Vincerama Posted August 22, 2003 Share Posted August 22, 2003 OK, in a previous post, entitle "My tank is a hellish nightmare" I showed pictured of my algae farm tank, also covered with a dusting of aragonite dust. It sucked....that was a month ago (or so) ... I added a cleanup crew and stuck with it... Now there is BARELY any GHA in the tank at all! The crew is scrounging around and only the snails can access the tank sides for algae! The crew is small, but they, along with the natural progression of the tank (and a halfway useless Prizm skimmer) seem to have got rid of the Hellish Nightmare! The crew is; 4 tiny blue legged hermits 1 red leg hermit (<- He TOTALLY rules! Get one!) 2 trochus snails (They rule too, get some!) 1 Atraea snail ... his buddy flipped one night and died Now, the hermits seem to pick at whatever they can get to (including coralline!). The snails have the advantage of being anti-gravity creatures, but I think the hermits are now exploring every crevice to find some food (they are avoiding the few patches of really long GHA that are in high flow areas, I guess it's like trying to reach a hamburger stuck in a wind tunnel!) I've actually started putting in my Marc Weiss Algae-Vital (oops, I mean Coral-Vital) because I no longer fear the green monster (for now anyway). Bottom line...if your tank is a hellish nightmare of green hair algae...stick in some cleanup crew and just WAIT IT OUT...it will fade... I was within days of giving up... V Link to comment
JLTRUK Posted August 22, 2003 Share Posted August 22, 2003 cool dude, glad that all worked out for you. and dont worry about the hermits, they will be fine...any uneaten fish food that falls they will get, and like you said, they will go into every crevice and keep your tank sparking clean! Link to comment
seabass Posted August 23, 2003 Share Posted August 23, 2003 I still think this Post is hilarious: I call this "Blurping algae forest, in wintertime" Now let's see the new pics! Link to comment
NanoBound Posted August 23, 2003 Share Posted August 23, 2003 Hey Vincerama, how about a follow-up picture of how your tank looks now after the cleanup crew. I would be nice for a comparison shot of before and after. Link to comment
yOyOYoo Posted August 23, 2003 Share Posted August 23, 2003 Vinc... this is great news to hear! I will be adding my cleanup crew next week. Just want to let me tank stabilize for another week first. My green hair algae is also pretty bad. One question for you though, do I need to trim it first or anything? Or would my cleanup crew just go ahead and attack it? The algae is about maybe 1-2cm in length Link to comment
Dave ESPI Posted August 23, 2003 Share Posted August 23, 2003 be sure to siphon out the mulm in the bottom of the tank if possible before it gets recycled into nutrients. Doing a few waterchanges will help to reinforce the concept that you do not want the algae to return. Give your hardworking Hermits a shrimp pellet or 2 on my bar tab Link to comment
Vincerama Posted August 23, 2003 Author Share Posted August 23, 2003 I cut the algae. Some of the really bad rocks, I scrubbed with a toothbrush. I turned off everything except the HOB and let it run with filter floss. Then I used a turkey baster to suck up the algae and aim it at the HOB input (I took off the strainer). I let the HOB run for a while so it could extract all the cut algae. Then I put in the crew and it soon stabalized. The crew really helped... Here is a pic of the tank. I re-arranged the rocks so I could access some of the tank sides better for cleaning. The blurping was solved by (temporarily) abandoning the sump idea and just running it sumpless. Also a reef club member gave me three Xenia frags, which seem to be rather happy in the tank! Hang in there, I'm sure 50% of the cure was just waiting it out, the manual cleaning was for my own sanity (I couldn't just look at the tank!) and the crew was the other 50%...I'm sure their role is now more like 90% now! V Link to comment
Vincerama Posted August 24, 2003 Author Share Posted August 24, 2003 Oh yeah; Thing in top left of pic is an Aquaglobe 200F to the right is a RIO 90 and a Maxijet 400 On the back is a Marinland Penguin HOB that used to have a biowheel on it, and to the right of that is a Prizm skimmer (all these things were in the first pic, but I had moved the HOB and Skimmer into the sump, where they lived for one day before moving back to the tank because I couldn't figure out how to adjust my overflow to be quiet (even with Durso standpipes). The Xenia are the brownish pink things in the right foreground. They are very fun to watch as their hands pulse!) The coralline was thicker in the first pic than in the second, but it is coming back now. I used to have 3 BIG mexican turbo snails (in the first pic) that was my only cleanup crew, and they ate a lot, but I don't think I acclimated them well and they died within a week. They were too big to fit in many places anyway, but I regret killing them in the hell tank. V Link to comment
Vincerama Posted August 24, 2003 Author Share Posted August 24, 2003 Oh, and here is one of the heros of our story... V Link to comment
T?@7 Posted August 24, 2003 Share Posted August 24, 2003 AWESOME! I need to find a solution, congrats on you win! Link to comment
mane3215 Posted August 24, 2003 Share Posted August 24, 2003 Awesome, huge difference! I had that battle a few months ago, scrubbed with the tooth brush, then added clean up crew and it was never to be seen again. Set up my new 20 and no signs of it at all. Link to comment
reefmouse1 Posted August 24, 2003 Share Posted August 24, 2003 An't it great when things start working out. I Have been dealing with the same thing. Went to the reef shop and picked up 9 Astrea snails and 3 Scarlet leg hermits. Hafter 5 days my tank is also looking a lot better. I noticed today that the coraline is starting to make a come back and I haven't been dosing any calcium. It bleached some during the cycle. Link to comment
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