Hi,
I bought a well established second hand tank setup 4 months ago now, transported it to my house and it has been running fine after an initial settling in period. However, almost 3 weeks ago, one of the small hermit crabs died (all others are fine and healthy) and I stupidly left it in the tank thinking the other members of the clean up crew would gobble it up as I would expect in any ecosystem and it would be an interesting process to watch (lesson no 1: DO NOT DO THIS). Although some of it disappeared not all of it did and after a few days a red algae started to form around the grave. I fished out the remains at this point and got up as much of the red algae as I could. When I picked it up, it came off almost like a fragile sheet of cling film from the sand. I also read around on the forums and reduced the light cycle to 8 hours (was 10) and have halved the food intake to the fish and coral every second day. Water chemistry tests are good, and been doing a weekly water change of 20% (always RO) as opposed to a 10% water change every 2 weeks. I changed the metal halide light and I also pointed the powerhead at the spot where the algae was to disrupt the growth, however this has been a bad idea as the alagae seems to have spread around a bit - Lesson no 2 perhaps - dont blast it with current?
The algae is a red / maroon color and in dense areas, small ribbons of it rise up. The vacuum breaks it up and it clumps up into the ribbons making it too heavy to pull up the tube so it falls back down with the sand. Best way to remove it is to let it develop then turn off all pumps and then try and lift it out in it's cling film like sheets without it breaking up, but this is fiddly and not 100% successful. From what I have read it sounds like cyano but not entirely sure
??
The tank is around 200 litres with a fair bit of live rock, a sump tank (with approx 90 litres of water in it at any one time) which consists of japanese matting and foam, a miracle mud system with some vegetation in it and protein skimmer and this keeps the water crystal clear and water chemistry good. The tank is not overly stocked - 5 small fish (a small tang, a clown, 2 damsel, a wrasse), crabs and snails, a young small reef lobster, an adult starfish, lots of little white starfish that must have come from live rock and a few coral frags that have started to establish themselves and grow (from what i have read this means the chemistry must be good in order for the corals to thrive). I do get the odd bit of what I would class "normal" algae (green/brown) on the glass which a run over with the magnetic glass cleaner sorts out every few days, but the red stuff I want to get stopped before it becomes a harder problem to sort out.
Currently. the algae seems to be more widespread but less dense - starting to worry me.
Has anyone any advice?
Many Thanks
Adam
I bought a well established second hand tank setup 4 months ago now, transported it to my house and it has been running fine after an initial settling in period. However, almost 3 weeks ago, one of the small hermit crabs died (all others are fine and healthy) and I stupidly left it in the tank thinking the other members of the clean up crew would gobble it up as I would expect in any ecosystem and it would be an interesting process to watch (lesson no 1: DO NOT DO THIS). Although some of it disappeared not all of it did and after a few days a red algae started to form around the grave. I fished out the remains at this point and got up as much of the red algae as I could. When I picked it up, it came off almost like a fragile sheet of cling film from the sand. I also read around on the forums and reduced the light cycle to 8 hours (was 10) and have halved the food intake to the fish and coral every second day. Water chemistry tests are good, and been doing a weekly water change of 20% (always RO) as opposed to a 10% water change every 2 weeks. I changed the metal halide light and I also pointed the powerhead at the spot where the algae was to disrupt the growth, however this has been a bad idea as the alagae seems to have spread around a bit - Lesson no 2 perhaps - dont blast it with current?
The algae is a red / maroon color and in dense areas, small ribbons of it rise up. The vacuum breaks it up and it clumps up into the ribbons making it too heavy to pull up the tube so it falls back down with the sand. Best way to remove it is to let it develop then turn off all pumps and then try and lift it out in it's cling film like sheets without it breaking up, but this is fiddly and not 100% successful. From what I have read it sounds like cyano but not entirely sure
??The tank is around 200 litres with a fair bit of live rock, a sump tank (with approx 90 litres of water in it at any one time) which consists of japanese matting and foam, a miracle mud system with some vegetation in it and protein skimmer and this keeps the water crystal clear and water chemistry good. The tank is not overly stocked - 5 small fish (a small tang, a clown, 2 damsel, a wrasse), crabs and snails, a young small reef lobster, an adult starfish, lots of little white starfish that must have come from live rock and a few coral frags that have started to establish themselves and grow (from what i have read this means the chemistry must be good in order for the corals to thrive). I do get the odd bit of what I would class "normal" algae (green/brown) on the glass which a run over with the magnetic glass cleaner sorts out every few days, but the red stuff I want to get stopped before it becomes a harder problem to sort out.
Currently. the algae seems to be more widespread but less dense - starting to worry me.
Has anyone any advice?
Many Thanks
Adam
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