Help, im at wits end

L

LostSolAngel

New member
So a little bit about what i have- I have a 29g eclipse system tank, Fish only, about 40lb of live rock, stable about two years before this problem. I have one large hermit, 4 clowns, and a yellow tang. I keep getting turbo snails, and either the hermit eats them, or they just dont eat the algae.


For almost a year i have fought this algae. First i thought it was hair algae, but it doesnt look like it is. It literally looks like fuzz. Cotton candy. Thin filiments. It spreads like wildfire. I cant keep it under control. It gets on the glass, clogs up the filter, chokes out my live rock, and seems impossible to control. I have cut back the lighting. They only get like 4 hours of overhead lighting a day. The tank is not near a window. All the levels are correct. They are not being over fed, getting waterchanges on schedual, and all. I am at my wits end and ready to sell this tank. All i ever seem to be doing with this tank is pulling large amounts of algae off of the rocks and out of the filter.

Is there anything at all that i can do to get rid of this?? Is there some kind of algae killer for salt water that wont kill my rocks or fish? I dont have any coral, but i do have a few little shellfish that hitched a ride attached to the live rock, and i dont really want to kill them off. Can i pull the live rock out and dump something in there that will kill it all?! Im so frustrated. No one seems to be able to help me on this one... :hmm5:
 
You might try phosban. You're running a fairly 'traditional' system, not the Berliner method most here use. I'll guess you don't have a sump, and you might not hav ebeen doing weekly water changes?

You might get a small lawnmower blenny: they like most algaes. And you might run some phosban, plus get into the habit of feeding frozen food like cyclopeeze rather than flake or pellet, which leaves phosphate behind.

Algae thrives on phosphate: get rid of it, and you get rid of the algae. So your weekly 10% water changes help export it. Having a refugium would do the same [a small side tank with macro algae, plumbed into this tank] and getting a blenny that eats the stuff as well as running a chemical uptake like phosban might help out here. You would not need to remove fish or rock. You'd be surprised how much algae a blenny can remove.
 
Im afraid to add more fish to the tank until this is all taken care of. I feed frozen only once a week, and the other days they get spectrum, but i could switch to full frozen and see how that does. they just arent too thrilled about thr frozen.

Is the phosban something that goes in the filter?

I dont have a sump. I do weekly 5 or 10% water changes.
 
Even for a FO, four clowns and a yellow tang seems like a lot of fish to me.

What do you water quality levels look like? Nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, phosphate, alk, etc? Its not a reef, and you will only lose coralline algae (the good stuff) if you cut out the lights entirely for the time being. Your fish will be fine on just ambient room lighting.

Are you running a skimmer?

What color is the fuzz? Green or reddish/brownish? Is it rooted into the live rock or just on the sand/glass and filter equipment?

Lets see what we can come up with first before jumping down the road of chemical methods, tearing the tank totally apart, or (worst of all) selling the tank. :)

>Sarah
 
don't give up- the fight has only begun. for a problem like this... imo you have a few options.

1) like sk8r said, phosban

2) urchins, mexican turbos, sea hares, or some type of fish that will eat it.. i might've missed something so feel free to add to it

3) get new rock or burn your old rock and cure it again

i went w/ #2 when someone gave me a tank that had a little bit of that stuff growing... omg, it was a nightmare. it spread more when i added the mexican turbos.
i couldn't afford to buy new live rock so i went w/ # 3 and burned the rock and re-cured it. 5 months later, no sign of that pest algae.
 
Ill try to answer as many questions as i can-

I just spent an hour and a half cleaning out the algae and it looks marginally better at best.

The algae is green, and adheres to live rock mostly, but also to the sand and dead coral rubble on the bottom. It grows with incredible speed. Its not slime, it waves around in the current, and looks like fuzzy cotton. The tang likes it.

I dont really know how to describe the levels in the tank other than "normal." I have a kit that you pour in the powder into the vile, and it turns colors. All the colors are in the "safe" zone for my kit. I dont have a phosphate one though. I should get that.

I dont have a skimmer, because i was told i didnt need one for a fish only. I didnt have any problems for two years, but this last year has been all algae.

Would turning off the lights for a couple weeks kill the algae? Someone suggested to me covering the tank with a comforter or something to keep it totally black in there. is that even safe for the fish??

I havent had any fish die for over a year, and i really dont want to kill any of my babies...
 
ive also been told to put an alfalfa block, like the kind you feed guinea pigs in the filter system and that will kill the algae. ive never done that before, and i dont want to do anything that would hurt anything.. has anyone heard of this?
 
What are you using for top off and mixing salt, do you have an RO/DI filter? Can you provide water parameters, like salinity, temp, phosphates, nitrates, alk, ph, etc? ( just read back and noticed you have little or no test kits ) the ones I listed are pretty basic for any salt tank and you should have them. You dont have a skimmer, then what do you have for filtration? How much LR and do you have a sand bed, if so how deep?
 
Im using oceanic salt, salinity is 1.021. The filter that i have is the eclipse system in the hood filter. I was told this was sufficient for a fish only tank, but maybe im wrong? I dont have a skimmer. The temperature is between 76 and 77. I have a test kit that tests for nitrates, nitrites, amonia and pH, but not phosphates. All the kits test in the normal ranges, and dont indicate any problems. I assume the problem is with the phosphates. I have between 30 and 50lb of live rock, and a sand and crushed coral bed thats about three inches thick. A lot of this ive covered already...
 
What do you use for top off water? Can you post the actual test result values? Just being in the normal range doesnt help. Your salinity should be higher, 1.026 is natural saltwater, doubtful this is your problem, but your fish will thank you. :) You should consider adding a skimmer.

Also what do you have for flow, any powerheads?
 
your salt is low,it should be between 1.023-1.026.but your 1st and biggest mistake imo was using an eclipse.mygf tried that and the filter stopped working at 2 months,the lights started smoking and seemed about to catch fire after 8 months and the tanks plastic was foggy looking from day one.the only original part left on that tank was the plastic and you could hardly see through it so we through in away and bought her a nice bowfront.
 
i had hair algae before i turned mine into reef.the entire tank was one thick forest of algae.now my algae is down to very small patches and shrinking.don't give up.the most important thing for you to do is prolbably get a skimmer and a good one.get a prizm,remora,or bakpak skimmer,those are the top 3 affordable skimmers for small tanks.also the water your putting into your tank may be the problem as i've heard that tap water somethimes has phos already in it.i don't care for the eclipse filter either but for now,think skimmer
 
get a prizm,remora,or bakpak skimmer
Click to expand...

If you do go for a skimmer dont waste your money on the prism, the remora is the best, of the three. Bakpaks tend to need constant adjustment, but can work well. Still if I was in the hang on skimmer market it would be the remora. Also stay away from the seaclone.
 
yes please don't waste money on the seaclone,skilter,or fission.everyone knows the remora is the best hang on skimmer for small tanks.i included the prism cause i use one and it works great for me,and i figure if i did'nt include the prizm in the list,you may decide not to get a skimmer after seeing the remora's price.the bakpak i have'nt used but i have'nt seen too much bad things written about it however i did'nt like how its motor hangs in the tank.without a skimmer,your tank will be very nutrient rich and thats exactly what algae needs to grow.
 
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