Algae on Glass!

[theacox]

I have been struggling with green algae and cyano on my glass for far too long. I have a 30g and my clean up crew consists of 5 snails, 2 hermits, 1 camel back shrimp, 1 emerald crab, and 2 peppermint shrimp. Every week I have to clean the glass a lot... Can I get some advice on what I need to do to stop this, either buy more clean up crew or what is recommended for this.

 

[planedoc]

If you don't want to clean the glass on your young tank hire someone else to do it for you. Sorry to say but it's part of weekly maintenance. Some times daily if you want your tank to look good. Actually if you do a quick daily cleaning it's easier than doing it once a week plus it gives you a chance to look at the rest of your tank and notice things before they become a problems.

 

[theacox]

It's not that I don't want too, it's that I had this at up months and this is a new set development and thought I could buy something to control it better.

 

[Xavibear]

Look into why it's happening, not just something to fix it. Most algae & cyano problems come from overfeeding, lighting issues, being overstocked & some others.

More algae eating snails will give you some help.

 

[planedoc]

Here is a pic of my 8 year old system. I clean the glass once a month and it's a tough job that requires a razor blade and about an hour. Last time I did it was 6 days ago. My belief is that every tank has to experience every "disease /eliminate /undesirable thing that a reefer doesn't want. Once your system goes through each and every one and you as a aquatic engineer figure out or " more likely " your system builds it's own immunity to each thing you will have a healthy system that requires very little maintenance as long as you do basic maintenance . That's takes at least 4 years unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on huge water changes and state of the art equipment. That is why this is a challenging hobby. Nothing comes fast or easy unless you have lots of money. Just my personal experience

 

[planedoc]

I forgot the part about adding more algae eaters and once the algae is gone they die and than add nutrition to your system which causes more algae and since they are dead there are no algae eaters to eat the algae which makes you buy more algae eaters and you repeat the cycle. That's why everyone sells replenish packs of algae eaters. That is something I wish I knew years ago could of saved me 1000's. Everything is slow. Add a few cleaners at a time but no matter what you will always have to physically clean. If your not physically cleaning eventually you will have an unbalanced system and it will crash. The balance comes from you physical work. I hope this helps

 

[theacox]

Thanks planedoc

 

[planedoc]

No problem, what is scary to me is that this is just a little insight into the food/waste/nutrient import and export/algae growth/algae eater cycle. If you want corals especially Sps. You have to not only master your nutrient import /export balance but all your chemicals especially calcium and magnesium than keep your alkalinity and ph in check. But if all that's perfect you still need really good lighting to grow the best coral. I don't bother with SPS because they cost more than I want to spend and require more of a perfect balance than I want to give my tanks. Maybe when I'm retired and have more time. Bottom line when it comes to having a good salt water tank washing your arm and sticking in your tank for 1 hour a week to scrap algae is the very minimum it takes to have a successful reef. If it was Easy everyone would have their own personal ocean

 

[theacox]

Very true

 

[Big_Boss_77]

I've had my tank cycling since the first of april, added some livestock the end of august and I've just now gotten to the point where I don't have to magfloat the glass every day to see. Patience was/is the hardest thing about this hobby, bear with it and do your best!