jp75 Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 I have a coralife biocube 29 running for 3 weeks now. It has 30 lbs live rock and 30 lbs live sand. I'm using the stock lights for now for a total of 6 hours per day. Ammonia is 0 and Nitrite had been 0 for 3 days. Nitrate is around 40ppm. Most of the brown algae is gone, but there is a ton of GHA all over the place. Should I clean THE GHA prior to placing CUC in our leave it for them? Also what quantities of what should I place in for the CUC. I wanted to put in a serpent starfish with them at the same time as well. Link to comment
jestep Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 I would get a single turbo snail and make sure to get a routine going for water changes. Not many snails will eat GHA but turbos usually do and in that size tank, you wouldn't want more than 1 of them. Also, it's pretty common to go through different phases of algae for the first 6 months to a year. Most will pass on their own with good maintenance. Link to comment
fishybusiness11 Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 +1 ^ Look at reefcleaners for CUC. I only go to them now, last time got a ton more then I ordered. I have also done the 29g package they have for my biocube and was very satisfied. Link to comment
jp75 Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 So my lfs advised for me to do one more water change and waiting a week before getting the CUC. While doing the water change should I try to clean out a lot of the GHA or should I leave it for the CUC next week? Link to comment
MadReefer13 Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 I'd remove it as much as possible not something you want is it really bad? Link to comment
Spiderguardnano Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Don't get nerite snails they are a PITA Link to comment
jp75 Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 Here is a view of the tank from a from today Link to comment
B16acrx1988 Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 If you don't have any fish or corals I would do a large water change, clean out as much as you can, turn out the lights for a couple days and run some gfo. Then order a cuc from reef cleaners. Link to comment
jp75 Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 Just completed 25% water change and added chemipure elite to the media basket. Also rearranged the rocks again. Link to comment
HOTWATER Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Manually remove as much as you can w your hand or a nail brush, rinse in salt and do a big water change even 50% you want to lower your phosphates, that's what's feeding the growth of algae. a turbo is the best for gha, like posted above usually just 1. Maybe 2 and when it's greatly reduced or gone give those puppies back to the lfs, too big of a snail for our nano tanks, will knock over all your coral. Link to comment
jp75 Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 When I did the water change I took the rocks which had algae on it and scrubbed them in the bucket of the tank water I siphoned out. I also scrubbed the glass and got most of the GHA off of the sand. I will retest the water in the morning and see how things are. Link to comment
jestep Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 You may not need to add anything. Just keep up with the water changes and it will likely go away on its own since you don't have an active nutrient source in the tank. Link to comment
Chandler221 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Sorry for this newbie question but what is GHA? And I have a 10 gallon tank and my LFS said 3 Turbos. After reading this thread...I am second guessing that suggestion. thoughts? Link to comment
jp75 Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 So I tested my water today and found my nitrites rose up to 0.25ppm and my nitrates dropped to 20ppm. Is it normal to see the nitrites rise slightly? There is still no livestock besides the hitchhikers from the rocks. I did add a ball of chaeto which was added Appx 20 hours before the water change. Link to comment
jestep Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Sorry for this newbie question but what is GHA? And I have a 10 gallon tank and my LFS said 3 Turbos. After reading this thread...I am second guessing that suggestion. thoughts? I wouldn't do more than about 1 turbo per 30 gallons unless you can rehome them once the GHA is gone. They require a lot of food and will starve without a constant supply. Even a single one can starve in a low nutrient tank no matter what size it is. Link to comment
furam28 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I added 4 small turbos to my 20 gallon long tank when I first started. Did a really good job keeping clean but 2 eventually died, I am guessing due to lack of food. So yes, don't get more than 1. Also, turbos get really big and they tend to push around corals a lot. Doesn't really hurt the corals but if you have small pieces or frags on the sand, or not glued, they will get knocked down or pushed around. My favorite ones are: 1) margarita snails - voracious appetite. cleans rocks and glass. can turn itself back up 2) nassarius snails - absolutely essential if you have a sand bed. keeps sand stirred and eats up all leftover food from gravel 3) cerith snails - get big ones from LFS if possible. these are great cleaners and best of all, they mostly graze from the sand bed, taking care of cyano. Don't get astreas. They can't get themselves back up if they fall on their back. I got 5 and 4 of them died in a few months. None of my other snails have died. Link to comment
jp75 Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Retested water this morning and nitrites returned back to 0 but nitrates went back up to over 40ppm. If I just did the water change 2 days ago when should I do the next one? Link to comment
Chandler221 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 They cleaned all my GHA in the matter of 16 hours hours lol I think I will goto the LFS in the moring and switch them out. I currently only have the 3 Turbos and 3 blue leg hermits. How many all together of a CUC should I have in a 10 gallon? Link to comment
furam28 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 It depends on your specific conditions: feeding, bioload, lighting, water change frequency... so every tank is different. you can start with a small number and then slowly add more if you see there is enough algae. but definitely get a mix of various ones - ones that feed off of rocks and glass, ones that feed off of sandbed, and then ones that burrow into and stir up sand bed. I would say, if you get medium sized ones (not big ones like turbos, or tiny ones like dwarf ceriths), then 3 of each should be a good place to start. Link to comment
Swing2Harmony Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Retested water this morning and nitrites returned back to 0 but nitrates went back up to over 40ppm. If I just did the water change 2 days ago when should I do the next one? I would do couple of 50% WC 4-5 days apart. Link to comment
AntiNano Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 IMHO. You shouldn't experience gha in the first 3 or 4 weeks of the tank. it's normal for some brown diatoms, not gha. I am curious if you are using dry rocks in the beginning and RODI is questionable. Link to comment
Formula462 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Manually remove as much as you can w your hand or a nail brush, rinse in ro. Yeah that's not too hot an idea to rinse cured live rock in freshwater. Why not salt water? Why risk killing off massive amounts of beneficial bacteria by soaking LR in fresh water? I'm not following the logic there. Link to comment
HOTWATER Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Yeah that's not too hot an idea to rinse cured live rock in freshwater. Why not salt water? Why risk killing off massive amounts of beneficial bacteria by soaking LR in fresh water? I'm not following the logic there. Sorry buddy meant salt. The bottle got the best of me that night! Correction made. Link to comment
Formula462 Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Lol. I figured it was an oversight. I just wanted to point it out so the poor guy didn't nuke his nitrifying bacteria colony. I've have drunk commented many a time. Matter of fact, probably 80% of my posts I have been inebriated in some way or another. I'm actually on my second IPA right now lol Link to comment
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