Algae ID- won't go away!

[Cgreene]

My tank is a 120 gallon display, sump holds around 60 gallons of water. I have a Super Reef Octopus XP-3000, 4 Kessil 350's LED's that are a year old, I run GFO/Carbon, Ca reactor, kalk reactor ATO, all run by a profilux 3. I've had this setup runnings for 2 years now.

Lets start from the beginning.

Around 3 months ago, i noticed my tank started getting algae on the rock and on the back wall. I changed my RO filters and checked parameters.. all looked good. I did a 45 gallon water change and a week later nothing had changed. Did another 45 gallon water change. THEN I checked my TDS (Yes i know i should have checked in the beginning) and it was 145! not a typo. So i changed out my RODI Membrane and i was back to 0 tds. No telling how long I was putting high TDS water in my system due to bad membrane. So then I do a 65 gallon water change, wait a week, then another 45 gallon water change. I have since done around 4 - 45 gallon water changes. My parameters have always been in check... Here are my current parameters and they have always been consistent.

Temp-78-81
ph 7.9-8.1
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 0
phosphates- 0
Ca- 430
Mg- 1450
Alk- 8.5

I even bought a silicate test kit yesterday and it gave a 0 reading.

I have changed out carbon/gfo ever month, have a decent size clean up crew of snails and crabs and an urchin.

I feel like its still from the bad membrane and still something in the water but its not really looking better. I have tried blacking out the tank for a few days and the algae dies but comes right back when the lights are on. And I do not over feed. Id say I underfeed while trying to beat this algae.

Any help?

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj93/vetteman/IMG_6195.jpg (http://s270.photobucket.com/user/vetteman/media/IMG_6195.jpg.html)


http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj93/vetteman/IMG_6194.jpg (http://s270.photobucket.com/user/vetteman/media/IMG_6194.jpg.html)

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj93/vetteman/IMG_6196-2.jpg (http://s270.photobucket.com/user/vetteman/media/IMG_6196-2.jpg.html)

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj93/vetteman/IMG_6200-2.jpg (http://s270.photobucket.com/user/vetteman/media/IMG_6200-2.jpg.html)

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj93/vetteman/IMG_6201.jpg (http://s270.photobucket.com/user/vetteman/media/IMG_6201.jpg.html)

[peasofme]

looks like gha or bryopsis

[Cgreene]

I think its gha, but why am I getting 0 across the board and on my tests? Could it all be in the rock and leaking out? And as its leaked out its absorbed by the gha so the test is misleading? I've never had algae since my cycle years ago until this bad membrane. I just added a 57watt Aqua UV sterilizer too. I know this won't solve my problem but I've always wanted to integrate one to my system and finally plumbed one in.

[Pife]

When I was battling algae I started out using gfo and changing it out every three days to a week. I then started dosing lanthanum chloride in the skimmer every night and my algae soon disappeared. I also had zeros across the board as the algae was taking up nutrients so they aren't in the water column to be tested.

[Cgreene]

First I've heard of Lanthanum Chloride. I looked at some threads about it and sounds risky to me since I don't know much about it. I'll start changing my GFO out more often and see what happens. Thanks for your input. So since there is no trace of po4 or nitrates in my water column, are water changes as necessary to my solving my problem?

[maddmaxx]

First I've heard of Lanthanum Chloride. I looked at some threads about it and sounds risky to me since I don't know much about it. I'll start changing my GFO out more often and see what happens. Thanks for your input. So since there is no trace of po4 or nitrates in my water column, are water changes as necessary to my solving my problem?

i would say yes. cause the algae is getting fed somewhere, at least with water changes your diluting it as much as possible...

[peasofme]

yea, it reads 0 cause it's all in the gha. did you introduce something with gha like a frag? thats what happened to my tank.

[Cgreene]

No but no telling how long I've had a bad membrane. I've always changed out ro filters when they start to turn colors, so thats what i was doing. All filters looked good but membrane was shot and was making 140 tds water. Not to mention I did 2 water changes WITH the bad water since I was seeing algae not knowing the TDS was high.

[skimjim]

have you tried a 3-day total black out?

[Cgreene]

Yes I did 3 day blackout. Tank is at my office and has a lot of windows on the front (North side so no sunlight comes in) So i hung towels on my tank. Almost all algae died but was back within a few days after lights came back on.

[Cgreene]

Would po3 or nitrate be traceable if i did another blackout since the algae is dying? Maybe do a blackout killing most algae then a big water change?

[peasofme]

sunlight grows a lot of algae

[Cgreene]

There is no sunlight hitting the tank. The windows are on the north side, which the sun doesn't hit.

[kenneth wolfe]

its not going to just dye out ..get in there and scrub it out the best you can ..change the water and socks get a syringe and target the rest with kent tech m ,then repeat until gone wait a few days between doses I have run up to 2200 before I started the syringe method ..after you get it out go back to normal ..I keep my mag high with kent tech m and have zero where I had patches before..it truly is the shiznit ..

[vitodog]

When I was battling algae I started out using gfo and changing it out every three days to a week. I then started dosing lanthanum chloride in the skimmer every night and my algae soon disappeared. I also had zeros across the board as the algae was taking up nutrients so they aren't in the water column to be tested.

Pife, if you don't mind, where would one purchase Lanthanun Chloride and how do you determine the correct dose for a tanks total volume? Thank you.

[kga943]

try red sea nopox or bio pellet reactor look them both up

[Retromagnolia]

I fought the exact same algae! What worked for me was dosing magnesium to the point of 1800ppm. It has no effect on corals, fish, or cleanup crews as long as you raise it no more than 100ppm/day. It creates an environment that cannot sustain nuisance algae. I don't have a link on hand but there are articles and threads that talk about this. I bought magnesium chloride and magnesium sulfate from bulkreefsupply.com and made a combo concentrate as per their instructions. Doing this alongside the obvious manual removal and consistent filter pad replacement has eradicated the bryposis algae.

[fsalazar]

Get a tang or angel that will mow it down while your finding a more permanent solution.

[Cgreene]

My tang won't touch it.

[Retromagnolia]

Neither would mine, once I maintained a higher magnesium the algae began to turn brown and dissipate, at which time my kole eye tang went crazy on it. Cleaned up the glass and rocks in a matter of weeks ;)

[Cgreene]

Just to update. Nothing I tried worked. Ended up moving all livestock to an extra tank in my sump room. Drained tank and replaced the whole sand bed. Put same water and rock back in tank with new livesand. Threw all my livestock back into the tank the same day and within hours my coral had colored up more than it has the last year. It's been a month and now everything is back to normal. By the way, the sand smelled horrible. Like a dead animal. Also a few pieces of the rock were what looked to be rusted where they were in the sand bed. I am assuming all this was from the bad membrane in the ro unit, and the sand bed was absorbing metals and everything else in the tap water. Lesson learned to check tds more often!