Guest clownfish4 June 22, 2005 Share June 22, 2005 Okay, this is flat out getting ridiculous. Most of the snails I added died. As well, I recently put in the third light bulb that has been missing for awhile due to the last one breaking. The left side of the tank was completely clean of hair algae. The new light bulb is from a new maker, got it through Howard, and now the left side of the tank is COVERED with hair algae. I also recently connected my 50g tank that just has a normal 60 watt bulb over it and there is no algae what so ever in that tank. The six fish in the main tank are still fine and the baby trigger in the 50g is fine. My corals are all fine except for my slimer which bleached. My galaxia that I believed to be dead has rejuvinated and everything is growing. Tests are still coming up fine. WHAT IS GOING ON??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex wlazlak June 23, 2005 Share June 23, 2005 what kind of snails were they?did you put them right in, or float them?does the side with the algea the side with the new bulb, or is it the old one that has the algea? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowardofNOVA June 23, 2005 Share June 23, 2005 Mike, The 250w 20K Bulb you put in, did you ramp it up a bit or go straight full time? I just got mine up to running 8:30 to 8:30 and so far seems ok. Can't understand why snails died?? I usually get those and just toss them into the tank being they usually come drypacked anyway and never loss one, except for Bluelegs grabbing some quick sushi! How is your water temperature, still running under 80 degrees right being in the basement right? Did you try to re-hook up the Phosban Reactor to see if that will help? The combination of that, scrubbing rocks and water changes, finally got rid of my problem after about 3 weeks. So far no more problem and not running at all now. Howard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest clownfish4 June 23, 2005 Share June 23, 2005 Snails were astrea, turbo, and ceriths and were floated. I have phosban running 24/7, I scrub the rocks and siphon often, I am doing water changes, I introduced the light slowly, and yet I am overrun. If someone can't figure this out in the next week or so I am going to do something DRASTIC!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mutley29 June 23, 2005 Share June 23, 2005 Is it hair algae or the real pain in the Butt Bryopsis type? I had a bad bloom of bryopsis algae a while back that came in off a frag i bought, the only way i could get rid of it was to run a phosban reactor 24/7 and get a Foxface Rabbit and a Tuxedo urchin to come in and eat the stuff, the rabbit the urchin and a specific type of nudibranch are the only things the ate the stuff i had. Bryopsis Algae The i suppose run of the mill hair algae was vacuumed up in my tank by a tiger cowrie in under 2 days and has never returned Hope this helps Anton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowerseller June 23, 2005 Share June 23, 2005 You clearly have a nutrient problem if the algae is this agressive. What salt mix to you use and is it with clean water? Skimming is maximum with feeding at a minimum? Are you adding any trace elements? New specimins? Filters in good shape? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest clownfish4 June 23, 2005 Share June 23, 2005 Skimmer is running like mad, I feed once or maybe twice a week, I use IO with water from my RO/DI, and I add no trace elements aside from my kalk reactor. RO filters are pretty new and I am running carbon, phosban, and this absorber thing Lee gave me. Test for nutrients comes up less than .03 so if there is a nutrient problem it is hiding somewhere. This has been going on for a couple months now and I am an inch away from draining the tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mutley29 June 23, 2005 Share June 23, 2005 This is the stuff i had, if you check out RDO they have several threads on it, it's a real @$%#& to eradicate, the only thing that worked for me prior to the livestock that ate it was zero light. All were 0 for nitrates/nitrites/Ammonia and phos, even growing a ton of chaeto in my refugium wasn't slowing this stuff down. I almost got to the point of tearing it down and boiling the worst affected rocks. Hopefully you don't have this, but search RDO for Bryopsis. HTH Anton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest clownfish4 June 24, 2005 Share June 24, 2005 I don't have that, I have real thick dark green hair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmeyer June 24, 2005 Share June 24, 2005 Since you say it isn't Bryopsis, this part won't help you, but for others, I had great success with adding a Kole Tang for Bryopsis. He went to town on it. Unfortunately, I've had seemingly every algae under the sun. I have to respectfully disagree with flowerseller about there necessarily being a nutrient problem. That is the conventional wisdom, but I am sceptical after my experience. After my cucumber sushi problem that many have heard about, my tank went to H-E-double hocky sticks. The cucumber killed all the fish, led to an ammonia spike and killed most of the coral. Then the algae took over. When I had a chance to recover, there was 6 + inches of algae over everything. I didn't feed the tank, reduced and eventually eliminated the lights, and still the algae thrived. I am convinced that sometimes when significant algae takes root it needs very little to survive. The only way I broke the cycle was to take out all of my rock, put it in a covered rubbermaid trash can for several weeks, scrub it as clean as I could, and then put it back. That seems to have worked. I've been back at it for 5 months and haven't had an outbreak yet. Is it possible to take the rock out in stages, scrub it, and put it into the tank without the algae problem? When you've got the bulk of the bad rock out, you can start rotating the scrubbed rock back into the tank. Possibly you will have the same success I did and get it down to an amount that is manageable for whatever algae consumers you do have in the tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emissary June 24, 2005 Share June 24, 2005 What's your sand bed? IF DSB, could it be getting stirred? If plenum... could the ticking timebomb finally have gone off ... or the layers start getting mixed somehow? I'm with you. I'm scratching my head too in wonderment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest clownfish4 June 24, 2005 Share June 24, 2005 Okay, I am done, I am converting my tank to FOWLR. I am going to get rid of all my corals, move my fish into the 50g, drain the tank and let the rock run dry for a week or two. Then I am going to scrub them like crazy and fill the tank up with new water. Then I am going to put the large fish back in, put my trigger in there, and get a couple more fish. Don't even bother trying to persuade me otherwise because I am already in motion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grav June 24, 2005 Share June 24, 2005 Mike, Sorry to hear that. Per request I won't try to talk you out of it. If going FOWLR is what makes you happy I'll back you up. But why drain the tank to dry out for weeks? You would kill off any good bacteria and have to start from scratch with dead base rock and sand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest clownfish4 June 24, 2005 Share June 24, 2005 Because I have been scrubbing and scrubbing and still have hair. The only alternative would be to remove all the rock and keep it in sw then drain and refill the tank. I just don't want to risk it growing back. I do have about 20 lbs in other tanks that doesn't have hair that I could throw in to help seed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarosh June 24, 2005 Share June 24, 2005 Not that you need more fish, but if you don't have a foxface I'd highly recommend it. The new tank that I just picked up had terrible green and red algae everywhere. I did an initial scrub and flipped a bunch of the heavier coated rocks over, but the foxface scrubbed the H-E-double hocky sticks out of the rest of the rock work. I'm currently algae free and even have to feed the clean up crew right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarosh June 24, 2005 Share June 24, 2005 Also if you are serious about the FOWLR and plan on getting rid of your corals, but me down for that Brain you picked up a few months ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now