Algae question

[clevan]

I'm getting red hair-like algae on top of my substrate (LS). It appears 1 day after I clean the tank, snails, cleaner shrimp don't seem to be helping. Is it bad, too much lighting, temp too high (around 76-79) or shoul the added color.
Thanks

 

[mr_X]

are you sure it's algae, or cyanobactera? the temp is not too high. is there alot of flow in that particular area?
view this:
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/microa ... 092800.htm

 

[clevan]

Thanks Mr. X, I guess I'll try to increase water folow at the bottom of the tank. Any suggestions on pumps, my tank is 35 gallons and has had a problem with temp. in the past. Also, I recently added mushroom coral at the bottom and have tried to avoid too much water flow as I was told it will case the mushrooms not to open up...will this be a concern if I'm increasing water flow?
Thanks

 

[mr_X]

it could be. some shrooms don't like alot of flow. that cyano is fueled by something. are you using R.O. water?

 

[Anonymous]

Cyano is not usually hair like. It grows in a sheet, sort of covering stuff like a blanket. Can you suck it out with a tube when you do a water change?

 

[clevan]

It can be sucked up with a water change but not completely, not enough suction. I have well water and have not been using RO water, been OK to this point and I thought why mess when things are going well but maybe that is the problem.

 

[Anonymous]

So, it comes out like a sheet of tissue? It doesn't stick to the substrate or rock?

Can you get a printout from the city about your water? It might be adequate. Our city has the TDS on their website.

If you can suck it out, you might consider letting it grow to consume the excess nutrients that are feeding it. Then suck it out to remove the alga and the nutrients. Eventually it will run out of food. But, if you are adding more nutrients, it could be an uphill battle. Do you have any desirable alga in your sump? Do you have a skimmer?

 

[clevan]

It comes out in clumps (not as bad as it sounds), maybe I should just get a RO and deal with it...just trying to save $. It's just that it was never a problem the first 3 months and now it seems to be getting worse and nothing in the tank has really changed (water quality is excellent).

 

[Anonymous]

Excellent as in low nitrate and phosphate?

 

[mr_X]

clevan- a new tank will go through phases. cyano didn't come to my tank until it was a few months old. since i have stopped using treated tap water, it slowly went away.

 

[clevan]

It's cyano and it appears to be getting worse, can't be sucked up with water changes. Does it need to be treated or should i just get the RO and wait fo it to disappear? As far as water quality, never had any nitrates since the tank started, not sure about phosphates..never tested. I'm just afraid it will start to affect the fish, mushroom corals.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, cyano can grow with no nitrate and phosphate, so I think you would be best to try to cut down it's nutrients. Use RO water so there is no nutrients in it. Feed less 'til the problem resolves. I am not a fan of using chemicals to kill it, because it does not deal with the root cause. The nutrients will still be there to feed some other nuisance algae.

Do you have a sump where you can grow some good algae to suck up those nutrients?

You can also use a power head to blow it off areas where it is causing trouble, and let it grow where it is not. Then, as the nutrients are used up, it can be sucked out.

 

[clevan]

I don't have a sump, it's a Red Sea Max. 2 more questions, my pH drops to about 7.8 throughout the week (I do a 10% water change weekly), do I need to buy something to keep my pH above 8? Any ideas where to get a cheap RO filter?
Thanks for all the advice, new to this hobby and a little clueless

 

[Nemo2007]

Those Red Sea Max systems are very attractive but they suffer from the same limitations that all of the small enclosed nano reef systems share. There is is no easy way to add modifications. I have a 29 G Eclipse system. Its no where near as nice as your deal but I Frankensteined over time to be similar to what you have now. We had the wosst red slime problem ever and no matter what we tried, more frequent water changes with real ocean water brand water, adding wet dry with protein skimmer, Phosbuster and other phosphourus absorbing materials, Poly-Ox, keeping the tank dark, siphoning it out, and Antibiotics like Slime Away, it at best only helped but did not solve the problem. After we figured out what we were doing, water quality was never drastically out of whack and most of the time was ideal according to the tests we were using.

It only went away completely after we started using micron socks to increase the mechanical filtration. The sock is changed regularly every 2 to 3 days unless I get lazy. You can buy the sock material from your LFS. Maybe cutting it to fit your filtration system would be helpful.

I agree with the comments above about the antibiotics. They worked best the first time with the tank clear for a couple of months but it came back with a vengeance. The bacteria rapidly became resistant so when we needed it again it became less and less useful when comparing how clear the tank got and how long the effect lasted. By the third or fourth time the tank didn't clear up at all.