Are you experiencing a dilemma with excessive amounts of nuisance algae populating your aquarium? This is a problem nearly all reef keepers have at some point in the hobby. Whether for lack of knowledge, poor maintenance or both, this issue can be solved if a few fundamentals are understood. The most common types of nuisance algae that invade our aquariums include: brown and green hair algae, bubble algae, and red slime algae. There are others however the typical practice of management is similar.

Nuisance algae require three main elements to survive, light, nitrate & phosphate. Reducing these elements will cause the algae to slowly starve and eventually die out. This process can take a while and it may seem like nothing is happening but just be patient, it doesn't happen as quickly as we would all like it to.

If you have algae problems there are a few things to consider. Below are some common examples that can cause excess algae blooms.

• Too much light or having old poor quality bulbs (change fluorescent and metal halide bulbs every 12 months).
• Inadequately sized protein skimmer (it is recommended to purchase one rated for 1.5 times you aquarium water volume).
• The use of tap water (RODI water is best for your entire system, including top off). Change the filter cartridges and DI resin when exhausted.
• Not having a clean-up crew (red legged hermits are fantastic for algae removal, as are many types of snails).
• Inadequate water-flow in the aquarium (invest in wave makers with a flow rate per hour 10-40 times your tank volume).
• Using poor quality salt (purchase salt that does not contain nitrate or phosphate). We use Kent Reef Salt in our aquaculture facility.
• Elevated water temperature (water above 80 degrees not only stresses coral but also causes algae to grow faster). Temperatures between 74-78 Fahrenheit are optimal.
• Allowing nitrate or phosphate to accumulate. We use Red Sea's NO3PO4X to keep our nitrate 5 ppm or less and ROWA Phos to eliminate phosphate.
• Inadequate maintenance of the reef aquarium (it is recommended that a weekly 10% water-change be done to maintain your system properly).

There is a common misunderstanding in the hobby that you can have an aquarium where no algae grows. Unfortunately this is simply not the case and wouldn't even be healthy. Lowering nitrate, phosphate, and silicates will slow the growth of algae down to a crawl, but it will still grow. Clean up crews are utilized to consume algae as it grows. Hermit crabs and snails constantly graze everyday of their lives preventing algae from accumulating in a visible manner. Red legged hermits are a favorite due to how much they can eat and are exceptionally good at pulling algae out from between polyps as well as live rock. Turbo snails can get huge and feast on many kinds of algae species. Additionally, incorporating a refugium to grow macro algae is a great strategy for management. It competes for the same nutrients as nuisance algae and dramatically lessens the likelihood of having excess growth appear in your display tank.

I will now share my experiences in gaining control of a massive algae outbreak I had for several months. My first reef aquarium was a 240 gallon fully established system. I had very little knowledge about reefing at the time. Strangely enough the system ran great (because it was established when we got it) for about 9 months. Unfortunately, after a while red slime and hair algae started growing on the rocks. The protein skimmer was considerably undersized (rated to 70 gallons) and no nitrate/phosphate reducers, or carbon were being used. The inhabitants were fed considerably and I had never used RODI, only filtered tap water. The aquarium was cleaned once after several months and in all honesty it was truly a miracle everyone was still living. At this point we moved and had to start the aquarium all over again. This is when things really started to go downhill. After two months the tank was fully cycled and quite a few fish were added. The fish got sick and many died behind the rocks. From there the results were predictable. This was the beginning of an algae outbreak that lasted slightly over 6 months. At that point I figured I had no idea of what I was doing. In desperation I began changing 40-50% of the aquarium water every week and did so for several months in a row, the algae just kept growing!  I even went as far as taking every rock out of the tank (over 200lbs) on three separate occasions during this period and wasted nearly 25 hours scrubbing algae off of them. This stuff just kept growing back! After many more weeks of frustration and no positive results I decided to purchase a nitrate test kit and read the levels. What a surprise! Nitrate was well over 110! Phosphates were high as well. It was almost impossible for me to believe but I had finally found the problem. I literally decided to incorporate every method of nuisance algae control I had ever read into my destruction plan.

Below are the changes I made

• Replaced all the filters and DI resin for the RODI unit I had and decided to switch over to actually using it instead of tap water.
• Purchased Red Sea's Nitrate and Phosphate reducer and started dosing 28 ml daily to the 240 gallon system.
• Incorporated Rowa Phos filter media, using 2 cups in a canister filter, replacing it every 1-2 weeks for 3 months.
• Purchased Phosphate RX which lowered the PO4 to zero in a couple days - continued dosing 6 drops daily for several weeks.
• Started dosing ESV Granular Activated Carbon - replaced 2 cups every 1-2 weeks for 3 months.
• Replaced the wave makers for something more powerful around 9000gph (previously had about 2400gph flow rate).
• Manually removed all the rocks one more time and scrubbed ALL the algae off everything.
• Started a sump refugium full of chaetomorpha macro algae and harvested handfuls regularly.
• Purchased a Tunze Doc skimmer rated for 800 gallons.
• Replaced our old fluorescent bulbs.
• Installed an ultra violet sterilizer.
• Continued doing 40% water changes weekly for around 2 more months.
• And once the nitrate was below 20 ppm I purchased some tangs, 50 red legged hermits, 50 massive turbo snails, 50 margaritas, and lots of nassarius snails.

The first thing I realized was that hermit crabs were absolutely awesome at eating algae. Over the course of a few weeks they had nearly eradicated the algae problem on the rocks. I began to believe this could actually work. Unfortunately however, the algae kept growing and was most notable on the sand bed since the hermits were working so well on the rocks. The nitrate levels were consistently dropping 8-10 ppm a week thanks to Red Sea's awesome product. However, much as I had hoped this would happen quickly, it soon became obvious it was going to be a long process. It took over 2 months to get the nitrate under control. Once the nitrate was in the range of 10 ppm and phosphate 0.03 or less, the algae growth was significantly reduced and a couple weeks later it was completely finished! We not longer had hair, bubble, cyanobacteria, red slime or any other kind of nuisance algae growing in out system. This was awesome! I had been able to solve the problem which many reefers leave the hobby over (I had been ready to quit myself). So now I instituted a regular maintenance schedule as follows.

Maintenance Schedule 

• Weekly 10-15% water changes.
• 18 ml of Red Sea's nitrate & phosphate reducer daily.
• Changed 2 cups of Rowa Phos media every month.
• Replaced 2 cups of ESV's activated carbon every 14 days.
• Harvested Chaetomorpha from the sump as it grew.
• Began dosing Trace Elements, Iodide, and Strontium.

I invested months searching for the hidden secret of reef keeping that I was missing. Throughout this entire journey I was never able to find that ''silver bullet''. But that is just the thing, there isn't one. The process of algae eradication is a multi faceted approach as described above. I am pleased to share my experience with you so that you may have confidence and success in this area as well. For more helpful articles on reef keeping please visit our blog. Also feel free to browse our phenomenal selection of live coral!

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Happy Reefing.