algae problems

[smellsfishy90]

i started with my cycle on my tank roughly 5 weeks ago, well just over 5 weeks.

Many tank is 300 litres.

I have roughly 45-50kg of live rock which I bought fully cured and shipped overnight so there is inevitably a bit of die off.

stupidly I left my lights on 15 hours a day for the first 3 weeks. I now know this wasn't the right thing to do and is possibly why I am in this situation but now I have turned them down to 4 hours per day until I sort this mess out.

i bought 5 red legged hermits and snails from my lfs 2 weeks ago under recommendations.
I then bought a further algae hermits, 5 turbo snails and 2 emerald crabs (small) 1 week ago.
granted, they look busy but are not doing the job I need them to do as there is quite a bit of algae.

i have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites but about 25 nitrates which I will tackle with water changes in the next couple of days.

I have a curve 5 protein skimmer that has been running since the beginning and will introduce my phosban 150 reactor tomorrow as phosphates are 0.5 which I didn't realise.

i have kept my temp at 27 since day 1 and salinity at 1.026.

even though I'm hoping it will be straight forward to lower nitrates with water changes, I do not want to introduce any fish until the algae has gone incase I need to do anything drastic to deal with it and stress the fish.

I have attached a couple of photos, if anybody can give me any advice I would be grateful because I am kind of lost with how to deal with this algae at the moment.

Thanks in advance

 

[gone fishin]

In addition to what you described I would manually remove as much as you can as well. Just be patient GHA seems to show up out of nowhere but seems to take awhile to go away.

keep an eye on the phosphate at the elevated levels you may burn through some GFO pretty quick. Good luck just my 2 cents.

 

[smellsfishy90]

In addition to what you described I would manually remove as much as you can as well. Just be patient GHA seems to show up out of nowhere but seems to take awhile to go away.

keep an eye on the phosphate at the elevated levels you may burn through some GFO pretty quick. Good luck just my 2 cents.

Hi, thanks for the reply. This image is actually after I manually removed some :sad2:
I may have to continue the removal tomorrow

I'm just getting to that frustrating stage I guess.

 

[mcgyvr]

Get those nitrates down and it will die off..
Manual removal (toothbrush) is fine too along with a 50/50 hydrogen peroxide/water dip for about 10 minutes..

But when you get the nitrates down it will turn brown and die off..

Totally normal for a new tank

 

[gone fishin]

Hi, thanks for the reply. This image is actually after I manually removed some :sad2:
I may have to continue the removal tomorrow

I'm just getting to that frustrating stage I guess.

time and patience and this to shall pass.

 

[nmotz]

Get some golfball sized turbo snails. They will destroy an algae problem like that. You'll need about 3-4 maybe?

 

[smellsfishy90]

Get those nitrates down and it will die off..
Manual removal (toothbrush) is fine too along with a 50/50 hydrogen peroxide/water dip for about 10 minutes..

But when you get the nitrates down it will turn brown and die off..

Totally normal for a new tank

Would it be beneficial even if I just scrubbed it down in ordinary RODI water or is it recommended to use hydrogen peroxide?

 

[smellsfishy90]

Get some golfball sized turbo snails. They will destroy an algae problem like that. You'll need about 3-4 maybe?

I think they would end up getting crushed by my rock as I have to admit it's not the most stable :mixed:

 

[mcgyvr]

Would it be beneficial even if I just scrubbed it down in ordinary RODI water or is it recommended to use hydrogen peroxide?

Saltwater and mechanical removal (scrubbing) is just fine too.. But the algae left will still be alive vs peroxide killing it.. But peroxide also kills other things on the rock too ..

Really as you get those nitrates down it will die off.. The nitrates are the fuel in this fire..

 

[smellsfishy90]

Saltwater and mechanical removal (scrubbing) is just fine too.. But the algae left will still be alive vs peroxide killing it.. But peroxide also kills other things on the rock too ..

Really as you get those nitrates down it will die off.. The nitrates are the fuel in this fire..

Thanks, I may just get the nitrates down and wait for it to die off and go through that route instead. I know it will take longer but I have plenty of time.
Do you think a 20-25% water change every other day for a week just to lower nitrates? Or is this too much of a water change within too shorter period of time? I only have snails and crabs so I hope they won't be effected much from it.

 

[gunther13mt]

You can do water changes that often as long as you match temp and salinity it shouldnt be a problem.

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