How often do you scrape?

[hgsports]

After 2 months my tank has started to get covered in green coraline (as well as some much nicer purple). I have crushed coral substrate and it's getting covered too. It makes the bottom of the tank a flourescent green that isnt nearly as attractive as nice white sand.

What's the best was I can "clean" the substrate and glass?

John

 

[tazdevil]

John, what type of system do you have? (tank size etc. including current inhabitants)? Are you sure its not slime algae-how long has it been since the tank cycled?

 

[hgsports]

Here's the details on the tank:

75G Reef (48x24x16)
20 Long sump
Berlin Venturi skimmer
4 x 96W PC - 2 Daylight, 2 Actinic

Inhabitants:
1 Maxima Tridacnid Clam
1 Pinktip Elegant
1 Galaxy
1 Large Trachyphilia (5" base)
1 frag of some sort of mushroom
1 Yellow tang
1 Hippo tang
2 yellow tail damsels
about 15 astrea snails
3 turbo snails


The tank has been done cycling for about 6 weeks. I got really lucky with the live rock I purchased. I only had a minimal spike (.4 ammonia for 1 day) followed by some tapering nitrite and nitrate. Now all three are at 0.0

It doesnt appear to be algae, or at least non-coraline algae. It's a hard crust rather than any kind of slime or hair-like alagie. It's not diatom flakes either. It doesnt wipe off at all but can be chipped off.


thanks!


John

 

[tazdevil]

Substrate, not sure, but I think queen conch might help. As for glass, I use the Kent plastic scraper, has long reach so your hands stay out of water, seems to do a good job. I personally would never use a razor blade scraper as using metal scrapers in saltwater unnerves me. HTH FWIW

 

[MIKE NY1]

hgsports, for the glass you can use a plain razorblade to clean it and for the sand you can use sand critters like cukes and conches etc... which will keep the sand clean. Some people also use fish like gobies, but I don't because they also eat all the good critters in the sand like worms and such.

Mike

 

[HARRISON]

Rototiller starfish. Mine move around pretty quick and keep stuff stirred up...

 

[Tybond]

Are you sure the green crust isn't the start of coralline? it starts this way.
if sure then theres another train of thought.
my tank developed this same algea growth after 2 weeks of initial setup.
It has been there ever since though it is far less now at 8 months in to this hobby.
I put some turbo snails in my tank and they eat it like mad. They don't seem to do much on the already established stuff but most of the new growth doesn't stick around long.
I still have to scrape some off each time I clean the glass and yes its tuff stuff.
hth
ty

 

[esmithiii]

Going from crushed coral to a DSB would fix the substrate problem as well as prevent other problems that you will face in the near future using crushed coral.

I use a magnet to clean soft micro algae, and a razor blade scraper to clean off coraline. I don't believe that for the short duration it is in the tank that the metal has any negative effects on the tank. If you are paranoid about it, a plastic credit card works well, but it is considerably more work than a razor scraper.

As for the substrate, if you have coraline growing on the crushed coral, then there isn't much that will clean it off. Certain crabs and urchins eat coraline algae, but they would have a hard time getting it off the crushed coral.