algae algae everywhere

cdn_beaver

Member
Hello
My tank is about 6 months old, and everything was doing great until recently. I have recently upgraded my lights from a 20 Watt Power Glo, to 110Watt PC lights, and I also started using Phos-gaurd in my filter to remove phosphates.
The problem is I have aglea everywhere. I have green hair algea, red slime aglea, and about 6 different colours of other types of algea ranging from orange to yellow to dark green. The only algea that doesnt seem to be growing anymore is the corraline.
Is this a natural reaction to the new lights, or something else? Last tested my parameters were:
Temperature 81
Specific Gravity 1.023
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
PH 8.1
Calcium 300
Phosphate .15
I have started to increase the amount, and frequency of my water changes to lower the nitrates. I feed 1/2 cube of frozen food daily, and a pinch of cyclo-eeze every other day.
Thanks for any and all help.
 

mburnickas

Member
what is your clean up crew? DSB?
I have only 240 watts in my 75 and a DSB of 5.0"
I have these for fish/inverts but I still need more of a cleaning crew.
-various snails (Turbo/Astrea) lot of 10
-10 Nassarius Snail
-1 fighting conch (MIA now)
-1 Cleaner shrimp
-3 Mex Turbo Snails..HUGE and do WONDERS for algae!
-2 Percula Clown
-1 Yellow Tang
-1 Bi-color blenny
-1 Royal Gamma
-1 billion Spaghetti Worms
-1 trillion Pods
-1 Rusty Clown Goby
-55 lb of fuji LR
-200 Lb of Old Castle sand (approx 5" thk)
How long are your lights on for?
 

cdn_beaver

Member
Thank you for the reply.
I have about a 1 -2" sand bed of araga-max sand. 30lbs I think
For a clean up crew, I only have
4 Turbo snails
2 Blue legged hermits
1 Pepermint shrimp
1 Red Sea Star - Not sure how much cleaning he actually does.
30 lbs fiji rock
Other Live stock
1 Tomato clown
1 Mandarin Goby
My lights are on for about 11 hours, but Im about to cut them back to about 8.
 

cdn_beaver

Member
Tank is a 25 gallon. Here is a pic of the algae in the tank. The bubbles are from the garlic gaurd. Makes the skimmer go nuts.
 

archon

Member
get an emerald crab and more turbo snails and bye bye algae. in a 25 g ide say atleast 10 snails. for whatever changes use ro/di water(just telling u incase u are using tap) =) gl
 

lion_crazz

Active Member
Get 5 to 10 mexican turbo snails, and run RowaPhos and your algae will be no more. I like RowaPhos a lot better than that PhosGuard you are using. I have seen much better results with the RowaPhos. I don't know what kind of turbos you are using, but definitely, mexican turbos work a lot better than the black turbos.
 

ty_05_f

Active Member
I think your problem is that your over feeding, and that could also be a cause for you nitrates.
I think snails are just a coverup for the problem because when they use the restroom all of the nutrients for the algae are released again creating an ongoing cycle.
 

unknown

Member
I have a 10 gallon with
x2 Perc. Clowns
x2 Domino damsels
I feed them every two days and they seem very healthy.
I would cut down on feeding and go buy a toothbrush. use the BRAND NEW toothbrush and scrub your rock good. If you have a HOB filter or a skimmer it should trake 99% of the algea you scrub of out of the water.
Next you need to Take back that madarin ASAP. He is starving.
They need at LEAST 100+ lbs of rock and a very I mean VERY mature system. He will starve to death soon.
Vince.:happyfish
 

cdn_beaver

Member
I have since done another 10% water change, and cleaned the filter sponge and skimmer. At this time, I also removed what rock i could, and scrubbed them clean with a tooth brush in a seperate pail of clean water.
Next you need to Take back that madarin ASAP. He is starving.
I have heard it from every body about the 100lbs of rock etc. etc., and I and my mandarin thank you for your concern. My mandarin takes to frozen mysis shrimp and blood worms with garlic gaurd very very well.
 

unknown

Member
I have not heard of a mandarin taking to frozen food very well but it has been done.
I am not forcing you to take him back but if you really like SW tanks and the fish that come with it you should respect the fish and give him the space he needs.
In my opinion I would take him back even if he was taking frozen food.
Vince.:happyfish
 

cdn_beaver

Member
If you truly, 100% had the utmost respect for the fish, you would not take part atall in the keeping of fish in an aquarium. You can get the biggest and best aquarium in the world, but the fish is still not free. Tell me that any fish would not be better not kept in captivity.
Anyway, this is getting way off topic. Thanks to every one for the replies and the help. It is appreciated. :happyfish
 
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