What in tarnation is this stuff!?..

[Zeal0201]

No sure what this stuff is growing in my tank.. I see a couple rocks covered in it, I use a tooth brush to scrub it off and snails also usually eat it but it's annoying to see...

 

Here's my readings, PH looks a bit pink because of the flash...

 

Tank is about a month and 2 weeks old now...

 

I do a 5G water change with RODI water every Saturday or Sunday and give a good cleaning, is my RODI water maybe an issue? Or my feeding habits? I don't really feed my fish all that much. Maybe half a cube of mysis shrimp every morning.

 

My tank is a 40G Nuvo, my filter setup is

 

(right to left)

1. Media basket with filter floss, cheato, then live rock

2. Water hearter with 3 mangroves 

3. Water pump

4. Seachem Purigen (Saw it turning yellow yesterday, time for change?) And Seachem Matrix (Saw a couple really dark rocks, time for change?)

5. Tunze 9001 Skimmer 

 

[nicholc2]

Hair algae 

[Zeal0201]

3 minutes ago, nicholc2 said:

Hair algae 

So where do I start? I was thinking it's hair algae....

[nicholc2]

Hair algae is part of the normal tank aging process. IMHO it’s inevitable. Best to limit nutrients as much as you can. Make sure you do regular water changes with high quality RODI. Manually remove as much as you can with each water change. Eventually it will go away. If your tank has stable parameters and it’s not going away on it’s oen after a while try a turbo snail. They’ll eat it. 

[Zeal0201]

1 hour ago, nicholc2 said:

Hair algae is part of the normal tank aging process. IMHO it’s inevitable. Best to limit nutrients as much as you can. Make sure you do regular water changes with high quality RODI. Manually remove as much as you can with each water change. Eventually it will go away. If your tank has stable parameters and it’s not going away on it’s oen after a while try a turbo snail. They’ll eat it. 

I have a feeling it's my RODI water.. sadly... I just bought a TSD meter and it showed 40... Wasn't able to do a better reading because I was running late to work but I'm gonna check again when I get home. 

 

It's just ugly to see... I hate it

 

Edit: just got home checked my RODI water in a glass cup showed as 0, then checked inside the bucket and it was 37-40... I'm guessing maybe salt is leaking into the plastic bucket?

[squamptonbc]

Change or recharge the purigen when its a dark brown color, almost black you know its time. On water change days rinse it in old tank water to rinse it.

 

Matrix is a bio media and only needs rinsing in old tank water to keep it from clogging up, no need to ever change it, its not a chemical media and changing it defeats the purpose of having it.

 

If your RODI water is 0 coming from the system and 37-40 inside the bucket something is in the bucket or the bucket is leaching something or getting into the bucket. Some TDS creep is expected when water is stored, but pushing 40 is a bit high in my opinion to just be normal creep from storage.

 

Hair algae is common in new tanks, I had it for a few weeks in my tank, just as fast as it appeared, it left.

 

I don't exactly have low nitrates either, but I do try and keep phosphates on the lower end, but not as low as most do.

[Zeal0201]

6 minutes ago, squamptonbc said:

Change or recharge the purigen when its a dark brown color, almost black you know its time. On water change days rinse it in old tank water to rinse it.

 

Matrix is a bio media and only needs rinsing in old tank water to keep it from clogging up, no need to ever change it, its not a chemical media and changing it defeats the purpose of having it.

 

If your RODI water is 0 coming from the system and 37-40 inside the bucket something is in the bucket or the bucket is leaching something or getting into the bucket. Some TDS creep is expected when water is stored, but pushing 40 is a bit high in my opinion to just be normal creep from storage.

 

Hair algae is common in new tanks, I had it for a few weeks in my tank, just as fast as it appeared, it left.

 

I don't exactly have low nitrates either, but I do try and keep phosphates on the lower end, but not as low as most do.

Its weird, if its literally sitting in my bedroom. Im thinking maybe its the salt?.. I might drop some Seachem Prime in the bucket just incase/..

[Nocturnal]

It's nearly impossible to avoid all pest algae. Scrape it off manually and try to starve it out. 

[Clown79]

Green hair algae.

 

The worst thing you can do is nothing, the second worst thing is scraping it off in the tank which will cause it to spread everywhere.

 

It's an aggressive algae that does not go away on its own. It needs aggressive removal.

 

First is checking your phosphates and nitrates with a good test kit. Salifert or Hanna checker.

 

To ensure it doesn't return, correcting nutrient issues and ensuring proper maintenance is done will prevent future issues.

 

To get rid of the algae.

 

Remove the rock, scrub it with a toothbrush, rinse the rock off in sw.

Apply 3% hydrogen peroxide to the gha area. Let sit for a minute or 2.

 

Rinse off and return rock to tank

 

 

In tank treatment for remaining gha after the above.

 

Turn off all water movement

 

Apply 3% peroxide to the with a syringe. Let sit for 10-15mins before turning on water movement.

Use no more than 1ml at a time of peroxide in the tank.

 

This gets rid of the the but if the cause is not corrected, it will return

 

 

[Zeal0201]

7 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Green hair algae.

 

The worst thing you can do is nothing, the second worst thing is scraping it off in the tank which will cause it to spread everywhere.

 

It's an aggressive algae that does not go away on its own. It needs aggressive removal.

 

First is checking your phosphates and nitrates with a good test kit. Salifert or Hanna checker.

 

To ensure it doesn't return, correcting nutrient issues and ensuring proper maintenance is done will prevent future issues.

 

To get rid of the algae.

 

Remove the rock, scrub it with a toothbrush, rinse the rock off in sw.

Apply 3% hydrogen peroxide to the gha area. Let sit for a minute or 2.

 

Rinse off and return rock to tank

 

 

In tank treatment for remaining gha after the above.

 

Turn off all water movement

 

Apply 3% peroxide to the with a syringe. Let sit for 10-15mins before turning on water movement.

Use no more than 1ml at a time of peroxide in the tank.

 

This gets rid of the the but if the cause is not corrected, it will return

 

 

Will do, ill do this tomorrow. Its weird because I do a very good maintenance every Wednesday/Saturday. 

 

What do you mean GHA area? I have a Nuvo 40 AIO...

 

Edit: Im removing some rocks tomorrow. I hate my rock structure. I feel poop and garbage is getting stuck in hard to reach places. Im surprised that I have hair algae with all the water changes im doing

[Noonan]

As previously mentioned above: clean it out, starve it out, and wait it out.

 

I want to add a huge algae contributor that is often overlooked with many high functioning LEDs... red and green LEDs should be ran at very low intensity. If not they would cause any algae growth to increase, add some nutrients and it’s taking over.

[Zeal0201]

11 minutes ago, Noonan said:

As previously mentioned above: clean it out, starve it out, and wait it out.

 

I want to add a huge algae contributor that is often overlooked with many high functioning LEDs... red and green LEDs should be ran at very low intensity. If not they would cause any algae growth to increase, add some nutrients and it’s taking over.

WIll do I have pretty strong lights. Tomorrow ill turn off the red and greens. Im running them at 50% intensity 

[Noonan]

15 minutes ago, Zeal0201 said:

WIll do I have pretty strong lights. Tomorrow ill turn off the red and greens. Im running them at 50% intensity 

What type of light? Some lights like certain black boxes have the red/green running on the same line as the white so you are not able to turn them down and forced to run them at whatever intensity the white leds need to be ran at. It doesn't sound like this is the case for you but it's just something that I felt was worth mentioning.

 

I would highly recommend checking your tank with a PAR meter if you haven't already. Your lighting is literally a guessing game until you fine tune it with a PAR meter. Some shops will rent them out for the day which is plenty of time to check, adjust, and check as your adjusting.

[Zeal0201]

7 minutes ago, Noonan said:

What type of light? Some lights like certain black boxes have the red/green running on the same line as the white so you are not able to turn them down and forced to run them at whatever intensity the white leds need to be ran at. It doesn't sound like this is the case for you but it's just something that I felt was worth mentioning.

 

I would highly recommend checking your tank with a PAR meter if you haven't already. Your lighting is literally a guessing game until you fine tune it with a PAR meter. Some shops will rent them out for the day which is plenty of time to check, adjust, and check as your adjusting.

Im running a Radeon XR15W

[Noonan]

3 minutes ago, Zeal0201 said:

Im running a Radeon XR15W

To me, the Radion G4 is like a high end super car. It's capabilities have no limits but it's going to need some tuning.

 

 

[Zeal0201]

5 minutes ago, Noonan said:

To me, the Radion G4 is like a high end super car. It's capabilities have no limits but it's going to need some tuning.

 

 

I noticed its a beast..

[Noonan]

3 minutes ago, Zeal0201 said:

I noticed its a beast..

like I said, supercar. lol 

 

I switched a few of my grow out systems from Hydra HDs to Radion XR30 G4s. When I did the switch I just matched the PAR levels but even still we were burning up corals that we have been growing out for 4-5 years FAST. I attribute this to the more focused/pinpointed lenses. We dropped the PAR levels down quite a bit and haven't had any issues what so ever since. We have recently added the diffusors and upped the intensities to make up for it. I am a huge fan of the lights as well as the diffusors if needed. We do not run the diffusors on our SPS systems.

[Zeal0201]

2 minutes ago, Noonan said:

like I said, supercar. lol 

 

I switched a few of my grow out systems from Hydra HDs to Radion XR30 G4s. When I did the switch I just matched the PAR levels but even still we were burning up corals that we have been growing out for 4-5 years FAST. I attribute this to the more focused/pinpointed lenses. We dropped the PAR levels down quite a bit and haven't had any issues what so ever since. We have recently added the diffusors and upped the intensities to make up for it. I am a huge fan of the lights as well as the diffusors if needed. We do not run the diffusors on our SPS systems.

Are you running a custom template?

Im running the standard reef template.. at 50%