Will a blenny eat this stuff?

[Jerad81]

I've been having issues with this algae since I set my tank up back in January. I'm now on my third round fighting this stuff. The first two times I got rid of it with extended blackouts and a lot of water changes. Now though I finally have coral in my tank and don't want to kill them off with another blackout. I've accepted that this will probably be a never-ending battle so now I'm trying harder to find something that will eat the stuff. I'm leaning toward a blenny, not sure what kind yet but am open to suggestions or if something else will work better. I have a 20g tank with three trochus snails and a zebra hermit crab who all seem content to ignore it. 
 

 

It's hard to see in the pic but it is brown hairy/stringy stuff that is starting to cover my rocks. Any help, ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Jerad81]

Don't worry, I haven't stopped my water changes! 😉

[Clown79]

Its very stringy. It could be dino's which waterchanges are usually stopped to get rid of it.

 

Black outs don't work- temporary relief but not a cure.

 

If its dino's, treatment is the opposite to other algaes. Its not caused by high nutrient levels/organics but the opposite(lack of nutrients and lack of biodiversity)

 

Don't know of anything that eats dino's. Its main competitor are pods.

 

Blennies won't eat it. 

[Jerad81]

13 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Its very stringy. It could be dino's which waterchanges are usually stopped to get rid of it.

 

Black outs don't work- temporary relief but not a cure.

 

If its dino's, treatment is the opposite to other algaes. Its not caused by high nutrient levels/organics but the opposite(lack of nutrients and lack of biodiversity)

 

Don't know of anything that eats dino's. Its main competitor are pods.

 

Blennies won't eat it. 

That is very good to know, thank you! That makes a lot more sense since my tank is still pretty new. I guess I should keep going forward with my original plan to try introducing pods into my tank instead. 

[Tired]

What are your parameters? Specifically, nitrate and phosphate. It's very possible that your water changes are making it worse. To get rid of pest algaes, you have to let non-pest algaes get established, as they'll compete with it. They can't do that if there are no nutrients. Also, no nutrients will kill your corals. 

[Jerad81]

5 minutes ago, Tired said:

What are your parameters? Specifically, nitrate and phosphate. It's very possible that your water changes are making it worse. To get rid of pest algaes, you have to let non-pest algaes get established, as they'll compete with it. They can't do that if there are no nutrients. Also, no nutrients will kill your corals. 

My current water parameters are:

pH=8.2

Ammonia=0

Alk=7.5

Nitrite=0

Nitrate=30-40ppm

Phosphate=0.1

 

I know my nitrates are high, I've been fighting that battle as well. I was hoping my coral would help with that. 

[Tired]

Interesting, I would expect those to be lower if you're doing a lot of water changes. What do you have in the tank, and how much do you feed? What is your filtration like? Do you have a protein skimmer? 

 

I'm guessing you started with dry rock. Any way you can increase biodiversity (adding pods and microfauna, live rock, live rock rubble, or bits of stuff from a more established tank) will help with all pest algae. 

[Jerad81]

They keep getting higher on me for some reason but I can't figure out why. I currently have 3 trochus snails, 1 tiger sand conch, and 1 zebra hermit crab. I never put food in my tank because I don't have any fish. I used to have 2 clowns. Unfortunately they died on me shortly after the covid-19 issues started. I had to use tap water for a while to top off my tank which probably didn't go well for them. My first breakout started before this though.

 

For filtration, I'm using prefilter and felt pads as well as chemi-pure blue activated carbon and ion exchange resin packets. Could they be part of my problem? I don't have a protein skimmer either.

 

Yes, I did start with dry rock. I just started adding pods to my tank two days ago and was planning to add some more (and maybe a macroalgae if I can find one) this next weekend. I will definitely start looking for other sources of biodiversity as well now. Thanks for all your help! I really appreciate it!

[Tired]

That's strange. How sure are you that the test kits are accurate? 

 

How long has it been since you swapped out the media? Could they be full of gunk that's decaying and releasing nitrates? 

 

Macroalgae would be good to help get the nitrates out. Chaeto, maybe. Check out ReefCleaners and live-plants.com for some good macros. 

 

When you got the dry rock, did it have anything visibly on it? Did it have any sort of smell? Maybe it's releasing a lot of nutrients.

 

Tap water shouldn't kill fish. It can, however, contain copper that will make your tank permanently unsuitable for invertebrates. 

[Jerad81]

My test kit should be accurate, it's a red sea kit that's only a few months old.

 

I just changed the media two weeks ago (it's supposed to be good for a month) but I'm going to take a look at it this afternoon when I get home from work. I need to do a water change anyway so I might just remove them. I only started using them hoping they would help remove the extra junk from the tap water.

 

The dry rock looked like it was good and I didn't notice any smells coming from it. Considering this is my first reef tank it's possible there was something I didn't know to look for or notice.

 

Thankfully my inverts are all doing great so I think I avoided the copper.

 

I will definitely look into those two sites for macroalgae. Thanks for all the help!

[Jerad81]

I think I found the source of my nitrates, or at least a contributor. Yesterday when I was doing a water change I found the body of a dead hermit crab on my sand. I originally thought my current crab died because he has been hiding in my rocks for a few days and acting funny since I cleaned his shell. I removed the body (which looked like it was torn in half) and moved the shell to the back corner of my tank. I thought it might come in handy if I ever got a new one.

 

When I came home from work today I saw his shell was missing. After a closer inspection I found my crab was still alive and back to his normal routine. 

 

I originally bought two hermit crabs for my tank but one of them disappeared after a couple weeks. I never found him and figured the other crab ate him. Now I know he's been decaying in my tank this whole time. 

 

I wonder if this could be a contributing factor to this algae I'm fighting with? It didn't originally show up until after the crab disappeared. 

[Clown79]

10 minutes ago, Jerad81 said:

I think I found the source of my nitrates, or at least a contributor. Yesterday when I was doing a water change I found the body of a dead hermit crab on my sand. I originally thought my current crab died because he has been hiding in my rocks for a few days and acting funny since I cleaned his shell. I removed the body (which looked like it was torn in half) and moved the shell to the back corner of my tank. I thought it might come in handy if I ever got a new one.

 

When I came home from work today I saw his shell was missing. After a closer inspection I found my crab was still alive and back to his normal routine. 

 

I originally bought two hermit crabs for my tank but one of them disappeared after a couple weeks. I never found him and figured the other crab ate him. Now I know he's been decaying in my tank this whole time. 

 

I wonder if this could be a contributing factor to this algae I'm fighting with? It didn't originally show up until after the crab disappeared. 

Not likely. Their bodies are tiny and shouldn't contribute that much nutrients. If you had 10 or more die or molt, possibly. 

 

If you used tap water that could contribute to it.

 

Filter pads- what exactly are you using? How often is it changed/washed. If its a sponge or hob filter cartridges- that would definitely be a cause.

 

Chemipure blue- how often is it changed and are the bags ever rinsed off during waterchanges?

 

Do you vacuum your sand?

[Jerad81]

14 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Not likely. Their bodies are tiny and shouldn't contribute that much nutrients. If you had 10 or more die or molt, possibly. 

 

If you used tap water that could contribute to it.

 

Filter pads- what exactly are you using? How often is it changed/washed. If its a sponge or hob filter cartridges- that would definitely be a cause.

 

Chemipure blue- how often is it changed and are the bags ever rinsed off during waterchanges?

 

Do you vacuum your sand?

The filter pads are Lifeguard prefilter & felt pads. I change them out weekly or whenever I do a water change, whichever comes first. I'll start checking them more often now though. They usually look pretty nasty when I change them. 

 

The chemipure blue, I always rinse them off before putting them in. I check them when I change the filter pads. They're supposed to be good for a month so if they still look clean I leave them in. I never rinse them off again though. If they don't I replace them. I just took them out yesterday and didn't replace them. They were about 2 weeks old.

 

I've never vacuumed my sand. I don't have any fish so I never considered it. I did recently add a tiger sand conch to help keep it clean though.

[Tired]

Half a dead hermit crab is probably not a dead hermit crab. Their molts have a lot of color on them, and look like the front portion of a dead crab. You may have had a hermit die, but I would strongly suspect what you found is a molted shell. 

 

And even if it was a dead one, that wouldn't cause persistent high nitrates. Might cause a tiny nitrate spike.