I got the bug.... - Page 10

Under the rock, just right of the middle.  All you can see is a yellowish blob.  I swear it looks like a yellow frowny face.

Can kinda see it after you pointed it out. thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gemmy 

Now, I'm a little concerned about the tank. I just read another thread on another site (*gasp*) and found out that people battle hair algae with the foam back wall. The consensus is that the foam leaches phosphate into the water and with the excess food and waste it causes a hair algae outbreak and even dino and cyano. Now, the tank has had the rock wall in for about three months. I'm concerned that when I add the horses I will see an algae outbreak. My plan is going to be to stock the tank with plenty of macros, a decent CUC, and do weekly water changes. They say that the phosphate usually goes down after a couple of months.

Hi,

I had an outbreak big time on the tank with a back wall, it was not the cause. I had a power outage for 4 days and used the natural sunlight to try and get the seahorses to eat. I will say that once it got started I couldn't control it...turned out it was because I had used miracle mud to mix with my sand to help the turtle grass grow, and nothing to do with the wall. Except it was near impossible to clean off since I couldn't remove it.

I read that the silicate from the plastic backing is what leaks not phosphate. My outbreak was over 6 months of the tank being up if I recall.

I upgraded from a 30g to a 56g since the larger the tank the easier it is to keep the parameters in check. Now I use a wide blade caulerpa instead of the turtle grass, and the horses are super happy. All the macos are growing great without any help...the messy eaters make sure there are plenty of nitrates and phosphates to feed everything.

I run a phosphate reactor, and an Aquaripure filter. I did not put a back wall on the new tank...I saved the wall for maybe later on.

Interesting!  My column is made up of dry rock with a PVC and foam frame, and I can't say I ever had an uncontrollable HA outbreak.  In fact, I only had one in this tank...and although it was a big one, I'm certain that the foam wasn't a contributing factor.  It's on page 8 of my tank diary.  The reasons I'm sure it had nothing to do with the foam are (1) it happened over a year after the start of the tank, (2) I had some large soft corals turn to goo and die right before the outbreak, adding to nitrate levels, and (3) poor husbandry on my part at the time.  Once the cleaning was underway, the HA went away pretty quickly.

I've often thought about the foam projects of ours and HA outbreaks, though.  I also have heard some horror stories.  Like Flower, I have considered the possibility of silicate leaching into the system.  I wonder if people are adding their foam structures too soon.  These things need to FULLY cure, which in my opinion takes over a week.  Immersion into saltwater too soon would amost certainly stop the curing process, and any uncured product would be much more likely to leach into the water.  My stand cure for over 2 months, which is probably overkill but I wasn't in any rush at the time.  My rock stands for the 110 tank, by the way, have been re-foamed months ago and probably won't see a drop of saltwater for at least 3 more months.  This time around I used the UV-resistant black pond foam...I want to see the difference in breakdown between it and the tan stuff I originally used for the horse tank.

I will say this.  Foam has a great benefit -- and simultaneous drawback -- of being as porous as it is.  Once HA gets a good hold, it IS hard to fight it off.  But not impossible.  The first step to preventing it is dilligent maintenance.  I think Flower is right when it comes to her root causes of HA, and you see the problems she fought against.  My guess is as long as you keep a hawkish eye on the tank, do your weekly water changes, and avoid the miracle mud (sorry, Flower!!), you'll probably be fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gemmy 

Flower and Nova, thank you for the info!!! I really appreciate it. I just want to make sure I do everything right in this tank and want to prevent any issues that I can. I am definitely ordering my macros, the first bit of my CUC and my lights next week.

Nova, I used the black foam on my wall. It looked better IMO besides the UV protection. Blade caulerpa looks just as awesome as turtle grass, the horses love it....LOL..no more miracle mud for me.

Gemmy, what kind of macro are you planning on ordering?
 

I like it! I'm not a huge fan of the blue thing, but definitely to each his own. 

Oh, is your water low, or is it just the camera angle?

Looks good.....LOL...blue thing   NAH

HAHA

That's going to be a very interesting tank! I like that background!

Looking good Krista are there some macro algae in there.