Hey!,

Im pretty new to this whole thing, but I have one of the Fluval edge tanks. with 1 snail, 1 peppermint shrimp, 1 percula clownfish and 1 goby (forgot the name)..

the issue im having is that there is this black algae everywhere.. on the rock, sand and what little green algae I did have its grown over it.. the rocks that I did manage to clean off seem to be doing ok... but the big rock i have in there is covered in it.. Ive tried many times to get rid of it by scraping the top layer of sand off and taking some of the rocks out to clean, all of my levels are good. what do I do?

I cant take all the rocks out, my biggest rock has 3 corals on it, and one of my little ones I just recently put another coral on it. I dont want to harm my fish or put them through anything dramatic, but at the same time is it bad for the algae to be in the same tank they are?

Is there some kind of algae killer solution I can run through the tank, idk.. if anyone has anything on this let me know!!

thanks,

Shawn

looks like cyano. it tends to grow in areas that have a lack of flow, so you may need another powerhead in the tank. also check your phosphates, and what are you feeding, how much, and how often? algae grows when there are excess nutrients.

+1 to all that

Also curious how old the tank is.. equiptment used.. lights power heads filter media etc. all this may help determine how to help you some .

Thanks for replying so quick!

Im not sure how I measure the phosphate?! Is it like a test kit from the LFS?

There seems to be quite a bit of flow.. There is the original filtration system that came with the tank, its designed for a 20 gallon tank but its put on the 6 gallon.. I replaced the halogen lights with wide, cool LED lights. I also have 2 bubble strips on either side of the tank.

I feed my fish once a day at night a frozen food that I got from the LFS, not very big peices. I also make sure to do the weekly gallon change.

I pulled out the filter media a couple days ago and replaced it because there was algea on it! I also have a filter sponge thing on the water intake for the filtration system.

Oh and the tank was cycled for about 2 months before I put anything into the tank, I cleaned it once, but it never really went away.. I thought by getting a snail and a shrimp they could clean it up a little bit.. I am also planning on gettting 2 more sexy shrimp in a few days.

Hope thats answers all of your questions.

thanks,

shawn

lack of flow isn't always true. I had a bout with cyano in my SPS tank. Really high flow. That stuff was growing everywhere. It was waving in the wind like a frikkin flag! Every time I walked by, I wanted to salute it and sing my country tis of thee. No kidding, it was that bad.

Clean up crew for sure i would say you should strart with. Get a few snails. I would avoid hermits in a small tank. Astrea or cerith snails (i recommend cerith for ya check out reefcleaners.org john will take good care of ya)

Phosphate is checked with a test kit from your LFS.
I really just think CUC is your best bet right now.. the algae doesnt sound like cyano to me. You just got some extra junk in the tank.

If your not running carbon or chem pure or some type of mechanical media like that i would say you may want to research that avenue as well.

Hi,

Cleanup crew may help but this is only a band aid solution.

The real issue is that you have a bad combination of lighting, low flow and high phosphate level.

I would recommend reducing your lighting to about < 4 hours. You don't seem to have many corals that rely on photosynthesis. Looks like you have a sun coral and those dont need light as those often dwell in caves in the ocean.

Like mentioned, purchase a phosphate test kit from your LFS and reduce feeding to your fish.

Consider investing in a HOB sump and include chaetomorpha to reduce access nutrients to your tank. If this is not possible with your tank setup, some people incase chae in a clear case (like the kind strawberries come in) and leave it in the back of the tank out of sight.

"Cool" lights is more in the "red" zone of the kelvin light temperature, this lighting is good for algae (although cyno is a type of bacteria that is photosynthetic)

I've seen those tanks at LFS and wasn't really sure if they were for saltwater application given the type of lighting options and the small area in the back that housed the filtration. I believe they are more suitable for freshwater application.

HTH

pull out the bag of ceramic media. put chemipure and a small amount of gfo in a media bag in there. wait a couple weeks the cyano should clear up. phosphate is fueling it . i would say get a media reactor but u would have to plumb it in somehow. that would ruin the clean look that the edge has.