What’s with all this algae?
- Thread starter ileas
- Start date
aresangel
Tim- 2020- Secretary, 2019 BRS President
Welcome to new tank syndrome!
Depends on the route you want to take. I did manual removal/water changes with 5 large Mexican turbo snails. Your side tank maybe 10-15?
Others have used hydrogen peroxide (I think @Chris A. will correct me if I am wrong). Others let it ride and wait for the uglies to go away.
That is a lot of algae though so you might need to remove the rock if it doesn’t go away.
Either way... you will go through a couple different algae problems in the first year or so.
Depends on the route you want to take. I did manual removal/water changes with 5 large Mexican turbo snails. Your side tank maybe 10-15?
Others have used hydrogen peroxide (I think @Chris A. will correct me if I am wrong). Others let it ride and wait for the uglies to go away.
That is a lot of algae though so you might need to remove the rock if it doesn’t go away.
Either way... you will go through a couple different algae problems in the first year or so.
aresangel
Tim- 2020- Secretary, 2019 BRS President
Dong once told me, cycle with the lights on. I knownothers day you don’t have to... but you want to start dealing with these cycles with fewer live stock and fewer corals in the tank.
Cycling with the lights off doesn’t do anything but store up nutrients for algae’s and other photosynthetic jerks to RUSH in and consume the nutrients.
Cycling with the lights off doesn’t do anything but store up nutrients for algae’s and other photosynthetic jerks to RUSH in and consume the nutrients.
I mean its probably 100 lbs of (rock at least) all covered with about 3" long hair algae. Not really sure that snails will do it. Then again this is my first big tank jumping from a 40.
Cheddah93
Well known member
I would start with manual removal.
few 20g water changes/removal and a few Mexican turbos after removing some like @aresangel said above.
That method has worked for me, gonna be a battle either way due to it being a new tank and possible rock leaching.
few 20g water changes/removal and a few Mexican turbos after removing some like @aresangel said above.
That method has worked for me, gonna be a battle either way due to it being a new tank and possible rock leaching.
Salty hands
Non-member
This brush fits on the end of a hose very nicely and works great for getting GHA off rocks.
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cstacks
Non-member
Are you feeding pellets or frozen? That seemed to add a lot of nutes to my tank causing a lot of algae problems in the beg of my tanks. This could all be bad advice but I would make sure your filter is good with lots of air exchange and changing carbon every 2 weeks, water changes every week, make sure enough flow too (one flow and one pulse/wave). I would try to scrape it off the rocks during water change and make sure to not add too many nutes or too bright of lights that could be causing it. I would let this ride with lots of clean up crew with out adding corals but adding fish for 2-4 months and if all this fails non stop I would then think about reef hd as a possible way to remove it.
Chrisnnemo
Non-member
I just went through a battle with Dino’s and algae. I did a blackout and dosed with hydrogen peroxide. After uncovering my tank it looked great. After some questioning on here I got that dosing with hydrogen peroxide CONSTANTLY wasn’t a good thing. Dino’s came back a little bit then I just went to manual removal once a week when I do my 10% water change. Dino’s gone and just green hair algae I just suck up with my 1/4”-3/8” siphon tube. It’s easy, I just look at it like weekly maintainence like cleaning the glass. No big deal. Tuxedo urchin hammers the algae along with a few other snails.
It was from someone else’s tank. Didn’t see any gha on his rock but who knows
Pellets, im thinking cutting/scraping all of it and then buying turbos. It’s not spreading anymore btw so I’m assuming it’s from the cycle. I added dr Tim’s ammonium chloride for the cycle
If it’s the rocks leachingn what can I do? I can not afford another 100+lbs of rock
It’s weird how long the gha got and I didn’t even run the lights during 90% of the cycle
Kelly's Reef
Non-member
I always let the tank cycle for a month. This includes not just the bacteria cycle, but the algae cycles.
This brush fits on the end of a hose very nicely and works great for getting GHA off rocks.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Yeah, but how much to get Adriana Lima delivered?
Cheddah93
Well known member
I would start with the above suggested and see if you can get it under control. You’ve just got to remember it’s a new tank and algae happens and start simple.
I see you said it was from someone else tank and typically you see leaching from new dry rock due to the material it’s made with it’ll leach phosphates or possible dead material on it.
And like stated above and seeing you did it that way, “Dong once told me, cycle with the lights on. I knownothers day you don’t have to... but you want to start dealing with these cycles with fewer live stock and fewer corals in the tank.
Cycling with the lights off doesn’t do anything but store up nutrients for algae’s and other photosynthetic jerks to RUSH in and consume the nutrients.” That theory I’m unsure of because I’ve always cycled with light on but sounds possible.
Best of luck, and keep posted with results of manual removal and some turbos!
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Time and manual removal are the best remedies in my opinion.
Rocks, even the dry rocks do come with some dried up organisms.. I found a good sized dried up star fish in a dry pukani rock that i put in the aquarium few years back.. these dead organisms start decomposing once they come in contact with water, thereby releasing nutrients. You just have to be patient and keep up with the maintenance. No need to replace rocks.. they can not leech after the entire once living matter decomposes
I recently started back in the hobby, my tank is 4 month old now. I had a similar hair algae bloom in 2nd month... really ugly with long strands of algae everywhere... I took the rocks out (the ones I could) and used a regular toothbrush to scrub the algae. I also added chaeto in the refugium to compete with the GHA to eat excess nutrients. This in conjunction with the regular water changes, skimmer and filter sock cleaning and clean up crew cleaned up hair algae pretty good..
good luck!
Rocks, even the dry rocks do come with some dried up organisms.. I found a good sized dried up star fish in a dry pukani rock that i put in the aquarium few years back.. these dead organisms start decomposing once they come in contact with water, thereby releasing nutrients. You just have to be patient and keep up with the maintenance. No need to replace rocks.. they can not leech after the entire once living matter decomposes
I recently started back in the hobby, my tank is 4 month old now. I had a similar hair algae bloom in 2nd month... really ugly with long strands of algae everywhere... I took the rocks out (the ones I could) and used a regular toothbrush to scrub the algae. I also added chaeto in the refugium to compete with the GHA to eat excess nutrients. This in conjunction with the regular water changes, skimmer and filter sock cleaning and clean up crew cleaned up hair algae pretty good..
good luck!
