Live Rock & Algae

[G7EG]

Hi all,

I recently bought 3 turbo snails and 2 hermit crabs (red legged and blue legged) this is to obviously have a good little clean up crew, the problem is each day im now getting alot of algae (brown shade) on the front of my tank, what can I do to clear this each day other than get it off by hand? Do I need to get anything else to help (fish/more snails) or is it just a job by hand that I need to do.

Also on my live rock I have alot of blackcurrent colour (like a reddy purple) of like a layer with loads and loads of what look like little air bubbles but they aren't, any ideas? is this normal?

Cheers

 

[Aquascaper]

Search the forum for Cyanobacteria - this will tell you all about the problem

 

[G7EG]

Hmmmmm thanks mate

I have done that but im not sure it's the same thing.

Mine is like a blackcurrent colour covers in loads of little clear/round bubbles (look like bubbles but there not)

 

[SkiFletch]

Might be diatomaceous algae aka diatoms... Look that up and see if its what you have. Either way, I'd invest in a magnetic glass scraper if I were you

 

[mantis147]

Turbo snails usually eat the brown algae

 

[G7EG]

Thanks SkiFletch

I actually have 1 of those but gets boring doing it everyday, was wondering if there is anything I can buy to do the process for me (like more snails or something)

The thing that was worrying me was all the little round bubble look on the live rock, getting more and more now.

 

[SkiFletch]

Hummm, little round bubbles? Could be bubble algae (bad) or grape culerpa (good). How big are these bubbles and do you have pics?

FYI, emerald crabs are known to eat bubble algae

As for your glass, I've found that all the snails in the world can't keep the glass clean on a new tank. Mine did a good job for a while but slowly lost the battle until i was able to find an algae scraper

 

[G7EG]

Here you go mate

 

[SkiFletch]

The bubbles are O2 gas created by whatever photosynthetic algae you have there. At first glance, that looks like cyanobacteria to me, but it might be coraline algae. can you take a pic more zoomed out?

 

[G7EG]

The second pic is probably the best I can get as im at work.

The second one shows the best situation of the bubbles (or whatever they are) Are any of them problems?

 

[SkiFletch]

The bubbles themselves are not a problem as they are merely Oxygen... If its cyanobacteria that is producing the bubbles, well thats not good. Do you have fish in the tank or is it just rock?

 

[G7EG]

I have 1 clown and 1 yellow tail damsel (both seem fine and get on well)

Other than that its 3 snails, 2 crabs and 1 cleaning shrimp. Should I get anything else?

All stats are ok

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, hummm, thats a tough one. If when you get home tonight you can take a smoewhat less zoomed in shot and post that up I could make a better ID of that life. Doubtful that its coraline or diatoms, more likely cyano and hair algae, but need a better pic to postively ID what you're dealing with.

 

[G7EG]

Ok thanks

I'll post a pic as soon as I can, just checked the tank and the sand has now started going red aswell!

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, thats definitely Cyanobacteria then. Usually caused by excess DOCs (dissolved organic compounds) or excess nitrates and especially phosphates from decomposing food or dead livestock (even in small amounts of 0.1ppm or less). I have a tank infested with cyanobacteria myself, and as you can see so did SH at one point, so even the "experts" are not immune. Best ways to treat it are (straight from the TFF thread):

1) Change feeding habits, many recommend every other day feeding, to reduce nitrates
2) Although no strong evidence to support this, consider increasing water flow or redirecting flow to dead areas
3) Skim
4) Find the source of contamination and remove it
5) Increase the frequency of water changes
6) Siphon off the cyanobacteria to help reduce the load. You can use airline tubing attached to hard plastic tubing. You can also vacuum the substrate to remove detritus. Use a turkey baster to float if off the LR and then suction it up with a turkey baster. Be forewarned..it grows back quickly
7) Change to RO/DI water if you are not using it to reduce phosphates
8 ) Consider adding a phosphate binding media insert.
9) You can consider reducing lighting but this is often of little help
10) Add cyano-eating livestock. Some cyano eaters include Mexican Red Leg Hermit Crabs, Astrea snails and Trochus snails. Here is a photo of my astrea snail eating cyano

I've done all those things on that list myself. I water change 4 gallons (10%) a day just to vacuum up the substrate and rock and I can barely stay even with its spread. My astrea snails and mexican red legs dont touch the stuff but the one Cerith snail I was able to find in all of buffalo goes nuts on it... Too bad it's tiny and one of them doesnt put a dent in a 45 gallon tank (I doubt even 10 of them could do the trick)... I just got my hands on a phosphate chemical binder to try just in case I've got small levels undetectable by home test its. If that doesn't help over the course of a week I'll have exhausted all other options and will have no recourse other than to treat with erythromyacin. I dont want to do that since it puts my zoos, clowns, and xenia at risk if the bio filtration breaks down, but that may be my last resort. At least the erythro will kill it...

In short, try all those 10 things as quickly as possible and see if you can beat it. If natural methods fail over the course of a few weeks then its time to treat. just my oppinion