I Fort Refugiums Were Ment To Help Combat Against Algae?

[craigybaby37]

Ime having a fairly large batlle with algae thats been going on for a few months now and i just cant seem to get rid of the stuff. The algae itself is very slimey so its a nightmare to grab and pull off the rocks like the more comment hair algae

When i upgraded to this tank back in august 08 i made my sump to have a refugium as i read they help in the combat of algae and obviously help pods grow.

Ive now ordered 2 new bulbs for my halides as they are about 5 or 6 months old so they are more than likely gettin into the red end of the colour spectrum.

However as ive just said my battle with the algae is a very long on and i cant seem to shift the stuff. Heres some pics of the tank and algae if anyone can identify it and give me advice on getting rid of the stuff it would be much appreciated.

 

[rabbut]

You mention pics, but they aren't showing for me

What are your nitrate and phosphate readings? What base-system are you using? Berlin, Blemum, Low-nutrient, Bio-mechanical e.t.c Are you using RO? Do you run a skimmer, and if so which one? Salinity is on... I know, all daft questions, but it will get us started...

All the best
Rabbut

EDIT to add, photos now showing....

Further edit to add. Sorry, not formiliar with that algea, over to someone else...

 

[craigybaby37]

Nitrates are at 0 ppm and phosphates i dont currently know but i have a nutrafin test kit on order from ebay so hopefully ill have a reading to gove you at the end of the week.

I havnt particularly based my tank round any special system as such, ime using a calfo overflow system heres a picture

Ime using RO water yes and it reading about 10-15ppm comming out from about 500ppm out of the tap........The skimmer ime using is a TMV v2 400

Ive checked my feeding but i dont think ime over feeding i feed 1 block of food a day which are about 15mmx15mmx15mm roughly and the stocking is as follows

1 yellow tang.....eats alot
1 clown
1 citreon goby
1 green goby
1 watchman goby
1 talbot damsel
1 hunbug damsel
1 rockhopper

10 hermit crabs
about 15 nassarius snails
1 orange starfish
and a decent sized sea cucumber

So to me whatever the fish dont eat the CUC will aswell as the various crabs atc that have come from the rocks.

 

[ben1987]

If your adding the block stright from the freezer or whatever that thats probably causeing massive phosphate levels.

You need to de-frost them, get rid of all the water and dab it. Make sure there is as little as possible on it.

Wont your fish eat a good balanced flake and then cut the frozen cubes to one every other day or 3rd day. I would also say a full cube is probably too much in one go

 

[craigybaby37]

I do de-frost my food in a little container with some aquarium water but i never rinse it afterwards ive not heard of it causing problems before.

As for feeding them a balanced flake food ive tried 2 different types and they just wont eat it.

Ive tried cutting down to half a cube of food but it just doesnt seem enough to me when you put it in the tank......its gone very quickly thats why i was thinking a whole cube wasnt to much but ime prob wrong

 

[SkiFletch]

Hows the growth in your refugium craig? With that much algae in your display I'd imagine your refugium would need pruning bi-weekly. If that's not the case, something is probably amiss with the amount of light over it, the reflector used, and/or the spectrum of said light.

Also, hows your RO unit doing? Tested it with a TDS meter lately? Lots of US and Canadian locales have lots of phosphate in their tapwater especially if they come from rivers/lakes and minor malfunctioning RO units can really dump a lot of phosphate into the tank

 

[craigybaby37]

Growth in my fuge is realy good heres a pic of when it started to how it is now

and its like this now prob with a bit more growth

When you say about pruning i didnt realise you had to do it??? i just fort a fuge grows and that was it and you only pruned it when it grew to much??? can not pruning cause such issues then???

Tested my RO and thats comming out between 10 and 15ppm

The lights over the tank are 2 x 150watt halides...gonna admit they aint for aquarium use but i just couldnt afford specific lights at the time and i cant say i see anything different between the reflectors used in the lights i have and what are fitted in specific aquarium halide lighting. Both bulbs are 14k colour rating but like i said ive ordered new bulbs so hopefully ill have them in a day or 2.

 

[ben1987]

He means the light over the refugium

 

[craigybaby37]

oops....the picture speaks for itself realy. Just a desk style lamp mounted on the side of my cabinate with a 9 watt energy saving bulb giving out about 60 watts of light and its a 6500k colour rating

Benn doing a bit of research on pruning and looks to me like its a must so ive taken a good 3rd off the top of the chaeto and spread it all out so its getting as much light as possible to the newly exposed areas.

 

[SkiFletch]

How long did it take for pic 1 to become pic 2? Pruning is necessary when the chaeto overgrows the refugium. It should be growing at such a rate that pruning is required every couple weeks to leave room for growth of the Chaeto. 9watts of PC light is pretty light if you ask me, might want to try and up it to an 18 watter at that same color temp.

Also 10-15ppm TDS is pretty high. What is the TDS of your tapwater? A properly functioning RO membrane will output about 100 times less than the TDS of the input tapwater. So if your tap is around 100ppm, your RO should be 1, and if your tap is 400, your RO will be around 4. I've never heard of anyone having a tapwater TDS of 1000ppm or greater, so I'd guess your RO membrane needs some TLC. Have you flushed it lately?

Remember that even 0.5ppm of phosphate leaking through the RO membrane can be ample fuel for nuisance algae.

 

[craigybaby37]

Must of took a good 2 months or so to get from pis 1 to 2......it only realy started growing fast once i upgraded to this light and its not 9watts input and i think 65 watts output ive seen lots of people using 9 watt bulbs with the same 60 watts or so output.

When you say change to an 18 watt bukbs do you meen that as the intake power so it will be someting like 120watts output???

The TDS of my tap atwer is around 450 - 500ppm. The filter membrain was changed only 2 months back and the carbon and sediment filter 2 months before that......i have been thknkin of getting a new RO filter somehwere around 75 gallon a day and with a flush system on it as my current one doesnt have it.

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah those twisty flourescents have two ratings designed to help/confuse the general public. The lower number is the wattage of the flourescent, in your case 9 watts. The second higher number is the "equivalent" light output of incandescent. The 18watt lamps are equal to 75watt incandescents and the 23's are equivalent to 100watt. The "equivalent" thing is really just so homeowners don't buy a 23 watt flourescent, stick it in a reading lamp and wonder why they're sunburnt the next day... Anyway, I would reccomend at least an 18watt flourescent with ~6500K rating for your fuge.

And yeah, a flush kit (which often can be purchased seperately) is what you need. Sounds like your membrane just needs a flush. A properly flushed membrane with that tap TDS will give you about 4-5 TDS out of the RO unit. I'd make fixing those two things a priority.

Also if that tank is a 65g which it looks like you could consider a small Kole tang to try and help you out and eat some...

 

[craigybaby37]

Things just get worse for me at the moment.

Come home from work to find my carpet it damp.......Skimmer was overflowing and running down the back of the sump, how annoying ive soaked up as much as i can now so just gotta wait for it to dry naturally, 2ndly my yellow tang is missing ive checked to see if its jumped and it hasnt, turned all tank lights off ans searched with a torch and cant see it anywhere.

Just what i need when ime having algae problems, a rotting fish in the tank. Looks like my tank is getting dismantled in the hunt for it.

No rises in nitrites or ammonia but ill keep a check on them.

Have just ordered a flush kit for my RO filter from RO-MAN for just over £10 which aint bad. Am i right in saying the just plumb into the waste water pipe from the membrain and by opening the valve on the flush kit the flow is no longer restricted to force all the crap out of the filter and membrain???

 

[craigybaby37]

Crisis over i found me yellow tang..................dead this morning. i searched in the dark with a torch and just managed to catch a glims of it tail so move d a few rocks to find it had been picked apart fairly by me CUC.

 

[SkiFletch]

Sorry about the Tang Craig, that stinks. That sounds about right for the RO filter. Wish I could help more by going downstairs to look at my filter and help you out, but I'm on the way to a nice vacation now. If it does not come with instructions I'd suggest giving the RO Man folks a call, everything I've read on this forum indicates they're very helpful.