algae growth on coral solution?

A couple of the 30 some odd corals that I have , has a bit of algae growing on them. This is the only algae in my tank! I have tried picking it off, I have tried brushing it off lightly with a toothbrush trying not to damage the coral and nothing seems to work! I can get just about all of it off but in two or three weeks its back! Any of you reefers got a solution for this? If so I would sure like to know what the secret is...please enlighten me...

[miztahphong2]

have you been doing your water changes? if you have and nitrates are low then its your phosphates. the best solution is to keep nitrates now and use ro/di water instead of tap because tap could have phosphates and stuff in tap water thats making the algae grow.

Yeah I do water changes pretty regularly usually with RO/DO water on that particular tank due to it being SPS's. The other tanks 300 gallons, 75 gallons and 65 gallons, do get a good bit of tap water and the water quality is very comparable to whats in my SPS tank. I was going though so much RO/DI water it just got too expensive to do that with all 4 tanks. I havent bought an RO/DI unit becuase I am renting an apartment and its just not feasable at this point to go that route so paying 40 cents a gallon has been the best that I can do under the circumstances.

Ph: 8.4
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
Phos: 0
Ca: 480-500

Occasionally the Ammonia will bumb up to .25 the morning after if I get carried away putting the food out and throw a couple of "Bones" to the starfish, but I only feed once every couple of days and it usually very sparingly. My system is hooked up to a way over sized refugium thats well planted, its 140 gallons. I haul out enough Chaeto macro-algae to keep the LFS supplied pretty well. Both of these frags came to me with a tuft of algae on them. I originally picked it off pretty good but obviosly didnt get it all. I thought the clean up crew which is rather extensive numbers wise, would tighten things up for me but this has not yet happened. I am hesitant to scape or brush too hard for fear of damaging the coral. I have cut my Halides back to about 3-4 hours a day max and run the actinics only for about 8-10 hours max. This has slowed it down a bit but its not disappearing like I want it too. Been fighting this for about 4 months. I am running out of tricks to handle this and I am about ready to let it just grow a bit more and frag it and throw the rest of the coral away! That obviously is a last resort. But before I get to that point I was wonder if others have had this problem and if so how did they aleaviate it.

[FishinInTheDark]

I'm just guessing, but maybe you need more flow to keep the algae down?

Conni

[coral_diver]

I just bought this stuff called Marine S.A.T. it is a biological clarifier for reef tanks and saltwater aquariums. It is 100% live bacteria not a chemical, non tixic, and non pathogenic. It is supposed to help aleviate the problems with algea throughout the water column, and around surfaces and live rock. It is supposed to make maintenance much more effective and easy. It says it takes 2-4weeks though. I am only in the first few days of using it so I am not really sure how great it is going to work however the guy at the store that I bought it at swears by it and proceded to tell me that he has seen tanks that have been set up for years and years the have been algea free all along and then all of a sudden for no apparant reason have a hair algea or green algea outbreak and this is the best method he has found especially because a fox face or a lawnmower blenny are the only 2 fish he is aware of that really eat hair algea and hermits are sometimes helpful but he really dosent like them much. I decided what could it hurt and besides my lawnmower blenny was eaten by a mean crab and really wasnt eating the hair algea to much and my hermits dont seem to touch the stuff. I will keep you posted on my success or disapointment...