Green Dusty Algae on Glass

Sawdonkey

Sawdonkey

Premium member
I could use some advice. My tank has been established since November and everything in it was transferred over from my old tank. It never cycled from the upgrade. Recently (last two weeks), my tank has been growing green algae, mostly on the glass, and it grows very quickly. When I scape it off, it just looks like green dust going into the water column. It comes off really easy, but it looks terrible. Even after I scrape it, it builds back up on the glass in an hour or so. It just looks dusty until enough of it builds up to make the glass look green.

I've never seen this type of algae in my 10+ years of having sw tanks. I don't know if it's related, but I've never really been able to grow coraline algae either. Maybe you could give me an idea of what you think is wrong? Fish seem happy an my minimal amounts of corals seem happy, the tank just looks bad. Here is what I'm working with:

-220 gal tank with 75 gal sump.
-Three or four inches of coral chips (the big chunky stuff) in the sump
-Filter socks that are cleaned often
-SKIMZ 201 that produces pretty well
-GFO reactor
-Carbon reactor
-Tons of flow (Reeflo Dart pump throttled back a little)
-8X 54w T5 (the bulbs my be getting old?)
-Chaeto in the sump
-I feed mostly pellets with some frozen now and then and some nori
-20-25% water changes every 3 weeks or so.

Temp:78
PH: 8.0
Ammonia: undetectable
Nitrate: <5
Salt: 1.025

Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
I don't see anything wrong with anything you're doing. The tank has been up since Nov, but how old are your bulbs? When T5's get old, they give off more of a yellow spectrum which algae prefers.

Also, do you have asterina starfish? if you have the kind I have, they'll eat up all your coraline...
 
I bought the T5s used and I believe they were only used for a few months before I got them. I'll change them out this weekend. I'm not really sure what else I can do to get rid of this green algae. I've done some google research and I see that people have had this problem. People have suggested high silicates and excess nutrients. I don't think this is my problem since I use RODI and have a big skimmer and minimal nitrates? I'd love to hear some of your thoughts.

I do have the stars, but only recently (last couple of months) after I bought some coral attached to a large rock from a guy. I've never really grown coraline, even in my old FOWLR tank. There is quite a bit of coraline on the newer rock I added a few months ago, so I thought it would spread to my old rockl. However, I only really started maintaining really clean water since I upgraded to my 220.

EricTheRed said:
I don't see anything wrong with anything you're doing. The tank has been up since Nov, but how old are your bulbs? When T5's get old, they give off more of a yellow spectrum which algae prefers.

Also, do you have asterina starfish? if you have the kind I have, they'll eat up all your coraline...
Click to expand...
 
You might want to wet-skim for a while to see if that clears it up faster.

Re. the coraline, you can take a toothbrush to the existing coraline and that will release spores to speed up the spreading. I assume you're checking your Ca, alk & Mg...Coraline, much more than most other corals, takes up a high % of Mg...
 
Thanks Eric. I'll take your advice on the wet skim, I'll change up the T5 bulbs, start testing CA Mag and Alk, and do a water change this weekend.

I've never really tracked CA, Alk, or Mag, because I just started keeping corals in the last two months or so. I guess that time has come. I had just assumed that I was fine by doing water changes since I have very little CA consuming corals. The one monti frag I have seems to really be growing though. My hammer seems to be growing more heads and my torch looks happy.
 
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