Algae issues

[grant778]

Two days ago when I returned from a vacation I found my tank with quite a bit of hair algae and some bubble algae. I was going to do a water change any way so when I did it I took out the rocks and scrubbed off some of the algae and rinsed them. (I had the lack of foresight to rinse them with water from the outdoor hose which had cold water and now there is some coralline algae die off). There unfortunately is still quite a bit of hair algae there and still a bubble algae or two. Are there any small inverts or fish that would be ok in a 29 gallon aquarium with 2 ocellaris clownfish, a yellow watchman goby, and a pistol shrimp, that would eat the algae?

 

[jay0705]

Do u have any snails or hermits?

 

[grant778]

I did. The hermits died one by one for some reason unknown to me. Perhaps it was an issue with my iodine level and they were unable to molt properly... I had 3 snails and they died too... One was stupid enough to crawl up onto the black rim of the tank where there is no water and it dried up. The others tipped over where I couldn't see them and were not righted and therefore died.

 

[pegasus]

Uhm... hermits and snails don't molt. Snails grow larger shells, and hermits move into larger shells. If you don't provide hermits with larger empty shells to move into, they will die... or kill each other if they like the other's shell. Cerith and Nassarius snails can right themselves, but Turbo/Astrea snails can't. Get some of each. If you're serious about getting rid of hair and bubble algae, then you may want to consider an emerald crab, and maybe even a lawnmower blenny. These guys wreak havoc on rock algae. I had a large outbreak of hair and bubble algae in my 125G, and my snails and hermits didn't phase it. I put one emerald crab and one lawnmower blenny in the tank, and a couple of weeks later there wasn't a trace of it left. Still isn't. Thanks to the emerald crab, there isn't a trace of my teacup or fern codium macro algae left either... *sigh*

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by grant778 http:///t/396064/algae-issues#post_3528095
Two days ago when I returned from a vacation I found my tank with quite a bit of hair algae and some bubble algae. I was going to do a water change any way so when I did it I took out the rocks and scrubbed off some of the algae and rinsed them. (I had the lack of foresight to rinse them with water from the outdoor hose which had cold water and now there is some coralline algae die off). There unfortunately is still quite a bit of hair algae there and still a bubble algae or two. Are there any small inverts or fish that would be ok in a 29 gallon aquarium with 2 ocellaris clownfish, a yellow watchman goby, and a pistol shrimp, that would eat the algae?
Hi,
If you rinsed your live rock in freshwater, you killed it. What makes live rock "live" are the tiny inverts that live in it, and the good bacteria lives on the rock to help keep ammonia, and nitrite at 0, freshwater destroys all of it. If that's the case, the only thing keeping your tank from crashing is the hair algae. It acts the same as any macro, and absorbs, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates from the water by feeding on it.
Doing daily water changes, make sure no windows (natural light) hits the tank at any point during the day. Be careful to not overfeed the fish. The HA (hair algae) will go away with nothing to feed it. Turn off the lights...and I should also mention, old bulbs will contribute to HA as well.
As a total last resort, you can also use Phosban (FOLLOW DIRECTIONS TO THE LETTER) to remove the phosphates from the system, a water test for PO4 (Phosphates) is useless because the hair algae is feeding on it, and will give you a false negative reading. Without PO4, HA can't survive.
A good algae mower would be a seahare...but once they run out of algae, they die. Urchins eat all algae, including new coralline. They are bull dozers and knock over corals and rock that isn't stable.

 

[grant778]

Well the live rock has been back in my tank for almost a week now so I imagine some of the bacteria has grown back. Interesting enough, there ended up being a lot less coralline algae die off than I thought there might be Also, only 2 out of the 4 rocks were rinsed so they can probably help restock the other 2 rocks with organisms. I don't want to turn off the lights because of my xenia coral but I will make sure that I don't overfeed the fish. One more question. Since I am going to do water changes after one or two days instead of the weekly basis I normally do water changes on, should I change a smaller amount of water?

 

[grant778]

Would the emerald crab hurt my pistol shrimp?

 

[grant778]

I also have another type of algae that has begun growing more than usual on my substrate. I'm not sure what type of algae it is but it grows in long, brown, hairy clumps.

 

[tthemadd1]

Post your water test numbers. That will help. Seems like your tank is going through some serious changes.
I just got trough it with my 75 gal. Real pain.
You can pull the rock back out and pour peroxide on them. It will kill the hair algae.
You will probably want to clean the detritus out of the remaining rock with saltwater.
Also check your sand to see how much is built up as well.
If you stir your sand bed and cause the tank to become very cloudy you need to vac sand on a routine basis. Rinse it and replace it.
Small batches to keep from cycling your tank.
Lighten your feeding routine, check phosphates in your top off water and use an RO system if possible to remove fluoride, chloride, phosphates, and silicates.

 

[grant778]

I will test the tank tomorrow after the water change. My tank currently has a rather dirty crushed coral and gravel substrate. Should I consider slowly replacing it over the course of a week or two with sand? And if I were to replace it, should I use live sand or would that cause an ammonia spike?

 

[tthemadd1]

I would use a gravel vacuum Cheap and effective on this type of media. Just vac out water before you do a water change. In addition take a turkey baister to the rocks and get as much waste to float as possible.

 

[snakeblitz33]

+1 on the gravel vac. There is nothing wrong with using crushed coral as a substrate,.. you just need to keep it clean with a gravel vac.
Make sure the water you are using for top off water has 0TDS. (Total Dissolved Solids) Making sure your fresh top off water is clean is the first step to a healthy tank.

 

[grant778]

It seems I was so pleased with how my tank looked after I gravel vacuumed it that I forgot to check back in here I did the water change and gravel vacuum about 3 days ago and there has been no new algae growth. I also got a LED light fixture so my tank looks even better

 

[tthemadd1]

That's great. Post some pics. We would all love to see the new setup

 

[grant778]

This is my current set up. The only thing in my tank that isn't doing too well since I got my LED lights is the Xenia which is on top of the rocks on the left. This I assume is one of two things. First of all it might still be adjusting to the change in lighting, or it may not like the change in the water flow I made. I pointed my power head up to the top of the tank to make waves but before I had pointed it in the general direction of the xenia but off to the side a bit so it didn't get hit straight on.
I am going to wait another day to see if it adjusts before I move my power head back to its former position to see if that helps at all.

 

[tthemadd1]

Looks good. I don't see much algae at all. Are you going FOWLR or reef?
How strong are the LED's. do a search on here for watts per gallon to find out if your lights are strong enough for soft/hard corals.
I would recommend a bit more live rock for a fowlr tank. The more rock the better for most species of fish. You build up a barrier to toxins. More surface the better. In addition you build up a food source with more rock and give them a better habitat to hide in.
Otherwise keep it up and soon you will be showing off as good a tank as the lifers on here.

 

[tthemadd1]

Looks good. I don't see much algae at all. Are you going FOWLR or reef?
How strong are the LED's. do a search on here for watts per gallon to find out if your lights are strong enough for soft/hard corals.
I would recommend a bit more live rock for a fowlr tank. The more rock the better for most species of fish. You build up a barrier to toxins. More surface the better. In addition you build up a food source with more rock and give them a better habitat to hide in.
Otherwise keep it up and soon you will be showing off as good a tank as the lifers on here.

 

[grant778]

It is going to be reef eventually but I don't have the money to buy more coral atm. Most of the set up was a birthday gift from my mom and then she was kind enough to purchase the LED lights for me. I should be getting more money from a summer job I did though soon.

 

[grant778]

The box for the LED lights says 8 watts and 7,500k on the side. I'm not sure if this means it is 8 watts per gallon or 8 watts total :/ The florescent light that I had been using even though it wasn't supposed to be used for salt water that came with the aquarium kit had 14 watt tubes. From what I have researched now, 8 watts isn't enough for coral :/

 

[tthemadd1]

I think your right. I have 6-96watt on a 75 gallon and I am at the bottoms end of the reef tank needs.
What brand? Maybe we can help determine the watts total on the light unit