bad algae problem

T

tom g

Member
hey there I have been a bad tank keeper , long story short strugging with taking this tank down since I don't get the opportunity to take care of it regularly , its located in my wifes office and she does not want it taken down so here I am trying to get it back in order , it has a huge green hair algae break out and something that I have never seen before or read about ..
looks like branches peels off in clumps if I grab it at the base "¦.

from what I could find I think its "¦"¦"¦ Codium edule

I have begun manual removal of the green hair algae and the above algae
and doing weekly water changes ..
I also have added a sea hare , and a scopa tang to help with the gha
any advice would be greatly appreciated
thanks in advance
cheers
tom
 

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Continue to do what you're doing, but if you want specific advice, a description of the tank (size, inhabitants, filtration, feeding, etc) plus water test results would help.

Kevin
 
tank

tank

hey there thanks for speedy response ...

the tank is a 46 bowfront tank with a 15 gallon sump ...
chinese led

marroon clown "¦
scopa tang "¦ just added
fire fish ..not sure if that is the correct name 2 of them with the dorsal fins that raise up
2 chromis
yellow watchmen goby
tank perameters I will have to re chk this weekend when I get to office ..
 
Any nuisance type algae needs two things to survive, food and light.
Deprive your tank of these and algae dies.

First, pull everything your can by hand out.

I bet if you measured your phosphate, it's going to be very high, nitrates high as well, this is algae food. Three, 30% water changes 1 day apart, then 10% weekly.

Then, a 3-4 day blackout followed by a slight reduction in intensity and period.

Once this done, measure nitrate and phosphate.

Maintain nitrate 2-5ppm with water changes and maybe Nopox dosing
Maintain phosphate 0.03-0.07, .1 maximum or reduce using GFO.

Zero for either of these with corals is a bad number, work to keep it in the range.

Make sure that absolutely no outside light hits your tank.

In about a month, you will see green and strong turn to beige and week.

Brush this off and keep your skimmer tuned and fresh.
 
tank

tank

haha teach wife to maintain it , not gonna happen "¦ im better off taking it down "¦

I will follow your suggestion on the water changes ..
and try to get phosphates down

thanks again
tom
 
tom g said:
its located in my wifes office and she does not want it taken down...

cheers
tom
Click to expand...

tom g said:
haha teach wife to maintain it , not gonna happen … im better off taking it down …

thanks again
tom
Click to expand...

I must be misunderstanding you. In one post you say she is the one who wants to keep it...but in your follow up reply you say teaching her to maintain it is not going to happen. Does that mean you aren't willing to show her how? Or that she isn't capable of doing the exact same things you are able to do?

If she's the one that wants to keep it...what would be wrong with teaching her how to help maintain it when you don't have the time to?
 
I don't know what kind of algae that is, but it is not GHA. I got great results using NoPOx with GHA. Used the directions on the bottle and my GHA started turning white and eventually all died off without changing anything. What you have is something else.

I know the guy has 2,000+ posts, but I don't necessarily agree with this statement:
"Any nuisance type algae needs two things to survive, food and light."

I had used some dry rock in my tank and had gotten all kinds of weird algae issues. I suspect the rock was leeching phosphates because I got rid of each and everyone of those rocks with a porous, coralline-encrusted live-rock I got from a fellow reefer. Ever since doing that I get zero algae issues without making any kind of change to my feeding and light schedule.

That being said, maybe something died and is rotting inside a hole in rock some place. So you do water changes, cover your tank, blah blah blah that others are suggesting but your issue still exists. Check for dead stuff like overambitious snails that may have got stuck and just rotting away.
 
J falk, are you married?

OP---> basically you will have to make up for the maintenance that has been neglected for a while by doing what was suggested above, lots of water changes in a row followed by consistent water changes thereafter. I suggest using GFO or chemi pure blue to keep phosphates down.

I'm willing to wager there is also an overfeeding issue at play and likely natural sunlight. Over feeding is easy to fix, that I'm sure you can teach your wife to do properly. Natural light can be more difficult to combat. It's not impossible, I have my 10 gallon in my living room which receives a lot of indirect sunlight. Diatoms on the sand seem to be the only issue for me now but it took years for that tank to balance out enough to handle the light without becoming over grown with algae.

You are certainly in for a challenging happy wife happy life balance here! :spin2:
 
wifes tank

wifes tank

j.falk said:
I must be misunderstanding you. In one post you say she is the one who wants to keep it...but in your follow up reply you say teaching her to maintain it is not going to happen. Does that mean you aren't willing to show her how? Or that she isn't capable of doing the exact same things you are able to do?

If she's the one that wants to keep it...what would be wrong with teaching her how to help maintain it when you don't have the time to?
Click to expand...


well I know my wife is a fast paced work life and I know if I depended onher to do anything it would get bypassed "¦ I have decided to give it one more kick at the can and see if I can get it cleared up and work on it more regularly ..
and if u could make her take care of it .. good on u "¦
 
dosing

dosing

Daddi0 said:
You could try vinegar dosing and trocus snails
Cheers! Mark
Click to expand...

yes this is an option "¦. along with nopox one or the other
the algae is that weird one that I am having a hard time finding info about
it is also mixed with green hair algae which I have been pulling out reg
the weird stuff pulls out in clumps , worse case scenario I will remove the affected rocks and carry on "¦.
tank is located in a window area , tank is painted black on back and sides .don't think that Is the issue I am sure its the lack of water changes , as for over feeding she feeds them daily with either a frozen food or pinch of pellets or flakes "¦.
as for something dead in tank we had a issue a while ago maybe longer then six months ago where power to building went out nad she lost several fish ..
now I cant see them rotting for months and months "¦ but anything is possible I guess "¦.
 
algae update

algae update

well after a few weeks of this bad algae out break a few large water changes
manual picking of the algae and with the help of a sea hare im at about 85 %
unfortunately the sea hare I found dead in a corner , what a stink .. not sure why he passed there was still lots of algae I am wondering if that funny looking algae did something to him . manual picking helped big time and constant water changes "¦
cheers
tom
 
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