diatoms/hair/green film on glass

[schoch79]

Ok so to start with let me tell you about my tank a little. It has been set up somewhere between 1-2 months now. Mostly dry clean rock with some live to seed it. Also a little sand from an established tank to seed my sand. Starting a few weeks ago mostly on the live rock and glass, I started to get diatoms. Around that time more and more pods starting showing up. Then a few bunches of what I'm calling hair algae and at the moment I have hair algae on the rocks and a green film on the glass. The pods are loving it.

My question is, since I'm in no kind of hurry, will the normal algae cycles work their way through as the pods continue to eat them or should I start doing some small water changes and get a small clean up crew? Keep in mind I really really am not in a hurry. The next frag swap scheduled in my area isn't until late January so I don't plan on really getting anything much until then.

 

[Jritter02]

If it was me I'd probably be doing water changes and keeping the lights off. My tank has only been up since April or so and for the last few months I haven't had much of an algae issue but I did a water change mid last week (50% cause my nitrates were at 40ppm) and already as of Sunday I'm having brown algae on the sand and some forming on the glass. I'll be keeping the lights off the next few days and hope it dies down a little.

 

[schoch79]

Well, maybe I was a little unclear in my first post but its not a major algae problem or anything like that right now. I don't really feel like its even close to warranting a lights out period and to be honest I'm not concerned right now with trying to get rid of it but if the pods will take care of it themselves I wont even do a water change or buy a CuC for now. Keep in mind there are no fish or anything in this tank at the moment. Just sand and rock. Except for small die off from the rock there is no nutrients entering the tank.

 

[mandarinfanatic]

If it was me I'd probably be doing water changes and keeping the lights off. My tank has only been up since April or so and for the last few months I haven't had much of an algae issue but I did a water change mid last week (50% cause my nitrates were at 40ppm) and already as of Sunday I'm having brown algae on the sand and some forming on the glass. I'll be keeping the lights off the next few days and hope it dies down a little.

ditto

 

[Jritter02]

I didn't realize pods even ate the algae? Getting a CuC definitely helped me. But If there's nothing in the tank anyway why even have the lights on much? That's what the algae needs to grow.....so that's one,way to eliminate it or slow it down. If it was me I'd probably just keep the lights off until it was time to start adding livestock. I'm still new at all this too but it worked for me, and You will read the same thing all over this forum. 100s of times

 

[Jritter02]

Also did you use RO water? I made the mistake of using tap water when I started mine and I got an algae issue from jump street

 

[schoch79]

I am using ro/di. It is a 5 stage brs unit and it is reading 0 tds. The no lights thing really isn't a bad idea and neither is water changes. The way I look at keeping lights on or not though is if I keep them off right now it only means that when I do decide to put coral in and lights on the algae will just explode then. At least if I keep the lights on right now it can start to work its way out now. I've done a few tanks in the past but I've rushed them before. I'm under the impression that the diatoms/algae is part of the normal cycle of setting up a new tank and that's why I was under the impression it was just something I could wait out. As for the pods eating algae all I could say for that is I have massive swarms of pods on the film on the glass. I could be mistaken but I can only assume they are eating it.

 

[Xavibear]

Has your tank cycled? What are your parameters? If you've cycled do a water change & add a small cuc.

 

[schoch79]

Yeah its cycled for sure. I was considering a cuc but was also debating if I even needed one yet since the pods seem to be happy doing their thing. I guess not being in a hurry is making me drag my feet little too much. I guess maybe there is such a thing as too slow.

 

[Mcgeezer]

A clean up crew is a necessity after the cycle. Pods will not keep your tank clean.

 

[JMorris271]

I am in your situation and asked that very question. I was told that the cleanup crew in not initially for algae cleanup but rather to poo to increase the bio capacity. Also to not consider a cuc until the tank ages a bit if that makes sense.