Algea Bloom

csufman

csufman

New Member
I have 2 96 watt pc on my 40 gal reef i am starting. Since running them for a week, my whole tank is overrun with brown & green algea. Some of it looks like grass. Is this hair algea? This is what my cleanup crew consits of:
10 scarlet reef hermits
9 turbo snails
2 peppermint shrimp
2 cleaner shrimp
2 emerald crabs
1 coral banded shrimp
I got the crew from this website. Do I need more crabs and snails to eat the algea. It has covered my entire tank. I will try to get a picture up.
 
q

q

Member
How long has the tank been running?
What are the water parameters?
If you upgraded lights then how much did you upgrade?
 
csufman

csufman

New Member
The tank has been running for about 4 months with the lights off. I have 50#'s of live rock and 40#'s of live sand. I got the lights when I bought the tank. My lfs tested my water and told me it was fine. Don't have the readings, will get them tonight. I thought about putting more sand in my tank as I have about 1.5" on the bottom. Can I put homedepot sand on top of my livesand?
 
adrian

adrian

Active Member
Algae needs two things, nutrients and light, when both are available, algae grows. I have the same problem at the moment, I set up a new tank and the sand and rock is covered in diatoms, and there are also a few patches of hair algae here and there. Eventually the algae will consume the majority of the nutrients and then die back, although it will always be present which is where a clean up crew, a skimmer, and other nutrient export methods come into play to control the algae. If you have just started runnning the lights for the first time a diatom and/or a hair algae bloom is normal. Its usually a good sign that its time for some snails :D HTH
 
csufman

csufman

New Member
The clean up crew is the only thing I have in there right now. I put one cube of frozen brine shrimp about once a week to feed my starfish. I am looking at getting some more snails and crabs.
 
jodeman

jodeman

Member
I've just been through tha same situation. I upgraded from a 15w fl to a 250w mh, and boy did I get some brown algae! I have a 45g hex w/ 45lbs of lr. I dropped in 50 turbo snails about 4 days ago, and not it's spotless. Going to give a few of them to a couple of friends, as I don't think I'm gonna need them all. ? I'm running a CPR Backpack2 for filtration, it's got some blue shredded plastic in the chamber after the skimmer (it supposed to act like bio balls), and I'm getting a big buildup of this same algae in it. Do I leave it or rinse it out ?
 
adrian

adrian

Active Member
You can slowly remove that blue stuff from your bak pak for good. Its act just like any other bio media and will clog with wastes and algae growth as well as contributing to an accumulation of nitrates. HTH
 
joe5_15

joe5_15

Member
nothing of any cleanup crew will eat hair algae but there is a cure its called Marine S.A.T. it says it will not hurt any thing but hair algae but one of my sponges died of it but it got everybit of the hair algae great product except i think it had copper in it thats why my sponge died i think but it work GREAT!
 
jakob4001

jakob4001

Member
hmmm, well from looking around, seems to me you should have at least 1 snail to every 1-2 gallons of usable volume of your tank for control & biodeversity; we had the same promlem, but at time couldn't afford enough snails; so we bought a large lawnmower blenny (aptly named);the brown diatoms were consumed inside of a week for most part;wish had taken before after pics NOTE: make sure it is a lawnmower blenny though;NOT that that is what LFS said it is
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top