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Algae problems


holyherbiness

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holyherbiness

Okay. So about a month has passed. Tank specs are this:

 

Cycle: Complete

Nitrates: 5-10

pH: 8.3

Alkalinity: 9 dKH

Calcium, phosphate, others: untested

 

Anyway, I'm using tap water (So what? I felt like using tap water)

 

I'm getting many kinds of algae:

1. Hair algae (hair..)

2. Coralline Algae (red, purple)

3. Halimeda ( hard, rough textured algae grows in chains)

4. Caulerpa (long vines, no leaves yet)

5. Bryopsis? (Thought it was hair, then realized that it looked feathery. difficult to remove by hand. )

6. Bubble Algae? (Big bubbles on rock, no stem or vine to make me think that it's grape caulerpa)

7. Mermaid's cup/wineglass or something (Thin stem, leading into a green goblet thing)

 

 

Sorry, no pictures

anyway, i'm really worried about the bryopsis looking thing. It's feathery, spreads like wildfire, and there are few predators that will eat it. It's a ***** to clean because when you tear it off, a little piece remains that will regrow into another feathery thing, and I'm not sure what nutrients I can limit to stop it's growth.

 

Any advice on what to do (besides getting a new water source..I plan on using further water changes with supermarket distilled water) to control besides manual removal of algaes above?

 

Thanks!

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how strong is your lighting? lettuce nudibranches eat bryopsis, but you need to have strong lights for them to thrive (they need it for photosynthesis)

 

i'm sure you already know why you're getting hair algae... tap water ;) unless you live in the boonies and get water from a well (like i used to) then it's probably got all kinds of junk in it.

 

an emerald crab will take care of your valonia (bubble algae), along with some types of macro algae i've found.

 

sea urchins will take care of the coralline (if you really want to get rid of it)

 

the only algae that i would be concerned with is the hair algae (and maybe the bryopsis, if it gets out of hand)

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my algae bloom eventually burned out even the bryopsis because of good water changes and pruning. even if you had everything right besides the water, you'd still have the main problem with the water. hey here's an idea. you can start a planted nano! lol purigen may help with some of the phosphate levels, but not if you keep replacing them with water changes.

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holyherbiness

VicSkimmr: I am using 72 watts of PowerCompact lighting over a standard 10 gallon. 50/50 actinic/6500k. I do not want to really purchase lettuce nudis unless truly needed because their diet is VERY specific and after they eat all the bryopsis, I would assume they would just die.

 

EtOH_is_good: I'm too cheap to get an RO/DI filter for a nano tank. I may decide to pick up some distilled water. The main thing I'm doing right now is just cleaning it out and throwing it away.

I also did not mention that I have red macroalgaes in there.

 

I started dosing kalkwasser to help maintain my pH, alkalinity and hopefully precipitate out some phosphates that the hair algae loves to use (hopefully).

 

Anything else I should do besides manual cleaning/new water source?

 

Thanks

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I think you will be fine. Hair algae is absolutely normal.

 

Check the water you are using for chlorine and phosphate with a good test kit.

 

When the hair algae starts to get out of control and grow all over, just pull out some manually. One time I filled a bucket of full of saltwater, then placed one rock with algae problem into the bucket, and scrubed it down with a hard tooth brush. The other rocks i didn't, I just scrubbed them inside the tank.

 

Some people say hermits don't eat hair algae, but mine does! I saw them eat it. So, get some hermits, and plenty of shells.

 

lol. I use to have all kinds of algaes too!, but it seems that something has ate them all. I also witnessed my Bi-color blenny munch on diatoms, green algae, brown algae, and green hair algae.

 

I witnessed my Crown Astrea snail eat the mermaids wine glass, and the neon green looking algae thingy.

 

The back of my Crown Astrea snail was begining to look like a mobile jungle, then I witnessed my electric blue hermit climb on top of my Crown astrea snail and eat off all of the red algae branches that grew on the snail's shell.

 

My one blue legged hermit, eats something off the rocks, but I can't see what it is, it just looks like it is picking at nothing off the rocks, and putting nothing into it's mouth.

 

Use a turkey baster to blow off detritus off the rocks from time to time. That will get the nutrients off the rocks which helps algae growth. I think if the rocks are of bad quality, and there is some die off, then some algae growth may occur, and that will give some nutrients to the algae to grow on.

 

Well, good luck, with your algae battle, don't stress to much over it.

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holyherbiness

I'm not. Probably going to add a fish or two and wait till algae clears up before I put in some soft corals/LPS

 

Forgot to mention diatoms too. They appear as specks on the glass.

 

Another off topic question: when I move one small piece of live rock, hundreds of white things come out of it. Some swim, some just get blown around by 300gph of circulation. What are these things? decaying matter? copepods?

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when you move lr, it is probably some detris settling underneath and on the lr getting blown around. with your hair algae, you should notice a nice increase in your pod population, so it's not all bad.

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