blooms...

[Sk8r]

Something starting growing wildly in your tank? That's called a 'bloom.' You can have blooms of phytoplankton, in which your water turns green [not good: oxygen depletion at night!] or blooms of flatworms [not good, and worse when they die off en masse]; or blooms of feather dusters, or bristleworms, or mushrooms, or hair algae, or macroalgae, or zoas, etc., etc.

The thing to fix in memory is this: If there's a bloom, what's feeding it?
Algaes---look at phosphate levels: phosphate is plant fertilizer.
Bristleworms---overfeeding.
Flatworms---you imported one and they're finding stuff to eat.
Mushrooms....your water has a lot of food in it and they love the conditions.

To slow down or reverse a 'bloom' is not always easy, but the basics are: don't import something to eat it, if you can at all help it. Try to take away what IT'S eating, and that will solve your problem.

Remember that, when you get too much of a good thing or way much of a bad thing. Remove or reduce what ITS eating.

HTH.

 

[Nano Chris]

Thanks good tips ill keep them in mind!

 

[1F2FRFBF]

I have an algae bloom happening right now, but it's a new tank (about 3 months) so I'm really, REALLY trying not to panic.

Should I panic?

 

[drummereef]

No don't panic, 1F2FRFBF. Algae blooms in newly cycled tanks are common. You most likely will go through a diatom (brown algae) bloom followed by a green hair algae bloom. With good husbandry they will go away on their own.

 

[1F2FRFBF]

Yup, I've definitely got the fuzzy green thing going on. I keep thinking if I can peel it all off in one layer, I could slap it in the dashboard of my Cadillac, Cruella DeVille, and boyz all over da hood would want to be just like me.

Or not.



I'll be doing a water change today. I'm trying to do one once a week, 10%.

(Thanks Drummereef - encouragement much appreciated!)

 

[Sk8r]

New tanks are beloved by every variety of algae: you go through phases of it, and the best you can do is water changes, skimming, phosban, and judicious feeding for your fish. Eventually all the nutrients get used up [except those coming in via the sea salt] and things calm down. Until then the worst thing you can do is import an increasingly risky set of specialized creatures to cope with it. Lower your light, even leave the light off occasionally, run a refugium [which sops up nutrients into CONTAINED algae that you can divide and sell off, thus profiting from your plague], and watch your feedings. I know, I know feeding your fish gives you a warm fuzzy/sense of godlike power, but rein in a bit during this phase.

 

[1F2FRFBF]

That's one of the things I'm doing very sparingly - feeding. The last thing I want is to have excess food adding to the misery, and I don't yet have an adequate cleaning crew in place to take care of leftovers. I've had a hard time finding snails locally, but I did manage to pick up some Nassarius along with a pair of scarlet hermits.

With my corner tank I had limited space under the stand, so the most I could fit without having to resort to customization was a regular 15G tank as a sump. Between the skimmer and the return there isn't a lot of room left, but I'm going to try my best to squeeze something in. Perhaps in the future I can think about tackling a DIY custom sump.

Sk8r, just wanted to let you know that I've enjoyed reading your posts since I started poking around here. They're well-written and very informative. Thanks!

 

[Sk8r]

Many thanks. Sympathies on the snail front: I have a tank cycling, went to buy some 40-odd critters and some guy with a mega-tank had beaten me in by hours. I have about 15 and they're not enough, counting some of them are micro hermits and strombus grazer snails, tiny creatures. I know the corner tank problem: I just set up again with my sump separate of my tank [you can use a second decent looking stand as a sideways adjunct, and treat the top as a table and work area: mine, when it was in that position, used to hold my video equipment. But that lets you get a larger sump AND get at it, what's better: the topoff reservoir [a 5g bucket] fits the wedge sump a lot better. I got my second stand as a last-of-kind, at half price, and it's currently holding my new large sump---which has made life much, much easier. If you have a bowfront 54 with a center factory installed downflow, our tanks are probably twins.

Good luck on the snail hunt! A small conch won't hurt either.

 

[1F2FRFBF]

OK, I'm not the only one following those big-tank-owning types around to stores! LOL!! I do have 2 Strombus that hitched in with a coral that a friend was keeping for me. The one has affixed himself to the front glass, and he really does look like the needle in the haystack.

From what I've read so far about the conch family, some can get pretty large. Are there species that will stay smaller, say less than 3-4 inches?

I do remember seeing a 54G corner project on a website with a side cabinet, and I thought that would be a terrific idea - make for a nice place to sit and watch the tank after all the grunt work was done. I just need to clear out some more space in the living room, but I definitely have it under consideration along with the custom sump.

On the tanks, we're fraternal, not identical. The store I went to didn't have the reef-ready available the day I was there, but the others were on sale. So I ended up getting the hang-on overflow, which after some adjustments and a break-in has been fine.

Edit - I did see your lighting/livestock info in your sig line. How do you like your EV 120 skimmer?