Bag Sump

saltwater aquarium filtration?

I've had a 50 gallon saltwater tank for over a year now. Bottom line is I'm not happy with the filtration. I currently have a wet/dry trickle filter with a phospure pad as the filter media. I will sometimes put some carbon in a media bag within the sump as well. I have huge algae, and my water is rarely clear. My live rock is starting to suffer due to the fact that I have to cut so much light time because of the algae outbreaks. I am willing and very interested to hear what you guys recommend for the the intermediate/advanced aquarium filter set up. I think a UV filter will be necessary and also a r/o water system, but I have no idea how those works; do they hook up to the filter system somehow or just to a water source in the house? Again, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The R/O system will do little for alge control. The UV filter won't do much at all.

The questions are: what type of algae, and what animals do you have? Also note that a very common factor is overfeeding.

Hair algae is a common outbreak, and it smothers just about every surface. Astrea and turbo snails tend to be cheap and easy to find, and they'll trim this down quickly...unless you have something that eats snails. Lawnmower blennies and many tang species (yellow tangs are popular and easy to find) will also eat hair algae. Nimble Spray Crabs (brown/yellow/green crabs mistakenly sold as "sally lightfoots," the latter of which are actually red) will also eat hair algae, pulling it up one hair at a time.

If you have bubble algae, go with some small mithrax crabs.

If you got some slime going on, the best you can do is pull it up (with a vacuum or a turkey baster) and increase the flow rate in the tank. Some hermits are said to eat slime algae, but I personally have yet to see them actually stick with it.

Another option is to set up a refugium connected to your filtration. If you place a fast-growing algae in the refugium (such as one of the caulerpa species) and keep it lit 24 hours a day, you can attempt to outcompete the algae in the tank by locking up the nutrients in the refugium's algae. Note that this will not be the end-all of algae problems: you'll still need to get rid of the stuff in the main tank.

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