Saltwater Aquarium Algae - What Causes it and What You Can Do to Keep Your Aquarium Algae Free

Any type of saltwater aquarium algae is frustrating for aquarium keepers to control and eliminate. But if you can get to the cause of the problem it can be a easy battle to fight.

Causes Of Saltwater Aquarium Algae

Algae is a naturally occurring part of any ecosystem so you can never eliminate it entirely from your aquarium, but you can control it. The fist step in controlling algae in the saltwater aquarium is understanding that algae's role in the ecosystem is to ensure that nutrients never reach toxic levels to other animals in the environment so if you have in in excess you have  system that is out of balance.

In most cases causes of aquarium algae can be traced to two main situations and those are as follows

Excess Nutrients- Having to many fish in a tank can cause nitrate and phosphate levels to rise to levels that will cause an environment where algae can thrive and grow.

The nitrates and phosphates come from fish waste as well as to much food being introduced into the system.

Some saltwater fish keepers that have over stocked tanks try and compensate for this with bigger filters and protein skimmers but in the long run you are going to have to reduce the bio load of your tank to make the red slime algae go away.

Low Oxygen Levels- If your tank is over stocked or has low circulation you could have a build up of C02. This excess C02 will spark an algae bloom in your tank, this is your systems way of kicking in to keep oxygen levels high enough to keep fish and coral alive. A sign of low oxygen levels is a PH level that is under 8.0.

If you think you have low oxygen levels the best thing to do is increase your flow levels and surface agitation in your tank. If after a week there is no improvement in PH or algae levels you may have to start reducing fish load to increase oxygen levels.

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