out of control algea??

cocoboy821

cocoboy821

Member
my mom and i look in our 75 gallon tank yesterday and noticed these "spider web things" (to quote my mom) comin from the gravel. today i noticed some algea on the sides and started to clean it, then saw this brown "hairy" (mom once again) stuff on the rocks. my dad is worried that the algea is gettin out of control and was wondering what we should do if it is? we've both read that shrimps and hermit crabs work, but the tank hasn't cycled
 
coderad

coderad

Member
I would just reduce the lenght the lights are on or shut them off compleatly. I left my light off throught the whole cycle.
 
cocoboy821

cocoboy821

Member
since april 12.. so around 3 weeks.. my dad has been readin bout brown algea and one place said "so your done cycling... and brown stuff is now growing on everything".. but we dont know if our cycle has even started yet.. the FS told us to wait 2 weeks after we set up the tank to get LR, and said we wouldnt need to check chemicals till we got lr.
 
pclown

pclown

Member
I would test for Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates and see where they are at. Do you have live rock now? During the cycle process the Ammonia will jump and as it goes down you will see the Nitrites go up and as it goes down you will see the nitrates go up. What you are looking for is to see the spike and then to have everything read 0
 
agent707

agent707

Member
Well then.... Fear not. Algae blooms are VERY NORMAL for new tanks. We just went through the same panic stages ourselves. The brown stuff will eventually die off.
Gotta ask this... Have you all bought a TEST KIT? You keep saying you don't even know if the cycle has started... does that mean you haven't tested the water?
And I would go ahead and put live rock in the tank. You can cycle your tank with live rock easily.
As far as other algae's go. There are plenty of critters that will eat it. If you get the green hair algae, a tang will wipe it completely out.
Good luck and keep posting.
 
cocoboy821

cocoboy821

Member
we have the test kit, but nothing spiking up. there's already live rock in there. had some since around 2 weeks ago
 
glowplug

glowplug

Member
chill, I started getting algea at least a week before my cycle ended, had never really heard much said about algea before cycle is over but it happened to me
 
cocoboy821

cocoboy821

Member
we were told when we put our first batch of live rock in that it would start it. the ammonia stays at 0.1 most of the time and every few days goes to 0
 
glowplug

glowplug

Member
Well imo I dont think you have had enough of an ammo spike, the stronger the spike the more bacteria you will have to handle a larger fish bioload, start ghost feeding with some pellet food(lessmess), or throw in a cocktail shrimp
 
cocoboy821

cocoboy821

Member
haha that would be SO nice :joy: and we realized that we think our test kit may not be working. the ppl told my dad that if we got the master test kit that we would have everything we needed when (and if) we decided to go to reef tank. the thing was sorta dusty, but we figured it was cause they might not sell that many, ya kno? but can test kits really go bad?
 
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