Odd algae issue

89-lx

89-lx

New Member
I went home for a few days, and came home to find my tank loaded with brown algae. There are no fish in it, just the water spinning around with some live rock and live sand for about a week and a half now. The algae is brown in color, and has a lot of strands of what looks like hair. I used an extra toothbrush and was able to brush it of with ease, but what caused this?


Also, the filter looks like this after about 10 minutes. I keep rinsing it off, hoping to get rid of this stuff:
 
patrick8929

patrick8929

Active Member
its more than likely part of your cycle. ammonia and nitrites and nitrates are what feed algae. so if you had a spike in your cycle thats what caused it.
 
89-lx

89-lx

New Member
Originally Posted by patrick8929
http:///forum/post/2805226
its more than likely part of your cycle. ammonia and nitrites and nitrates are what feed algae. so if you had a spike in your cycle thats what caused it.
Odd thing is, all my ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and pH levels were within where they should be. Maybe it cycled while I was home for a few days and fell back to normal? lol
Also, am I good rinsing the filter and cleaning the rocks like I did?
 
patrick8929

patrick8929

Active Member
ita common name is hair algae. but yes thats the same stuff. well my tank is cycling and i dont really have a spike and i have that stuff. just wait and get a snail or 2 and they will eat that stuff right up! yes your okay with what you have done.
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
hair algae is not something you brush off easily with a toothbrush.
Lemme see if I can't another pic on my harddrive of dinos not looking so slimy.
 
rotarymagic

rotarymagic

Active Member
get a CUC in there and don't do any water changes for 2 weeks so that everything stabilizes. It will go away quickly on its own. Ditch that mechanical/carbon unit in chamber1, they trap nitrates and phosphates like a mofo. If you're going to use something like that I'd recommend ripping all the stuff off the plastic on the insert and wrapping it in a polyfilter which you'll need to replace monthly. These polyfilters work MUCH better than the stock unit. Behind that I'd use a chemipure and bag of rowaphos in chamber2 or wherever convenient. I ran purigen too... but I'm kinda extreme.. I mashed polyfilter into the trickle plate on my BC14, but most people won't take time to cut out strips of polyfilter to fit the grooves. It worked well for me. Phosphates stayed at zero (every 60days there was rowaphos replacement), replaced the polyfilter monthly, replaced the carbon and purigen together once the purigen looked like crap roughly every 3 months..
 
89-lx

89-lx

New Member
What do you recommend, a snail or ghost shrimp? As far as the first chamber goes, I am just using the stock filter for now. I have a protein skimmer ready to go as soon as I get my first fish in there.
 
rotarymagic

rotarymagic

Active Member
Originally Posted by 89-LX
http:///forum/post/2805312
What do you recommend, a snail or ghost shrimp? As far as the first chamber goes, I am just using the stock filter for now. I have a protein skimmer ready to go as soon as I get my first fish in there.
You may even be able to just not use the protein skimmer.
Do you already have any members of a clean up crew?
 
89-lx

89-lx

New Member
Originally Posted by Rotarymagic
http:///forum/post/2805317
You may even be able to just not use the protein skimmer.
Do you already have any members of a clean up crew?
Nothing yet. I was going to start with live stuff in it next week.
 
rotarymagic

rotarymagic

Active Member
If you don't already have any members for a clean up crew, I'd do the following.
No hermit crabs!!!
for a BC14 (which is what your tank appears to be), I'd do 8 astrea snails, 5 smaller nassarius (florida variety I think), 5 cerith snails, 1 fighting conch. Literally that's all you need for that size tank. So many people will throw a million of everything and it actually makes the situation worse because even the CUC takes a dump in the tank LOL not just fish. They won't strip the rocks over night, but the problems will be gone within 2 weeks and that's a good number for a permanent clean up crew.
The reason for no hermit crabs is that they will start looking for other food sources once they mine all the algae off and they especially like killing cerith snails for their shells.
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
Work on getting more pictures, if you could, so we can ID the algae more correctly. If you could figure out what it is then you could select critters that eat it. Without that info you'll be just shooting in the dark hoping one of them will consume it.
Rotary's suggestion is a very nice variety that is great for day to day, but unless we figure out what it is, none of them may eat it.... but still get them :)
 
rotarymagic

rotarymagic

Active Member
Originally Posted by Cranberry
http:///forum/post/2805747
Work on getting more pictures, if you could, so we can ID the algae more correctly. If you could figure out what it is then you could select critters that eat it. Without that info you'll be just shooting in the dark hoping one of them will consume it.
Rotary's suggestion is a very nice variety that is great for day to day, but unless we figure out what it is, none of them may eat it.... but still get them :)
If we have to... we will summon the everpowerful emerald crab (I only keep them so long, they start eyeing fish and eating coralline/corals once they get about 1.5inches on the carapace) and abalone!
phosphate and nitrate export will cure any type of microalgae outbreaks.
 
89-lx

89-lx

New Member
2 more pics:


I guess with macro mode up close, it does look kind of slimy, but moves like hair.
pH is very high also, which I am assuming is due to the algae. Ammonia is at .10 or less. Nitrite is at 0. Nitrate is about 10.
 
patrick8929

patrick8929

Active Member
you just need a CUC. my tank is going through the same thing. i got 1 snail to make sure it would live and now im gunna get a few more to take care of the algae
 
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