Recovering from overfeeding

[Aquanaut]

Happy New Year Reefers!

I just got back from a month long trip, where I placed my uninitiated friend in charge of feeding my tank while I was gone. He did a good job, no corals (SPS, LPS, Softies), Inverts, or fish have died, but it appears that he was over-feeding the tank. It is a 14 gallon nano, I usually run filter floss, Chemi-pure elite, and Purigen with a chaeto fuge and have maintained spotless parameters. As I expected, hair and filamentous algae has exploded in my display to combat the high nutrient levels. one of my acro's has bleached a bit but is still alive. I plan on getting new chemical filtration media first thing tomorrow along with water for a 5 gal water change (probably followed by another 3 gal change soon after). I was thinking of getting boyd's chemi-clean as well. Now to combat the hair and filamentous algae I was thinking of getting a blenny to start mowing the new sod in the tank. What do you more experienced heads think of my attack plan?

Well, thanks for reading and hope you all are enjoying 2013 so far!
Peace
Aquanaut

 

[SCHUYLERDR]

Get a Lawnmower Blenny they rock!

 

[Rodneybrick]

Get a Lawnmower Blenny they rock!

I have a lawnmower blenny in my 55g and still having issues. Maybe im over feeding. What are the recomendations. I have a 11 fish

 

[P-Nut]

I had a similar problem a long time ago. Now i leave cups in th fridge with a date. I tell them: "grab the cup with the correct date and dump it in the tank"

 

[Rodneybrick]

I had a similar problem a long time ago. Now i leave cups in th fridge with a date. I tell them: "grab the cup with the correct date and dump it in the tank"

You only feed once a day? My LFS said 2-3 times.

 

[adrand]

Ive had a hair algae problem and have tried alot of different solutions. For me, a lawnmower blennie never touched it. Things that worked for me were increased flow, sea hare, and mexican turbos. Its not gone yet but have put a huge dent in it.

 

[Rodneybrick]

What are the recommended feeding parameters

 

[P-Nut]

You only feed once a day? My LFS said 2-3 times.

Once a day and used to feed every other day.

Dont lsiten to your LFS. Some people feed 2-3times/day, but I thinkt that just gets the tank dirty.

I have had almost every fish you can find at a LFS, from sea horses, to lion fish, angel fish, trigger fish (picaso, niger, clown...), tangs, clows, mooray eels....Except for a shark. I never owned a shark or octopus. They all ate once a day, and they were all healthy.

My seahorses were in a tank with a lot of flow, wave makers (because that is where they are found in nature, and where I caught them, if you dont believe me go diving), and they reproduced constantly, and ate once a day.

My dad kept fish for 26 years and he always fed once a day. He also bred freshwater fish and also fed them once a day. For the fresh water fish he would grow their food. For the salt water fish we would buy frozen, and every weekend we would go to a lake, catch a bunch of little fish and throw them in the tank (fresh water parasites die in salt water).

 

[Rodneybrick]

Thanks for the info. Getting my ro system tommorow , so hopefully this will take care of mmy issues

 

[P-Nut]

I have a lawnmower blenny in my 55g and still having issues. Maybe im over feeding. What are the recomendations. I have a 11 fish

11 fish in a 55 can be a lot of fish and poop (depending on size). What kind/sizes are they?

 

[mchartier]

The amount of food is a big factor in this. I feed twice a day. A small pinch of pellets in the morning and about a 1/4 cube of mysis or a similar size of Rods Reef in the evening. When I feed I put a little bit in and let that get eaten before adding more. I do that until the food that I planned to feed is gone. I (at least feel) doing it this way helps keep the uneaten food to a minimum.

 

[Rodneybrick]

The amount of food is a big factor in this. I feed twice a day. A small pinch of pellets in the morning and about a 1/4 cube of mysis or a similar size of Rods Reef in the evening. When I feed I put a little bit in and let that get eaten before adding more. I do that until the food that I planned to feed is gone. I (at least feel) doing it this way helps keep the uneaten food to a minimum.

I have 3 blue/green chromis, 2-3 striped damaels, 2 clowns, 1 yellow tailed damsel, 1 hippo tang, 1 naso tang, 1 lawnmower blenny, and 1 diamond watch goby. All but the naso tang, I would consider small. I really havnt had any chemistry issue do to the fact that I have about 115# of LR between my tank and sump. I havnt added any other filtration like a skimmer because the LFS said I didnt need it right now. Now that im not adding any additional livestock, ill be researching and tweaking the filtration system. I want to eventually transfer everything into a bigger tank.

 

[Moe_K]

Happy New Year Reefers!

I just got back from a month long trip, where I placed my uninitiated friend in charge of feeding my tank while I was gone. He did a good job, no corals (SPS, LPS, Softies), Inverts, or fish have died, but it appears that he was over-feeding the tank. It is a 14 gallon nano, I usually run filter floss, Chemi-pure elite, and Purigen with a chaeto fuge and have maintained spotless parameters. As I expected, hair and filamentous algae has exploded in my display to combat the high nutrient levels. one of my acro's has bleached a bit but is still alive. I plan on getting new chemical filtration media first thing tomorrow along with water for a 5 gal water change (probably followed by another 3 gal change soon after). I was thinking of getting boyd's chemi-clean as well. Now to combat the hair and filamentous algae I was thinking of getting a blenny to start mowing the new sod in the tank. What do you more experienced heads think of my attack plan?

Well, thanks for reading and hope you all are enjoying 2013 so far!
Peace
Aquanaut

I had a similar situation while away for Thanksgiving.
Instead of hair algae, I got cyano.
I dropped the feeding back to the normal lighter schedule, did a water change, and made sure the skimmer was pulling.
In a couple of weeks the cyano was gone.
I imagine that if I had used Chemi-clean or similar, then the correction would have been more rapid.
So my recommendation is to resule your feeding, do a water change, and use the chemical cleaners you mentioned.
Are you using a phosphate remover? May want to try GFO too.

 

[Aquanaut]

Thanks for the input everyone!

Are you using a phosphate remover? May want to try GFO too.

Yes, Chemi-pure elite is a mix of GFO and Carbon. I am guessing that it would be spent super fast so I will probably pick up 2 units today.

So the blenny seems to bee a toss up in effectiveness. Still gauging that method..

 

[Owen386]

IMO

I would not use any chemicals. It will get back to normal in due time with good husbandry. Though it only took a month to get bad don`t expect it to get better that quick.

I had a similar problem when I went away for a week during the summer.

Though I do thank the person for tanking care of my tank (there were no deaths of coral or fish) I could not even see inside my tank when I got home.
I was scared to start cleaning the glass because of what I would see on the inside. Cleaned the glass and turned out everything was fine little nuisance algae but thats it. Took care of that in a couple weeks with some good skimming and water changes.

and Rodneybrick THAT IS WAY TO MANY FISH FOR A 55 AND WAY TO BIG OF FISH FOR THAT NARROW 55. ALSO BUY A SKIMMER DON`T LISTEN TO THE LFS ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE GOING TO KEEP IT THAT OVER STOCKED!!

 

[Rodneybrick]

IMO

I would not use any chemicals. It will get back to normal in due time with good husbandry. Though it only took a month to get bad don`t expect it to get better that quick.

I had a similar problem when I went away for a week during the summer.

Though I do thank the person for tanking care of my tank (there were no deaths of coral or fish) I could not even see inside my tank when I got home.
I was scared to start cleaning the glass because of what I would see on the inside. Cleaned the glass and turned out everything was fine little nuisance algae but thats it. Took care of that in a couple weeks with some good skimming and water changes.

and Rodneybrick THAT IS WAY TO MANY FISH FOR A 55 AND WAY TO BIG OF FISH FOR THAT NARROW 55. ALSO BUY A SKIMMER DON`T LISTEN TO THE LFS ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE GOING TO KEEP IT THAT OVER STOCKED!!

Yea, im gonna sell the naso tang.

 

[dannyp02908]

I was going to say the same thing. A naso in a 55? A hippo in a 55? the 2 of them together? They can not possibly be happy.

 

[Aquanaut]

any thoughts on Amquel+?

 

[ffsteve]

i personally feed everyother day one cube of frozen shrimp and fresh seaweed daily, and i only have seven fish in a 125 gallon. and two in a ten gallon q tank.

 

[Rodneybrick]

Well this is my first tank. So im learning from my mistakes. The fish seem fine.