Im giving up!!!

[amstar15]

okay so I get the algae to stop growing in my tank. I add some clean-up crew. Well the algae that was green for the clean up crew to eat, has now turned to a brown spider web looking stuff. MY corals are doing great, budding, growing ect. MY LIVE ROCK IS HORRIBLE. i am about to give up, tear down the tank and start over. What can I do for my live rock? give it more time, add more cleaning crew, will they eat this dusty, web looking dead or dying algae? ahhh... just sick of my corals and fish looking great and my rock looking horrible.

 

[Ed4567]

Reduce input of nutrients into the tank (make sure you are using good quality RO water), increase the nutrient export from the tank (protein skimming, growing macro-algae, water changes etc.) maybe add a few more cleanup crew, and just wait it out- it will go eventually.

 

[leon]

Dont give up, this is all part of the cycling process, when one algea goes, another appears, till basically theyve used up all the silicates and nutrients they live on, and it can be kept under control with a decent clean up crew, mine did this (as i think nearly everyones has!) and i thought the same, it looks horrible, but really its not that bad, just make sure you ONLY use RO water, and dont over feed, keep an eye on all the parameters, esp. phosphate, nitrate and nitrite.
leon

 

[Mr Miagi]

leons right. Just hang in there. It hapens too all.

In my opinioin, a tank with lots of algae, and growths looks awsome!

There are some fish that do eat algaes but the clean up crue should give it a run for its money. If they dont, add a few more.

Benny

 

[amstar15]

could distilled water be hurting my tank as far as algae growth? That is all I use for water changes and to top off.

 

[Navarre]

If its true distilled water then it should offer no nutrition for algaes to feed on.

How old is this tank? If its new then algae blooms are perfectly normal as it takes up to 1 year for the tank to mature.

 

[amstar15]

okay I set the tank up about two years ago. I started with live rock and the sand was from a marine fish only tank. We had our daughter so the tank didnt get much attention. I bought new halides (had vho's before) this past christmas. I had an algae bloom. I started to do changes heavy protein skimming, and added a medium sized reef cleaning kit. The green algae I get now is on the walls of the tank and it will not come off with a cleaning magnet... it has to be scrapped off as well as the coraline algae. The live rock use to have green algae and the red bacteria. The red is gone and the algae is no longer green. It now looks as though it is a brown spider web substance. Is my cleaning crew going to eat this? or is this just the end of my algae problem and I just have to wait for the cleaning crew to catch up and "clean" the rocks of it?

 

[Navarre]

Ok, well lets take this a step at a time.

What kind of circulation do you have in the tank? How high is the flow?

 

[leon]

Coraline growth is a good sign!. The brown algea was the last type of mine!, get plenty of snails, my glass was really covered, but they soon cleared it up!, also how long are your lights on for?, when mine was doing this i only had the halides on for 5 hours a day!, when it does clear up, start putting them on for longer, add maybe 1/2 hour or 1 hour a week or fortnight, it will make a huge difference! you will get a little more growth put its soon cleared up, and settles again, till eventually theyre on 10 hours or so. (actnics wont make any difference, so can stay on for norm time, best doing halides "on" when you are there to enjoy the tank, say an hour after you finish work!, so you wont notice the change, and it'll still look good to you!)
leon

 

[amstar15]

i have 5 powerheads on my tank. (Just added two recently(last two weeks) they range from 200 to 295 gph. My return flow is about 600 gph. I have two 175 halides that are on from 11am till 830 pm and my blues are on 10:30 till 9:15 pm. I have a mudd filter that has arrived I just havent put it on the tank nor bought macro algae for it. (will do this weekend) I have about 50-70 hermits, 30 or so snails. my tank is a 75 gallon. I have 5 firefish gobies... 1 bi color angle, scooter blenny, and a madirian. I have 95 pounds of live rock (thinking of adding 22 more pounds or so) my sand is about two inches deep. i have a wet dry filter on the tank now... with a berlin protein skimmer running.. (no protein skimmer will be used when i get the mudd filter) water temp is about 78 degrees. I have about 10-14 corals... all doing well growing, budding, splitting ect.

 

[leon]

Adding the micro/macro algeas will help, as they will feed partly on waht the nuisance algea lives on thus starving it/them!. I suggest that you have the halides on from around 3.30pm till norm time, when its eventually cleared, leave it a while, then do as i said before, 1/2 to 1 hour every 1-2 weeks.
leon
P.S any pics?

 

[Navarre]

Just a thought...
How old are the bulbs in the halides?

 

[amstar15]

the bulbs to were just bought in december. actually they arrived and were installed dec 29 so they are not old enough yet. As far as turning down the time wouldnt that hurt my corals? getting only 5 hours of halide light?

are you looking for pics of my whole tank or just pics of the brown/dead algae

 

[amstar15]

brown algae

if you look to the right of my angle you can see right below the few polyps were my cleaning crew cleaned a patch. however if you look elsewhere on the rocks.. you can see that it is not a green alage but a spider web looking brown substance that my coraline is trying to break through. look at the small rock in the top left you can see the purple coraline tyring to creep through

my mushrooms are growing great, you can see alittle of my metallic brain coral that is growing well. do i scrape the live rock and start fresh with new rock?

 

[amstar15]

http/img.photobucket.com/albums/v714/amstar15/mushrooms.jpg[/img]]brown algae

maybe this will work.. im sorry still not use to photobucket