Algae (Pics)

[SteveNMegz]

AlgAE??
Hey guys weve had our tanks up and runing for 2 months now and it started off with some hair algae but now the whole tank is covered in algae..Is this normal for a new tank????

(Pic a week ago)

(Now)

How long will it take for this to clear up? is there anything we can do to help it go away??


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[kar93]

thats alot of algae. You could try a sea hare

 

[SteveNMegz]

Are they reef safe and do they actually eat the alage?

 

[kar93]

yes reef safe and they wil eat algae.

http://www.janetsreef.com/sea_hare.htm

 

[ryan_paskadi]

i say more snails, water changes, and feed less.

 

[cre8or23]

minimize your lighting time... thats from over exposure. those zoo's should be fine if not give em away.

 

[SteveNMegz]

Do the sea hares grow to their enviroment or will they keep growing ti 78cm's??

 

[thor32766]

what is your lighting cycle. how old are bulbs?

 

[Cheebs]

It could be a few things that are causing this. Youd on't have much in there yet, so the lights might be on for too long for a new tank. Also, although they might be hiding, it doesn't look like you have enough cleanup crew. Some people actually suggest having a snail per gallon, but in your case I'd have at LEAST 30-40 snails, and some hermit crabs too, but that comes down to personal preference. There's definitely an underlying problem here though, and when you see alot of algae, throwing a bunch of snails and cleanup crew at it isn't always the best solution.

You could try adding/adjusting your flow too, if parts of your rock aren't getting any flow, the algae will go nuts there.

The main worry here though are your water conditions. Are you using tap water? IF you test your water and let us know your nitrate, ammonia and nitrite levels, it'll help us figure it out.

I went through the same thing recently so I hope that helps, new tanks are a rollercoaster sometimes.

 

[SteveNMegz]

well we are using RO water, our cleanup crew is light right now but we plan to get sum more, liek you said cheebs we don't want to over do it.

water changes ahve been 15G a week (65G tank)
paramaters are, ammonia-0
nitrite-0-.01
nitrate-0-1 Just fell after last water change(was around 5)
Phosphates shows 0-0.25
Ph was around 7.9 but now has leveled off at 8.3 (we assume from adding corals and using calcium and water changes
calcium is way high, over 500
and SG is 1.024(hydrometer)

Is it possible that the live rock is jsut leaching phosphates since it is not detectable in the water???? would this eventually stop was all the phosphate has leeched out of the rock???

Thanks a lot guys!!!

 

[SteveNMegz]

The bulbs are also only less than a month old, but we did upgrade from 2 NO T5's to 4x54 HO T5's

 

[SteveNMegz]

bump

 

[jrpdriver]

how long do you run the lights for each day?

 

[Fun $ Pit]

Speaking from experience here:

I had an outbreak that was almost that bad and this is what I was able to do about it. (90 gallon tank with sump)

1. Quarantined fish
2. Installed a phos reactor
3. I have 12 Turbos, 5 Nassarius, 2 bumblebee, 2 fighting conches, 10 astrea snails - I kept putting them on the rocks with algae.
4. I went lights out for three days so it would stop growing and snails could eat it.
5. Scrubbed rocks of dying algae each day
6. On fourth day turned on actinics only.
7. On fifth day back to normal lighting schedule of actinics 10 hours a day and daylights for 8 hours.

This took care of 90% of my hair algae problem believe it or not. Over the next couple of weeks I continued to scrub rocks and skim wet. My tank looks awesome now like it should!

 

[lakwriter]

the phosphates aren't showing up as high because the the hair algea is using it up. Try running a phosphate remover like PhosBan, ROWAPhos, or Magnavore PURA Phos. Make sure you get a brown or red phosphate media, not white. Try manual removal as much as you can and then add the media for a while. Don't use a full "dose" the first time b/c it might drop your Alk. Make sure you test yur alk regularly when using phosphate media.

A lot of municipalities use phosphate in their water. That could be the source.

And get some more snails, watch over-feeding, and rinse your frozen food well. The bonding material in frozen food is high in phosphates.

 

[wrott]

As stated, lots more snails 3-4 different kinds, and hermits do help but will kill some snails.
Get a phosban reactor.
Keep longer algae manually trimmed down so that the snails will mow over it.
Is that cyanobacteria (black and red) that I see as well?

 

[Fun $ Pit]

Also - is that astrea snail on the sand bottom left of the tank dead?

Might want to remove any death from the tank too.

 

[Stormtrker]

Turbo snails worked really well ridding my tanks of hair algae.

 

[thecichlidpleco]

Any flesh is most likely already consumed.

 

[seapug]

Your tank is new so it's not unusual, but .25 Phosphate is more than enough to make that algae grow. The photos prove it. Set up a PhosBan reactor with GFO.