everything sounds good. - Sounds like a nice setup.

And I guess I'm kinda tapped out on ideas now too. Sounds like things are going quite well.

Matter of fact, the only thing that comes to mind now is maybe green coralline.. - Does it grow in circles?

I've only been able to grow green coralline once so far.. And that was high up in the water column on a 250w DE lit temporary holding tank while I was in the middle of moving.

At this point its probably going to take a photo ID of the stuff to get a grip on what it is and how it might be developing. - Can you post some pictures?

Glad the wife is ok too.. - I've never been hit by a lion but it doesn't look like fun. :lol:

Norm

 

[Anonymous]

Heh...never thought of green corraline and yes it does grow in a round plated form if things are right for it.

Not the best pic of it but the best I could find online...

 

[LEEB]

Haha, it does actually look like the coraline - I've just done a google image on it, however it's not growing exactly like that everywhere but the majority of it is.....I feel like I've just wasted your time guys, my apologies, looks like I've been a little too concerned for my own good! Never the less, I will definetly post some pic's as soon as I can. I will keep you informed if it turns nasty Many thanks again, really helpful.

BTW - No the lion isn't much fun, I've been partially stung before whilst wearing builders rubber gloves while re-gluing a rock after a land slide caused by the trigger, went straight through the rubber, really does burn

Lee 8)