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Algae - eternal enemy of mine : A newbie's tale


supraeli

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After years of playing around with freshwater planted tanks, Ive finally delved into saltwater (and yes, after lurking on nano-reefs for a while as well).

 

However, it seems are though even the most well planned projects go awry, and my 10 gallon is no different - my hated nemesis, algae, has apparantly followed me from my freshwater gardens into saltwater to create more headaches and sleepless nights for me.

 

Heres the down low -

 

Tank is 3 weeks old

 

EQUIP -

 

10 gallon, 96 watt powerquad 50/50 (11.5 Hr daylight)

5 gallon refugium overflows into 10 gallon main, stocked with gracilis and chaeto reverse photoperiod with 18w 6500K powercompact (80 GPH)

aquaclear 300 HOB solely with equipment (300 GPH)

aquaclear 301 powerhead for circulation (180 GPH)

18 lbs live rock in main tank, 8 pounds live rock/rubble in refugium

1 in aragonite sand in main, 1 in live sand in refugium

50 watt heater tronic (82-80 degree F day/night)

reef crystals salt

RO water base ~3 TDS (TOTAL dissolved solids)

2 gallon change 1x a week

 

SPECS -

pH - 8.4

1.025 SG using refractometer

~400 calcium

0 ammonia

0 nitrite

0 nitrate

 

LIVESTOCK -

lots of sponges, featherdusters on live rock

lots of amphipods

added a handful of mysis from friend's tank

4 astreas

2 cerith

3 blue legs

1 emerald crab

1 unidentified and hard to find hitchhiking crab

2 filter feeding clams attached on the live rock

NO corals

 

Now comes the horrific tale -

 

The live rock in the system was all completely cured from a friend's tank, covered in coralline algae, and had very very little microalgae. So I let the rock sit in the tank for a week with an 7 hour light photoperiod just to let things settle down.

 

After this point the water parameter was all stable and had no measurable organics. So, I increased the photoperiod to 11.5 hours, as it is now, in hopes of encouraging coralline growth.

 

I left for a trip over the weekend, and after those 2 days, I returned to find a lush carpet of green hair algae starting to grow over the coralline in patches, as well as along the glass. Diatoms also began to cover the sand, glass, rock. Bubble algae also began to pop up in patches, as well as a thick grassy algae that I fear is bryopsis (sp?).

 

I threw in the current clean up crew I have now over the course of 3 days, and 4 days later, they have decreased the amount of algae by a decent amount, but the growth of algae is still apparent, and it is continually growing where the clean up crew is not immediately eating at.

 

FINALLY, the point of this post -

 

Is this a normal growing phase algae cycle that I should be going through, or is this a battle that will never end??? The water I use to make the salt water is absolutely pristine, almost completely pure H2O molecules, so I don't know where the algae is getting it's nutrients from!!! Is it possible that the live rock I had was old and from a friend's tank and so may have had phosphorus or other organics precipitated onto the surface?

 

Should I do more water changes or less water changes, considering that there should be almost no nutrients in the water ANYWAYS and the algae was growing before there were even organisms in the water!!! Keep in mind I do have macro algae growing, and a thick lot at that as well!

 

Should I get more hermits/snails? I plan to get a 2 or 3 nassarius because my pristine white sand is looking like brown dirt now with all the diatoms growing over it.

 

Any advice will be greatly appreciated, thanks for taking the time to read this!!!

 

One last thing, my emerald crab seems to like scraping my coralline algae off the rocks, and leaving the bubble algae alone - It does, however, do a wonderful job of clearing away the thick filamentous algae that I think is bryopsis - Is it worth it to keep him? I'm really worried he's going to use his huge claws to tear apart my future coral collection!

 

I will attempt to post pics of this whole project as soon as I have time to upload them.

 

Thanks again!!!!!!!!

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neanderthalman

Even after a tank has passed it's initial cycle, it can be months before it is truly stable. Algae blooms shouldn't be unexpected during this time. My personal experience with snails leads me to beleive that turbo snails are a little better at cleaning than astreas. Try tossing one or two in and see if they mow a swath of algae destruction. Nassarius are good for keeping your sand clean, as you already know, so get some of them

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i started my 12g nano from scratch 3 months ago and i have never ran into problems like yours.

your not using tap water are you?

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Thanks for the input guys, it seems as though the algae is starting to slow down in growth, or at least the cleanup crew is consuming it faster than it grows. *whew!*

 

Also, the emerald crab is back at the fish store after eating away huge patches of coralline from the rock. BAD CRAB!

 

Finally, I added 2 scarlet leg reef hermits and they are doing an awesome job cleaning the sand and filamentous algae - WAYYYYY better than the blue leg hermits.

 

I also had a lettuce nudibranch for 2 days before it was sucked into the powerhead =( it was quite sad, but I rescued what remained of him and he is miraculously recovering in my friend's slower flowing tank.

 

Although I am using RO/DI water, I suppose it could be bad due to faulty filters or something - I may look into a temporary alternate source to test the hypothesis that I may have some nutrient input from the water...

 

I will post pics soon, especially as I have a nice order to zoos and shrooms as my starter corals coming in. Yay! B)

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