75 Gallon Tank

[Triggerfish31]

After all I went through with the Ich outbreak and treating the suvivors in my hospital tank I am back to the only fish that survived the ordeal, Patches-my Tomato Clownfish. I think he is happy to have the tank to himself again. The only issue I am having right now is a major growth of long thin green algae that has spread all over the tank. Patches thinks its a sea anemone becuase he likes to be right in the algea and goes back and forth peering out of the algea growth. I am planning to test the tank parameters this weekend. Would turbo snails be the best bet for this tye of algae or hermits? I have also been debating to just remove all the algae growth by hand.

 

Aaron

[Smoothtriqueter]

your going to have to remove it by hand most snails and hermits are preventative measures that will keep it slightly more under control after you get rid of all of it and make sure your water quality is up to par. You probably have some funky chem going on if all you fish have passed and now you are getting HA. (may be turf algae also)

 

Get a sea hare!

[droyal1110]

I find that kind of unusual. Your tank has been fishless for 6+ weeks (I'm assuming) and unless you've been feeding copious amounts of food to your CUC you really shouldn't have GHA unless you were destined to have it. There are tons of ways to get rid of it depending on what your set up is.

 

1 - no lights for 3 days, cover up the tank so no light whatsoever gets in. Obviously you can only do this if you don't have an anemone. With this method be sure to have a good protein skimmer and do a big water change after the lights out period. Also bring back your lights slowly, make sure to turn your atinics on for a few hours on the 4th day, 5th day bring them on all day, 6th put on your daylight for a few hours, 7th fully on.

 

2 - http://www.melevsreef.com/gha.html basically manual removal.

 

3 - Run GFO, get something to eat it (Sea hare, lawnmower blenny, rabbitfish, turbo snails, etc), cut back on lighting

 

Either way you need to eliminate the source. If you use frozen foods make sure you are thawing them out in tank water and straining them because they can contain phosphates. Don't feed more than what your fish can eat in 3-5 minutes, I feed a good amount over a period of 5 minutes only putting a tiny amount at a time. If you added some new rock recently pull it out and cook it (not literally there is a method).

 

I am personally running GFO, less lights, sea hare and turbos, and I am winning the battle. I don't know where you live but BRK has at least one more sea hare left, I bought one Wednesday and it went to town on the GHA. www.bulkreefsupply.com has good stuff on GFO and reactors, not too expensive or you can buy a cheapo reactor and order some GFO. You can win this.

[Triggerfish31]

The Tomato Clownfish is the only one at this time in the tank. The lights are running 12hr/day. My protein skimmer (Aqua C Remora) has not been running for two weeks due to the connection tube from the pump to the skimmer breaking off. I have no clean up crew currently in the tank and the last time I did a water test the Nitrates were 0 but my calcium was still off at 350. I am doing a water test either tonight or tomorrow morning and will post the results on here. I am awaiting a power head and heater to arrive and that will give me total control on water changes. I will have two 30 gallon rubbermaid containers (one salt water and one RO/DI water) with a power head and heater in both. This is where I am at the moment.

[droyal1110]

Well from here on out you can go to your LFS, at least pick up some turbo snails and if they have it a sea hare. Those will eat the GHA, just move them to the thicker spots every time you pass by your tank, kind of pushing them to eat. Cut back your lights to 6 hours a day and feed every other day but only little bits at a time and only for a max of 5 minutes of total feeding time. If you need to, turn off your pumps so the food slowly floats down and gives your fish time to eat it. Whatever little critters you have should survive off of algae or detritus. If you don't want to buy thing to eat the GHA then go to melevsreef link I gave you and do the manual removal. Definitely do something before it gets more out of control. Cutting back on feed and cutting back on time will help over time because its cutting back the source, like I said if you don't have an anemone do the 3 days of no light. Its hard and it sucks but its definitely worth it. Also if its only one or two pieces of rock look into rock cooking.

[zygote2k]

Do regular weekly maintenance, keep the lights on normal cycle, watch what you feed, boost the calcium to lower the chances of nuisance algaes, siphon off excess detritus and/or hand removal of algae. Don't buy a Sea Hare- they'll run out of food. Get some Nassarius and some Trochus snails.

Keep temp normal. Don't go to extreme measures like 3 days of blackout or cooking rock. Nothing happens fast in this hobby and everything will eventually run its' course.

All will eventually be well.

[Triggerfish31]

I just took my water test today. Below are the results.

 

Temp: 79.9

Salinity: 1.025

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

pH: 8.5

Alkalinity: 135mg/L

Calcium: 340

Phosphate: 0

 

I am planning to replace the tube today to get the protein skimmer back up and running. I am planning to do a water change on Monday.