Maintaining the tank

[akopley]

The brown algae that starts growing all over the place after my cycle has ended is now in full effect, getting all over my substrate and rock, especially where the lighting is the strongest. I have one Queen Conch in there who does a good job most of the time, but there is just too much for him to eat alone, any other methods to speed up this process? It's pretty cool because the parts he cleans off, coraline algae seems to be growing.

 

[dystopian]

Is it brown algae or diatoms? You can always get a few snails.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

what size tank? i've heard that conches dont do good in small tanks cuz they get huge..but a small one should be fine i think.

Anyways, get a bunch of cerith snails. IMO one per gallon of water, maybe 2.

But test your nitrates and phosphates. Those feed the algae, and if you get rid of those, you'll be able to get rid of the stuff a lot faster/easier

 

[ek9vboi]

Add some hermits if you want, they tend yo stick around on the rocks and sand bed. If you have diatoms, then maybe you need to add more flow so that it blows over the sand bed gentally.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

hermits didnt even touch my diatom stuff...ceriths were the only thing that i had that ate it. For that matter, none of my hermits actually clean much at all..they just scavenge for loose food or kill my snails.

 

[triciod]

I haven't had any problems with my hermits attacking my snails. In fact, i've had one of my sifter snails attack a hermit to take food. That was interesting to watch!

 

[sir_dudeguy]

its hit or miss w/them imo. Do you have shells in with them? Many people will swear that if you give them plenty of shells that they wont touch snails for their shells...so far i havent found that to work one little bit lol.

 

[triciod]

well idk about your hermits, but i bought mine really small. The turbo snails seem pretty safe to me, since they have that hard protective plate that seals them shut. As far as my sifter snails go...i suppose that they can just out run the little hermits. Though, the sifters don't have any form of protection other than digging. As of right now, I don't have extra shells for them...i really should get on that though! The extra shells that i do have are WAY too big for the ones i have right now. Looking at it from the hermit's perspective though, its a pretty awesome to score a new house with a meal inside!!!...idk I can't blame them.

 

[NUBIANTANGLOVER]

The algae/diatoms should end soon. I had this too and just took it slow. You can reduce your lighting a little. I did this as well and only ran my actinics. I also purchased about 5 snails. I'm sure they are not nearly enough for my tank, but they did help and I have no presence of the brown algae/diatoms. But again, I also took it really slow. I just added 2 fish and some corals after 4 months of purchasing my Aquapod & making sure it was cycled.