Hello! Beginner here with a ?

T

tucunare

New member
Hello everyone Im new to the board and new to reefing.. Hope to meet some more of you..

Question:
I have light and dark green algea over alot of my rock with some freckles here and there of purple, hopefully coraline... The green algea is not hairy... There is also some brown mixed in there....

My tank is 6 weeks old and has cycled. The rock was completely dried, not live when first put in. I have some snails, hermits and crabs and some fish, none of which eats algea..

Is this green algea normal... I have asked some folks at the LFS and they said its "good algea"...

My water lvls both water and reef(phosphates, etc) are great.

Am I on the right track?

Any thoughts? I appreciate it!
 
welcome and congrats on new tank. just give the tank time to go through its normal cycle. have you checked your ammonia , nitrate and nitrites?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10224844#post10224844 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nyvp
welcome and congrats on new tank. just give the tank time to go through its normal cycle. have you checked your ammonia , nitrate and nitrites?
Click to expand...

Yes all are ok.. I check weekly.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10224882#post10224882 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gasman059
pics would help-BTW welcome. Agree with above.
Time and patience
Click to expand...

I'll get some pics up tonight...
 
I was wondering if maybe your tank has cycled at all. you said that the rocks where dried when you put them in ( dead rock ) if this is true you need to put some live rock in there to complete your cycle. Dead rock just dosn't come back to life, you need to seed it with already live rock. It can even be just a few peices since over time it will turn the rest of your rock into live rock.
 
dnt quote me on this but all rock is not alive. the meaning of a healthy rock is when there is life growing on it. it can make a rock come back to life.
 
Yeah that is true but what im saying is that if the rock is dead to begin with, "life" will not just start growing on it unless it is seeded with rock that already has "life" on it.
 
if he goes through the whole cycle with his tank,his rock will be seeded with bacteria whether it is dead or alive. it would just take longer dry.


though corraline, i doubt whether you have any, that you would need to introduce with liverock with some of it on it to spread.

your algae seems just like all new tank syndromes, id just give it time. might be diatoms.
 
Yea it is really important that you seed it with at least a few pounds of sand, rubble, or just liverock (preferred).

When I bought my 120g, the rock was live, but absolutly bare and covered with cyano because the tank was a disgusting FOWLR tank that was fed big shrimp for a big fat puffer and a few other really big fish as well. Over time and waterchanges and siphoning, the cyano finally went away, but the rock was still bare. I bought like 25-50lbs of Tampa Bay Live Rock from Reeflife when they were at their old location, and it really brought life to my tank, now it's almost a year later, but it really really helped, and came with so much crazy life on it. There are now cup corals on the bottoms of a bunch of rocks, and the crazy colors of coralline that the rock had have spread to the other rocks that were just bare and brown before.
 
I have sand and introduced some coraline covered rocks yesterday and some corals attached to coraline covered rocks as well to help things along with the other rocks...

Also I have have had some amphipods or copepods swarm up a bit on the glass last week but have disappeared..
 
PICTURES

PICTURES

Here are some pics..
DSC02755.jpg


DSC02754.jpg


DSC02753.jpg
 
Introduce a small fish as well to get the tank cycled. NOT A TANG OR MAROON CLOWN. They will become territorial and will either kill or just make life miserable for any new fish you put in. Maybe start with a wrasse or a small school of chromis (odd numbers).
 
1. I think I may be over feeding and filling the water with nutrients....

2. Not enough water changes...

3. Not enough sand..

4. I am thinking of taking out the rock and rinsing them in salt water to get any debris out then putting them back... overkill?

5. I put phospate absorbing media in my sump we'll see if that helps any....
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10228608#post10228608 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefWreak
Introduce a small fish as well to get the tank cycled. NOT A TANG OR MAROON CLOWN. They will become territorial and will either kill or just make life miserable for any new fish you put in. Maybe start with a wrasse or a small school of chromis (odd numbers).
Click to expand...

I have 3 chromis, 2 clowns, 1 shadow goby, 1 fuzzy dwarf lion... all happy campers.. I was thinking of wrasse and some thing else but I want to get a handle on whats going on...
 
Lol okay. Maybe I should have read ^ more. Anyway yea, cut down on the feeding. And you're a bit overstocked for a relativly new tank. But to make it fair, your rocks look how mine looked when I got the tank as a FOWLR. So it'll just take time, less feeding, more calcium (DO NOT use purpleup, etc etc cheating products).

Water changes are imperative. Test your water for phosphate before you use phosphate absorbing material. You don't need more sand unless you're not satisfied with how your tank looks currently. Don't use the sand as the primary filtration method.

Are you skimming? If not, I really urge you to pick up either Melvin's (REDDAWG43) skimmer or there are a few other people selling really nice skimmers as well locally. That would help the progress along.

Your tank is cycling. Unfortunately, scrubbing the rocks will get rid of the immediate problem, but will prolong the cycle. It's really just a matter of waiting for the tank to mature. It's such a PITA to wait, I know, because I had to do the same thing... But in the end it's worth it. If you want to see some FTS of what my horrible mess of a fowlr tank looks like now, let me know, and you'll be surprised.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=#post target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pandomime
Yeah that is true but what im saying is that if the rock is dead to begin with, "life" will not just start growing on it unless it is seeded with rock that already has "life" on it.
Click to expand...
well u just need some bacteria to make it live that's about it.
Sorry i answered w/o reading the rest Just b patient!
all is well no more fish! even if they look great at the store and so forth. No more for now-give it some time
Agree with above posts
 
ok!

ok!

Beats scrubbing down rocks...

Ok so I'll go with...
-No more fish for now
-10-15% water changes weekly
-Cut back on food.
-Maybe ditch 3 chromis for at least one herbivores?

Skimming using a pro clear aquatics 75. Should I upgrade?? The skimmer is producing... What brand is recommended?

Calcium; If not purple up, Kalkwasser?

Thanks!
 
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