Algae issue

[RaymondNoodles]

Any advice on what to do about this algae bloom? I tried pulling it off the rock but it gets everywhere and makes a mess inside the tank. Is there any method to remove it short of removing the rock and scrubbing it? Also, once I do remove it, I want to place a coral or something to cover/shade that area, and to eat up the light energy, because it's a pretty hot area of the tank, PAR-wise. Would GSP be a good choice? Thanks!

[rough eye]

i wouldn't remove the rock and scrub. use a container of tap water and after pulling each pinch, deposit it in the tap water, rinsing fingers in that water. it goes slow but you'll be removing whatever the algae has been getting nourished by, little by little.

[Murphs_Reef]

AND after picking it out add snails over the areas you have worked on... Will sort it out a treat

[empresto]

If you aren't prepared to have everything on the rock out of the tank, you could use a small syphon tube and suck the algae out as you pick it off the rocks with your other hand.  Do this as part of a water change and most everything about the algae you are picking off will get sucked up the tube.

 

And like @Murphych said, snails on the spot right after you're done.  Or super glue... but that's messy.

[RaymondNoodles]

Thank you all for the suggestions. It took some time and patience to pick the algae off but I was able to get most of it with no mess. I hadn’t thought about using a syphon, good idea @empresto! I put 2 different snails on the area afterwards and they didn’t seem too interested. They’re pretty fat and well fed haha. I’d like to put something in that spot that will look nice and can tolerate a lot of light. Any suggestions?

[rough eye]

16 minutes ago, RaymondNoodles said:

I’d like to put something in that spot that will look nice and can tolerate a lot of light. Any suggestions?

coralline algae will grow on that spot to out-compete the green hair algae. if more GHA grows that's a benefit - it means it's sucking more of whatever excess causes GHA to grow out of your tank. GSP likes light but would spread over that rock and limit other corals.

[banasophia]

6 hours ago, RaymondNoodles said:

Thank you all for the suggestions. It took some time and patience to pick the algae off but I was able to get most of it with no mess. I hadn’t thought about using a syphon, good idea @empresto! I put 2 different snails on the area afterwards and they didn’t seem too interested. They’re pretty fat and well fed haha. I’d like to put something in that spot that will look nice and can tolerate a lot of light. Any suggestions?

Different snail types eat different things… not sure which ones you already have but I find that Mexican turbo snails and ninja star snails are best for GHA. You probably need more snails in your tank. (If you ever have a severe GHA problem, you can get a sea hare from your LFS to eat it, but you typically can only keep it for a week and then return it because they eat up all the algae in a nano tank pretty quickly and then starve.)
 

As for corals, that’s basically the best area of light in your entire tank for higher light corals, so you can put a higher light coral there that you like. Rather than choosing a coral to solve your “algae problem” there, which is just a temporary problem, I’d really try to envision your reef and how you want it to look (and I consider how my tanks will look both in person and in photos, since I enjoy photographing my tanks). 
 

I usually get ideas by looking through the monthly featured tank of the months tanks here, and nano tanks I like on Instagram, and I also search google for nano tanks and tanks that are the same as mine. I also try to doodle a pic of my tank, envisioning the corals filled in on my tank.

 

And I just checked out your tank thread, your tank looks great already! You may want to add a signature with a link to your build thread so people can easily get to it when interacting with you in other threads. 

[rough eye]

ok i'm going to have to look at this guy's tank 🙂

 

so a couple things. My mexican turbo died and from what I've come to understand, depending where they're harvested from they may not live long in a reef tank. currently I have a trochus and two astraea snails (that's for 10 gallons of water) and wouldn't want more for fear they'd go hungry.

 

as for placing a coral in that spot i see where you're going - fill that spot with something so the GHA can't return. But what if you add a coral and then the GHA decides to grow there anyway? you'd have a headache of trying to defend that coral from the algae encroaching on it. As for a coral to put there, there have been people on this forum who advised me to wait when i was battling the algae, and I'm glad i did. The ones i ended up placing in high light/flow areas are stylo and toadstool and either would likely thrive on top of the rock. and I want a green sinularia because i'm jealous of banasophia's tank 🙂

[RaymondNoodles]

On 10/16/2021 at 1:36 PM, banasophia said:

Different snail types eat different things… not sure which ones you already have but I find that Mexican turbo snails and ninja star snails are best for GHA. You probably need more snails in your tank. (If you ever have a severe GHA problem, you can get a sea hare from your LFS to eat it, but you typically can only keep it for a week and then return it because they eat up all the algae in a nano tank pretty quickly and then starve.)
 

As for corals, that’s basically the best area of light in your entire tank for higher light corals, so you can put a higher light coral there that you like. Rather than choosing a coral to solve your “algae problem” there, which is just a temporary problem, I’d really try to envision your reef and how you want it to look (and I consider how my tanks will look both in person and in photos, since I enjoy photographing my tanks). 
 

I usually get ideas by looking through the monthly featured tank of the months tanks here, and nano tanks I like on Instagram, and I also search google for nano tanks and tanks that are the same as mine. I also try to doodle a pic of my tank, envisioning the corals filled in on my tank.

 

And I just checked out your tank thread, your tank looks great already! You may want to add a signature with a link to your build thread so people can easily get to it when interacting with you in other threads. 

Thank you for the advise and kind words of encouragement! I took your advise and updated my signature with a link to my tank build.

 

Your tanks are stunning! Absolutely beautiful!

 

I have 4 snails in my 20 gallon. Turbo, banded trochus, tiger nassarius, nassarius. Not sure if my turbo is Mexican or not. I also have 4 hermit crabs and an emerald crab, a handful of bristle-worms and a ton of micro bristle starfish. Seems as though that should be a pretty sufficient clean up crew, right?

 

I guess I haven't gone as far as to envision how I wanted my tank to look. I started with live/wet/established rock so I was pretty limited for my aquascape since it was difficult to fit the rocks together. I didn't glue anything. There are 5 rocks that I fit together like a puzzle and have managed to keep stable/in once place for the last few months. So the layout is not ideal for showcasing corals I guess you would say. It's a nice layout for creatures to hide though. I think for my next tank I will start with dry rock so I can glue/fix them together and create exactly the aquascape I desire. For now I am just trying to keep the tank stable/alive and maybe grow some nice looking corals along the way. I do need to get this GHA issue under control before I do much else though.

 

 

[RaymondNoodles]

On 10/16/2021 at 2:05 PM, rough eye said:

ok i'm going to have to look at this guy's tank 🙂

 

so a couple things. My mexican turbo died and from what I've come to understand, depending where they're harvested from they may not live long in a reef tank. currently I have a trochus and two astraea snails (that's for 10 gallons of water) and wouldn't want more for fear they'd go hungry.

 

as for placing a coral in that spot i see where you're going - fill that spot with something so the GHA can't return. But what if you add a coral and then the GHA decides to grow there anyway? you'd have a headache of trying to defend that coral from the algae encroaching on it. As for a coral to put there, there have been people on this forum who advised me to wait when i was battling the algae, and I'm glad i did. The ones i ended up placing in high light/flow areas are stylo and toadstool and either would likely thrive on top of the rock. and I want a green sinularia because i'm jealous of banasophia's tank 🙂

I've had my turbo snail for about 3 months now, along with my 3 other snails. Thanks for the heads up on the turbo snail/reef issue. I think I have a pretty sufficient CUC but not sure. I also have a diatom/brown dusty algae issue. There are days where my glass will be covered in that dusty brown algae within 1 or 2 days of cleaning the glass, or even within a day of a "full service clean" (20% water change/vacuum sand/clean all 4 walls, change/clean filter).

 

Good point out the GHA returning and encroaching on the corals. I think I'll hold off for now, and try to get the GHA/diatom issue under control first before adding anything (at least in that area of the tank). Perhaps I need to reduce my feeding.

 

I've had trouble getting corals/frags to stay where I put them. The glue hasn't worked well for me and most of my frags end up in the sand, which is why my zoa's, duncan, and 1 of my FL ricordea are in the sand. But that's ok. My main concern is keeping a healthy, stable tank and keeping my creatures happy. Once I can succeed there, I will focus more on making it look pretty. Thanks! 🙂

[banasophia]

4 hours ago, RaymondNoodles said:

Thank you for the advise and kind words of encouragement! I took your advise and updated my signature with a link to my tank build.

 

Your tanks are stunning! Absolutely beautiful!

 

I have 4 snails in my 20 gallon. Turbo, banded trochus, tiger nassarius, nassarius. Not sure if my turbo is Mexican or not. I also have 4 hermit crabs and an emerald crab, a handful of bristle-worms and a ton of micro bristle starfish. Seems as though that should be a pretty sufficient clean up crew, right?

 

I guess I haven't gone as far as to envision how I wanted my tank to look. I started with live/wet/established rock so I was pretty limited for my aquascape since it was difficult to fit the rocks together. I didn't glue anything. There are 5 rocks that I fit together like a puzzle and have managed to keep stable/in once place for the last few months. So the layout is not ideal for showcasing corals I guess you would say. It's a nice layout for creatures to hide though. I think for my next tank I will start with dry rock so I can glue/fix them together and create exactly the aquascape I desire. For now I am just trying to keep the tank stable/alive and maybe grow some nice looking corals along the way. I do need to get this GHA issue under control before I do much else though.

 

 

Thanks so much. I typically start my tanks with dry rock and order a custom (snail only) cleanup crew from Reef Cleaners once I have some diatoms, then I usually add 1-2 ninja star snails and 1-2 Mexican turbo snails from other sources because Reef Cleaners usually doesn’t carry them. Your start with the live rock is a perfectly good way to start too and your scape is nice, don’t second guess yourself!
 

I do find that Mexican turbo snails seem to do a better job than the zebra turbo snails, but they do get big. I’ve heard people talking about it being an issue that they can knock frags off, but I’ve never had an issue with that. I think people sometimes also mention concern about them dying in the tank and causing a big spike since they are large snails… I haven’t had an issue with that, but I do keep a pretty heavy duty biofilter since I keep a media bag filled with matrix media in the back chamber of all my tanks. 
 

You can see the recommended number of snails and other CUC members for a 25 gallon tank here, it’s a lot.

https://www.reefcleaners.org/store/all-algae-crew-25-gallon-detail

 

I do stock and feed my tanks pretty heavily, so you may not need as many… everyone runs their tanks a little differently, that’s part of the fun is figuring out what works for your tank! 🙂 

 

I stocked my first tank with corals pretty fast for the same reason you were considering… to fill the rock with corals instead of algae (and hydroids in my case)… it did seem to work for me, but I probably just got lucky. So I’m not saying your rock has to be algae free before adding more corals… just be sure to pick corals you like in the process. 

[mcarroll]

On 10/15/2021 at 3:14 PM, RaymondNoodles said:

Any advice on what to do about this algae bloom? I tried pulling it off the rock but it gets everywhere and makes a mess inside the tank. Is there any method to remove it

 

Do like he shows in the vid.  Keep it simple! 😉 

 

On 10/15/2021 at 3:14 PM, RaymondNoodles said:

hot area of the tank, PAR-wise.

What are you lighting the tank with?  Can you show a pic that includes your lighting?

 

More than likely most corals would be fine there.

 

On 10/17/2021 at 10:48 PM, RaymondNoodles said:

I have 4 snails in my 20 gallon. Turbo, banded trochus, tiger nassarius, nassarius.

Only the first two of those are algae eaters.  Two might be fine since the two you have are big and VERY hard workers, but keep in mind that could be a lot of area for them to cover, and they can only eat fresh, new algae growth – not long, mature strands.  Add another one or two snails like the ones you have if you always seem to be plucking out long algae.

 

On 10/17/2021 at 10:48 PM, RaymondNoodles said:

I also have 4 hermit crabs and an emerald crab

IMO that's quite a few hermits for a small tank without a ton of algae...they'll eat your snails if they run out of food.

 

On 10/17/2021 at 10:48 PM, RaymondNoodles said:

It's a nice layout for creatures to hide though.

Seems nice enough for corals too if you ask me.  Also seems very apropos of the tank you chose.  IMO enjoy your live rock and don't second guess yourself so much.  🙂

 

On 10/17/2021 at 10:48 PM, RaymondNoodles said:

For now I am just trying to keep the tank stable/alive and maybe grow some nice looking corals along the way. I do need to get this GHA issue under control before I do much else though.

There's no finish line....good to remember it's all a learning experience, it can all be enjoyed – even the algae blooms.  

 

Try not to rush through any of these phases.   Looks like the tank is coming along nicely!  👍