algae off the back glass or should I just leave it...The green stuff gets a little hairy..theres a small amount of purple coraline algae i'm afraid will come off if I scrape off the green stuff......also which direction do you normally have your powerheads running? I have 2 and if i leave them sorta pointed at each other pointing somewhat down on the sand bed some corners of the tank get some build up of ditrus...or whatever u call it....I've been moving them around a bit...what do you guys normally do???
Algae question..Do I need to remove the brown and green.....
- Thread starter Sub-Mariner
- Start date
OK-- here's the short version (sorta 
)
1st & foremost source driving algae is nutrients. Uneaten food & fish waste turns into ammonia, which is broken down into nitrites, which is broken down into nitrates. Nitrates are literally algae fertilizer. Wasted food will also break down into Phosphates, which is more fertilizer. Worse yet, both of these can also be found in your tap water (do you have public water or well?), which means that whenever you do a water change, you're feeding more fertilizer into the tank. This is not to say that you shouldn't do water changes, but instead this is why hobbyists buy RO/DI (reverse-osmosis, de-ionizer) units.
Brown algae deserves special note. Its not really algae, but diatoms, which have a tiny skeleton made of silica. An additional nutrient you can have in your water-- tap or tank-- is Silicates. In my personal war on algae, I found I had massive silicates in my well-water. Couldn't shake the brown stuff until I got an RO/DI. Haven't heard boo from brown since
The green hairy stuff is pretty much just that-- Hair algae, which is really a very general term for numerous species of tenacious filamentuous algaes. Known for being generally distasteful to herbivorous fish & inverts, with some exceptions, & even then, are still mostly hit or miss. You'll find extensive threads here regarding hair algae control. Welcome to marine aquaria keeping! :lol:
But here's where you can make the algae work toward control-- remove it. As algae grows it takes that fertilizer out of the water & into its own structure. When you remove that algae from the water, you're removing those nutrients from the water. This is what's called Nutrient Export. Siphon out everything you can during water changes, & keep to a water change schedule. As one wise man I know of once said, "Dilution is the solution to pollution." On occasions folks are known to remove live rock from the tank to remove algae from it, myself included, in a bout with Cyanobacteria (aka: red slime or blue green slime algae).
I recommend getting test kits for these nutrients & testing your tap water. Are you using any kind of pre-filtration before mixing your water? Www.marinedepot.com has an excellent 'Algae kit' (set of Nitrate, Phosphate, & Silicate kits) from Salifert for about $55. May seem steep, but they're quality kits that you will use very frequently.
Find out what's in your tap, & find out what's in your tank, then treat accordingly.
Adequate lighting (newish bulbs, higher wattage, appropriate color temperature) & increasing circulation (prevent algae from getting a foothold) are also major ingredients to algae control. These could deserve full dissertations also, but I think you need to check your nutrients 1st.
Good luck..
Pete
ps-- scrape the brown & algae form the glass gently with a plastic edge of some kind, this should remove the softer stuff while leaving the coralline in place. do this while do a water change to sihpon it out. for powerheads, theres no 'one way' except to keep your turnover high (10-20x your total gallonage, powerheads measured in gallons per hour), & try to address 'dead spots'.
)1st & foremost source driving algae is nutrients. Uneaten food & fish waste turns into ammonia, which is broken down into nitrites, which is broken down into nitrates. Nitrates are literally algae fertilizer. Wasted food will also break down into Phosphates, which is more fertilizer. Worse yet, both of these can also be found in your tap water (do you have public water or well?), which means that whenever you do a water change, you're feeding more fertilizer into the tank. This is not to say that you shouldn't do water changes, but instead this is why hobbyists buy RO/DI (reverse-osmosis, de-ionizer) units.
Brown algae deserves special note. Its not really algae, but diatoms, which have a tiny skeleton made of silica. An additional nutrient you can have in your water-- tap or tank-- is Silicates. In my personal war on algae, I found I had massive silicates in my well-water. Couldn't shake the brown stuff until I got an RO/DI. Haven't heard boo from brown since
The green hairy stuff is pretty much just that-- Hair algae, which is really a very general term for numerous species of tenacious filamentuous algaes. Known for being generally distasteful to herbivorous fish & inverts, with some exceptions, & even then, are still mostly hit or miss. You'll find extensive threads here regarding hair algae control. Welcome to marine aquaria keeping! :lol:
But here's where you can make the algae work toward control-- remove it. As algae grows it takes that fertilizer out of the water & into its own structure. When you remove that algae from the water, you're removing those nutrients from the water. This is what's called Nutrient Export. Siphon out everything you can during water changes, & keep to a water change schedule. As one wise man I know of once said, "Dilution is the solution to pollution." On occasions folks are known to remove live rock from the tank to remove algae from it, myself included, in a bout with Cyanobacteria (aka: red slime or blue green slime algae).
I recommend getting test kits for these nutrients & testing your tap water. Are you using any kind of pre-filtration before mixing your water? Www.marinedepot.com has an excellent 'Algae kit' (set of Nitrate, Phosphate, & Silicate kits) from Salifert for about $55. May seem steep, but they're quality kits that you will use very frequently.
Find out what's in your tap, & find out what's in your tank, then treat accordingly.
Adequate lighting (newish bulbs, higher wattage, appropriate color temperature) & increasing circulation (prevent algae from getting a foothold) are also major ingredients to algae control. These could deserve full dissertations also, but I think you need to check your nutrients 1st.
Good luck..
Pete
ps-- scrape the brown & algae form the glass gently with a plastic edge of some kind, this should remove the softer stuff while leaving the coralline in place. do this while do a water change to sihpon it out. for powerheads, theres no 'one way' except to keep your turnover high (10-20x your total gallonage, powerheads measured in gallons per hour), & try to address 'dead spots'.
I don't used mixed water I use catalina natural salt water and when I top off use alhambra natural spring water made with ro/di....so I don't think my algae problem is either of those. I've checked my phosphates and my nitrates usually weekly...my phosphates were 0.2. nitrates about 10 hard to tell with the different shades of yellow. I do about a 15% water change every week. So I'll scrap it off, hopefully it goes away...thanks for the advice....
Your tank is still fairly new, isn't it Sub? A short answer would be yes, scrape it off and get it out of the tank (export the excess nutrients). Don't worry about the corraline, if you scrap a little of it off that just helps it spread.
As far as the powerheads, it depends on the setup and what your tank's inhabitants like. In my tank I've got both high and low flow areas simply because I've got some critters that like high flow and vice versa.
Although I am careful to "blast" the detrius out of the lower flow area every couple of days with a powerhead to keep it from building up.
HTH
would be yes, scrape it off and get it out of the tank (export the excess nutrients). Don't worry about the corraline, if you scrap a little of it off that just helps it spread.As far as the powerheads, it depends on the setup and what your tank's inhabitants like. In my tank I've got both high and low flow areas simply because I've got some critters that like high flow and vice versa.
Although I am careful to "blast" the detrius out of the lower flow area every couple of days with a powerhead to keep it from building up.
HTH
Sub-Mariner":2r94g4r3 said:
It is RO/DI, but they reintroduce minerals and such for taste and body. Often these ingredients do not have to be listed on the packaging, but I believe that it could be possibly causing your algae bloom. Try distilled water instead and see how it works for ya. Should be the same price. Hope that helps.
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