Brown Algea.

[pwh101]

Hi, I'm at my wits end with my marine tank. I changed the lights on my reefer 250 to two A360we's. I've been running them for a couple of months. I am suffering terribly with brown algae. It's on my live rock and completely covered my Zoas. I've increased and decreased the light intensive and duration without and real change. My levels are stable with zero phosphate and Nitrates. I'm running carbon and rows phos and dosing no pox 2 mm daily. My fish and mushrooms are fine. I live in Bolton and feel I'm losing the battle and am desperate. I've added pics as of today. Hope you can help. Thanks. Paul.

 

[rabster]

Have yo tried zero light for a few days. Don't know what corals you have. I'm in the same boat with brown dusty algae.
Rab


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[Phil077]

Brown algae does not need any po4 or no3
It produces its own food. if your not over feeding at all. It may be down to the light change.
And worst of all they can release silicates into the water.
Also check r/o water. and are you using the same salt as you always use?

 

[steve861uk]

Last pic looks like a bit of green hair algae (GHA) as well. As you're dosing nopox could be down to a nutrient imbalance between nitrates and phos - as I understand it 0 No3 and 0 Po4 are not good numbers to have (apparently your system will benefit from a positive nitrate reading), so may be worth lowering your nopox dosage.

Could also be down to flow?
[MENTION=20322]warby[/MENTION] is a font of knowledge on this :w00t: (as well as many others on here)

 

[doug_amanda]

Changing lights almost always has some sort of short term negative effect, (diatoms, cyno, hair algae) I don't know why that is,
I would chose a light setting your happy with and let it run at that, blow the algae of the rocks and corals with a turkey baster every couple of days or so and you'll probably find it starts to clear up fairly quickly.

Sadly nothing good happens in our tanks quickly, but bad things can happen in a breath.

 

[livingjewels]

Try a product called continuum clean M, I had orange coloured sand and it made a world of good within days..

I had similar to you and the brown dust soon disappeared..

 

[372xp]

Stability. You will be surprised just how much your tank can deal with on its own. Keep messing around with stuff, daylight hours in the tropics haven't changed for millennia, and everything gets thrown out of balance. Patience. Nothing happens over night and if it does it's a bad sign(see above). Be proactive but proceed with caution armed with knowledge. That's what this forum is for.
Good luck and increase the flow.

 

[Vix]

Hi Paul,
I've read your thread and I have the same problem since changing the lights on my tank.
Just wondering what the outcome was, what did you find successful?

 

[jim_fitz]

re zero nitrates and phosphates
the algae will be consuming them so not always a bad thing
have you tried cutting down on how much you feed a little ?

 

[mgb2010]

Ensure good flow, blow off algae and hoover it up as part of water change.
Are you dosing any magnesium? Steadily bring your levels up to 1300ppm+. It can do wonders for knocking back algae, when all else is good.

 

[372xp]

Ensure good flow, blow off algae and hoover it up as part of water change.
Are you dosing any magnesium? Steadily bring your levels up to 1300ppm+. It can do wonders for knocking back algae, when all else is good.

It's going to have to be 1500ppm and a lot more to start affecting algae. Hyper dosing Mg as a method of algae control is a long process ( ramp it up, ramp it down) and can have adverse effects. Whereas it may work it but it will also prove fatal to some inhabitants.

 

[mgb2010]

No, don't hyper dose Mg. Ensure that you have good levels and keep them stable. I have seen this many times clearing GHA and film algae within a few weeks.

 

[Vix]

My mg is 1410 anyway, I am at war all other parameters are stable, so I am daily blowing off rocks and sand, hopefully it will work

 

[steve861uk]

Hi, I'm at my wits end with my marine tank. I changed the lights on my reefer 250 to two A360we's. I've been running them for a couple of months. I am suffering terribly with brown algae. It's on my live rock and completely covered my Zoas. I've increased and decreased the light intensive and duration without and real change. My levels are stable with zero phosphate and Nitrates. I'm running carbon and rows phos and dosing no pox 2 mm daily. My fish and mushrooms are fine. I live in Bolton and feel I'm losing the battle and am desperate. I've added pics as of today. Hope you can help. Thanks. Paul. View attachment 136433View attachment 136434View attachment 136435

Regular (and large) water changes, along with gravel/sand syphon and use of carbon seems to have worked for me (thus far). Algae has now gone