Algae on Rocks - To Scrub or Leave alone?!

[yOyOYoo]

I previously posted this thread:

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...&threadid=16413

 

It's been 12 days of my cycle already. Since I started getting huge algae outbursts I have used a PHosphate pad and cut lights from 10 hours a day to 4 hours.

 

The green hair algae, red slime algae, and diatoms seem to be more stable now, not really subsiding, but not increasing.... yet.

 

I am planning on doing my first water change today (about 1gallon) I think my tank is fully cycled. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0-5 nitrates. 0.2ppm Phosphates.

 

Before I do, I was wondering if I should scrub my algae off the rocks or just leave well enough alone and just do the water change?

 

I was planning on taking the live rock out of the tank into the tank of water i'm removing, then scrubbing all of the hair algae off with a toothbrush, then give it a good rinse of clean saltwater before I put it back into my tank.

 

Good idea or just leave it alone and hope it goes away by itself?

bear in mind I am not going to be adding anything (no outside nutrition) to the tank. I will give the tank a few more days before I get a small cleanup crew (anyone recommend anyhting for a 12 gallon, 15lbs live rock 15lbs live sand? thanks and reply asap as im going to the lfs soon! thanks.

[eleer]

yeah, all that algae would make great food for z clean up crew..get some now...usually there hardy little creatures...an ass snail is great...mine is getting bigger by the days, blue-leg hermit crabs are great. Red are super but the most i've seen look lazy but i guess they do something at night or when ur not watching them ?!?! dunno just chunk some in

[yOyOYoo]

so just put the cleanup crew in? The hair algae is at maybe 2cm long. It doesn't need to be scrubbed off first?

[Sltwtr4lfe]

no just a crew!

[JLTRUK]

unless the algae is soo bad you cant stand it, try not to ever take the rocks out and clean them.

 

"cleaning" them basically kills everything that was living on there before, and since live rock acts like your filter you dont really wanna do that. If it come down to you haveing to scrub them, get a new tooth brush and scrub them in the tank lightly to brush off anything on there that is overgrown.

 

HTH

[yOyOYoo]

Okay last question guys: if all my water parameters are stable, do I get the cleanup crew NOW? or give it another week to get more stable?

 

and also, any particular cleanup crew I should look for?

 

I am thinking some sort of mixture between Cerith Snails, Trocus Grazers, Strombus Grazers, and maybe nassarius snails. Do I add them all at once? or just a couple at a time to avoid another ammonia spike?

[JLTRUK]

its been up 12 days, you are fine. Go ahead and get a small clean up crew. add some hermit crabs to your mix there...they will help you a lot.

[ross76053]

I was wondering if I should scrub my algae off the rocks...

That freakin' hair algae put me out of the reefing hobby (although temporarily). If you've got it after only 12 days, you've got a problem somewhere. Either it was already present on your LR, or its feeding off the Phosphates in your water, or both.

 

I'd suggesting running your water through a DI to remove more Phosphates. You can get a DI add-on for around $50.

 

Hair algae sucks and is very difficult to get rid of once you've got it. The fact that you have it after only 12 days concerns me. IMO, you shouldn't spend alot-o-money on corals/fish until you've gotten it under control - several members here will high-five me on that one (Crakeur?).

 

Sure, you can (and should) get a cleanup crew. I had every variety of cleanup crew you can imagine, and the lazy asses didn't do jack for my algae problem. I'm still somewhat perplexed as to why I couldn't get rid of my hair algae - I tried everything. Phospate pads/pellets, RO/DI water, lower light intervals, keeping hands out of tank (from the theory that oily hands provide food for algae), Greenex & some other chemical....nothing worked.

 

Good luck, man.

 

Ross *my posts aren't normally this depressing* :|

[technoshaman]

Ditto - if you are getting it to bloom this early something is way out of whack - likely phosphates IMO. I have found even a trace or near undetectable amount of phosphate can be enough to let it get established.

 

I would scrape/siphone some off but the best advice I can offer is to lower your photoperiod, do a water change with some ro/di water, possibly use a phosphate absorbent - MWeiss's Phosphate magnet is actually really good - seriously , and lastly just leave it alone. Tanks will go through cycles of different algaes blooming and receding. If you can be patient much of this will burn itself out - if you want something fun to play with in the meantime get a small hang on refugium set up and stock it with some macroalgaes - in a month or so they should be outcompeting most of the hair algae for nutrients making it even less of an issue.

 

Also ifyou aren't sure about your water you may want to ask the utility company for a copy of their water report - I believe it's federally mandated they have to provide it on request but there may be a small fee.

 

I have not had a problem with hair algae in a long time since I started using a fuge on almost every tank I set up.

[Sltwtr4lfe]

hey ross! did you try phosphate remover by salifert?

that stuff works like a mericle!

[ross76053]

Yup - I did...but at that point, I had so much algae that I don't think anything could get rid of it.

[Sltwtr4lfe]

hm... did you try jsut cutting all the algea of and c ing what happend?

[swordfish]

With the alage that long, snails and crabs will not touch it. In fact they rarely seem to touch the stuff anyhow. Diversifying my cleanup crew with a few different types of snails and a sally lightfoot crab didn't help. What i did for my own tank in such a case was to keep the photoperiod to about 8 hours a day, use a phosphate sponge and add a touch of macroalgae tucked into a corner. This will definitely kep the problem in check. You have got to have a multi-pronged approach like that.

 

Of course the algae does still grow, so every other week I gently brush it off with a clean toothbrush (run through the dishwasher) with all circulation and filtration off, let it settle, then siphon it out when I do the water change. I am having to do this a lot less lately though as the growth gets lighter. You may always have algea, but you can keep it from ruling over your tank.

 

Oh yeah, about using phosphate remover.....I use the Kent granulated stuff. When come home with a 5 gallon bucket of RO water from the store, I put about 1 tyeaspoon of that stuff into the bucket and let it sit in there with a power head going for a day or two. That way the stuff has a chance to do what it does before tha water gets into the tank. I then scoop it out with a fish net or just don't take the water from the very bottom where it's settled later on. I used to put that teaspoon in a piece of tied-off panty hose and then drop that into the HOB filter and let it sit there for a day or two, but you still are allowing any possible phosphates into the tank first that way.

 

Jeff

[yOyOYoo]

great ideas! thanks guys I am going to get a cleanup crew tomorrow.

 

Is this too much for the 12 gallon? (after live rock im guessing there is about 7-8 actual gallons of water):

 

6 Nassarius snails

3 Cerith Snails

3 Trocus Grazers

2 micro hermits of some kind (not sure about mexican hermit, blue leg, or red leg)

 

I hate algae!!!

[eleer]

Yeah if it gets way to long, or even to much of a hassel just trim it a some. I guess i got lucky with my hermits and they seemed to have done the job, now they just sit in one place for long periods of time.

[Vincerama]

Pull out a bunch of the algae by hand if you can. I used small scissors and gave my tank a hair cut. I also did the toothbrush scrub thing. I actually did take the rocks out and scrubbed in a bucket of tank water. I know I killed off some stuff, but the GHA was doing it's job killing stuff too. If you see my other post in the beginners forum, you can see before and ater pics. The after pics have hardly any GHA in them. Part of it was just the bloom subsiding, but then also I manually pulled out a bunch of it and the crew ate the rest. (thread is called "Ugh, I've run out of green hair algae or something).

 

My 10g crew is;

1 red leg hermit

4 blue leg hermits

2 nassarius (more for detritus...I've never seen them interested in algae) snails

2 trochus snails...these guys RULE

1 astraea snail...not bag, but the trochus is better

 

I hear the TIGER trochus is even better, but I found the trochus snail is most excellent! The blue legs are fine, but kind of small, I think the red leg did ALOT of work. Basically the hermits pick at the long algae (you might need to trim the really long strands with scissors and let your HOB filter suck it out of the tank) and then the snails will come in after to clear out the stubble.

 

Good luck! I was going to give up too...but the crew helped change my mind. Just hang in there.

 

V

[yOyOYoo]

Okay I picked up 3 Ceriths and 2 Blue Legged Hermits

 

Went to 2 other places and couldn't find any Trocus or Nassarus snails. I guess I'll wait to get them next week.

 

THe blue leggeds seem hard at work already working on diatoms and green hair. 2 of the Ceriths are moving around and crapping everywhere.

 

Another one of the Ceriths hasn't even come out of it's shell. It looks all curled up into the inside... I'm afraid it might be dead. If it doesn't move before I go to bed (9 hours later) is it safe to assume that it's dead?

[Masoch]

Hi,

 

I'm coming late to this -- but here's my take.

 

Turn the lights off, and cover the sides of the tank (mylar's cheap and has other uses) so light can't get in. No light = no algae. It'll die off 'n' turn to scunge which can be removed by a syphon (a protein skimmer would also help). Leave the lights off until you see massive die off -- 3 or 4 days, at a guess. Syphon the crud off the rocks.

 

Next up ... nassarius snails are carrion eaters -- that is, they eat only dead meaty stuff. They will not help get rid of algae, but they will clean up anything you feed your fish or corals.

 

And, finally, hermit crabs are chancy ... I finally gave mine back to my lfs when I realized that they weren't eating algae, I had a lot of dead snails, and they were growing like crazy. Some folks swear by 'em, tho ...

 

Good luck! FWIW, this is what I'd do if I were doing it over -- I had a brutal cyano problem (now fixed) and am doing battle with bryopsis (bad, bad hair algae, almost nothing eats it).

 

BTW -- if I were to reccomend one piece of gear, it'd be a HOB refugium. Add a few inches of sand, a cheap fluorescent light, and some macro algae, and you'll grow algae in there instead of your tank. This'd work especially well with the lights out in your main tank.