75 gallon reef tank is looking unpleasant
 

hello, I need help with my 75 gallon reef tank. I am currently dealing with some weird brown algae on my rock that I recently eliminated 99% with a sea hare but has made a come back after the sea hare died. I also have red cyano mainly on my sand bed and after 2 treatments with chemiclean it is still present and unfaced. I perform weekly 10 gallon water changes and I have incorporated gfo and carbon in a dual media reactor. I also keep a close eye on nutrient levels and don't see anything out of the ordinary.i do have a heavy bioload with 15 fish and my cleanup crew is on the light side. Another problem that I am having is with my leather corals and some soft corals that seem to not want to open much, not sure where this came from as they were doing just fine. I did run out of aqua forest reef salt and decided to go with Red Sea blue bucket for about 2 months now. I'm not sure if I have to restart my system or keep trying to figure out these problems. one thing is for sure, id love to keep my tank running for many years and I would love to save my system from a teardown or a tank crash.

9-16-2017-changed filters and di resin
Nitrates 5
Phosphates 6= 0.018
Salinity 1.026
Calcium 82ml 410
Alkalinity 64ml 9.0
Magnesium 70ml 1400

9-23-2027
Salinity 1.025.5
Nitrate 10
Phosphate 26 0.079
Alkalinity 0.60ml 8.4
Calcium 0.85ml 425
Magnesium 0.65ml 1320
thanks in advance:thumbsup:

post a few pictures of the tank including an upclose shot of some of the algae issues..

Your nitrate levels are rising per your tests same with phosphates indicating your nutrient export methods are not sufficient so increasing water changes is the first step..
The last post your had about this has some contradictory information so.... err..
did you stop GFO like we suggested?
Is that why your phoshpates are high now?
Your nitrates are also increasing..

You might just be overfeeding..
But we need a straight story on this post and your last one about which GFO to run.. The information isn't really agreeing..

There is NO need to restart your system with what I expect are really minor issues.
And if you don't learn to take care of them its just going to happen again..

Base on the info here. I think you are over feeding. How are you feeding, how often and how much? I feed a small pinch at a time, and let them eat before I give more. When they stop begging for food, I stop feeding. Very little food actually make it to the substrate.

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Could you show some pictures?

Hello! I started GFO not that long ago. Looking st my brs orders history I got my GFO in mid June 2017.I had always used carbon but then started incorporating the GFO together with the carbon in the same reactor. But then ran out of it and was thinking ordering rowa or brs gfo but I ended up going with brs brand. I haven’t used it yet it just Came in Today. I did cut out NOPOX so maybe that’s why the nitrates show to be a bit higher and the same goes for the gfo. I ran out of it and hadn’t ordered any so that marvel showed the spike In the po4 levels.
This picture is the only one in my phone you can see a little bit of the algae here.

I would add the Gfo back slowly and keep supplements that you use with at least one spare bottle in the future. Get the no4po3x if you liked what it was doing and keep dosing, make sure to order more when you get low. Your corals are probably closed up due to parameter swings. Hth

Yup, some green algae, but does not seem bad to me. All tanks have some algae. No pox only masks the underlying conditions, but as already stated, export seems too low so double the water changes and half the frequency.

What about lightings?

Algae uses light, without light it will die. What is your photoperiod?
What type of light are you using. As lights age, the colour spectrum changes and algae becomes more.

Looks like your nitrate and phosphate exports (NoPox carbon dosing with skimming and GFO) are no longer functional, so the algae is stepping in to fill their role.

GFO will reduce Phosphates, but you'll probably want to export the Nitrates as well. NoPox with an excellent skimmer should reduce both.

Hello
I feed lrs and nori
Nori in the morning and afternoon or evening is Lrs. I do like you feed a bit then feed a bit more once it’s all gone. I never dump it all.

I forgot to mention earlier that the reason I discontinued the carbon dozing was because I was introducing a Chaeto reactor which is still running but it’s not quite growing much chaeto. The algae is a little worse on tithe rocks I just don’t have another picture on hand.

I am Running three Radeon XR 15 Gen 4 pro they have been running for almost a year and I have turned off the red and green spectrum and I run a 10 hour cycle on my lights @ 40% intensity Max. I also took off the nopox because I heard carbon dosing can also lead to cyano.

I took some better pictures to show whats going on but for some reason I cannot upload the file,it says file upload fail.

I am using a MacBook Pro but I can't figure out the issue with the picture.

I guess we can eliminate feeding. I have a lawnmower blenny and he lives up to his name. I read starry blenny also eats algae and it is prettier. That aside, we still need to find a way to keep PO and NO in check.

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What skimmer are you using? Still using GAC? Adequate lights/flow on cheato reactor?