Bill Nye
05/18/2014, 11:36 PM
I have a barebottom 20 gallon long that is being skimmed by a bh1000. For fish I have a clownfish and a firefish so its a fairly low bioload. Typically the skimmer only will skim a nice thick foam after I dose amino acids or oyster feast since Im guessing there isnt that much organics for it to pull.
When I test for nitrate (api) and phosphate (hanna phosphorus) I get ~0 and ~.03 so my levels are fairly low yet I still have a lingering strange algae problem. I have never encountered anything like this before so I am unsure how to proceed.
The algae in question appears to be white and filamentous. It grows especially thick along the back glass but not as much along the sides or the front and does not grow in areas with low light (such as under the skimmer). When I scrape the algae it comes off in brownish looking clumps. Overall, I don't have any other algae in my tank and it doesnt grow on my rock for some reason. I just came back from a week vacation and my front glass didn't have very much algae on it even though it hadn't been scraped since I left.
I looked up dinoflagellates and it doesn't appear to be the same. I haven't had any luck finding anything similar online so I came here and posted as a last resort! My clean up crew is fairly small with only 2 trochus snails but it does appear they will eat it but at a very slow pace.
I am wondering what the cause of this is and whether I should begin dosing carbon or running GFO in my canister filter. I haven't been doing this since my levels test low but I hear carbon dosing can actually remove inorganic materials which can't be removed by skimming or tested for. I have been nervous about running GFO as my SPS have been coloring up very nicely (especially a red planet) so I don't want to strip my water and cause any RTN.
Thanks for your help!
When I test for nitrate (api) and phosphate (hanna phosphorus) I get ~0 and ~.03 so my levels are fairly low yet I still have a lingering strange algae problem. I have never encountered anything like this before so I am unsure how to proceed.
The algae in question appears to be white and filamentous. It grows especially thick along the back glass but not as much along the sides or the front and does not grow in areas with low light (such as under the skimmer). When I scrape the algae it comes off in brownish looking clumps. Overall, I don't have any other algae in my tank and it doesnt grow on my rock for some reason. I just came back from a week vacation and my front glass didn't have very much algae on it even though it hadn't been scraped since I left.
I looked up dinoflagellates and it doesn't appear to be the same. I haven't had any luck finding anything similar online so I came here and posted as a last resort! My clean up crew is fairly small with only 2 trochus snails but it does appear they will eat it but at a very slow pace.
I am wondering what the cause of this is and whether I should begin dosing carbon or running GFO in my canister filter. I haven't been doing this since my levels test low but I hear carbon dosing can actually remove inorganic materials which can't be removed by skimming or tested for. I have been nervous about running GFO as my SPS have been coloring up very nicely (especially a red planet) so I don't want to strip my water and cause any RTN.
Thanks for your help!