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09/18/2017, 05:51 PM | #1 |
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Algae on glass
How do o get rid of the darn algae on my glass. Everyday I have to clean it off when I get home from my 90 gallon reef. My parameters are golden but it still will not go away. I run GFO in a 2 Little Fishes reactor, feed frozen every other day, have an Ice Cap Gyre 3K for flow and a Reef Octopus BH2000 Classic HOB skimmer. What am I doing wrong? Tank has been running for 11 months. Help!!
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09/18/2017, 06:14 PM | #2 |
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If I don't have to remove algae every other day I know I've let my nutrients drop to low and the corals will start to slowly lose color. Every day seems a too much, even though your phosphates are testing at zero (if that is what "golden" means) I suspect they are likely being consumed by your algae and they are the source of your problem if there really is one. Frequent cleaning is just a part of the hobby.
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09/18/2017, 07:28 PM | #3 |
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A bit more GFO or changing it more often helps in some cases, although not all. I'd probably start there. How much GFO is in the reactor and how often is it changed?
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Jonathan Bertoni |
09/18/2017, 07:34 PM | #4 | |
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Quote:
I have like 2 cups I think in the reactor and change every 4 weeks. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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09/18/2017, 10:22 PM | #5 |
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That's a lot of media. I'd reconsider the feeding level, personally. What's going into the tank per day? How many snails are in the system? Do any of them go onto the glass?
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Jonathan Bertoni |
09/18/2017, 10:54 PM | #6 |
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seriously. if your glass isn't growing any algae, don't expect your corals to grow very fast.
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09/19/2017, 10:20 AM | #7 |
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After the response from bertoni i looked and noticed that I do not have very many snails left, no hermits that i see and my sand sifting star in MIA. What are the best snails for cleaning the glass? i have a Kole Tang that is doing awesome on keeping the rock clean. i need to re-look at my CUC. It looks like i have like (2) Astrea snails, (1) Turbo, (1) Bumble Bee snail, & like (1) or (2) Trochus snails is all. I used to have some some Cerith snails, but i do not see any now. Holy crap how many of which should I have?
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09/19/2017, 05:01 PM | #8 |
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Abalone and the nerite snails that aren't tidal creatures should be active on the glass. I would add a few at a time. Most people add so many that they tend to starve to death en masse, which gets expensive over time. I think I remember Strombus and Stomatella on the glass, as well. Stomatella can reproduce in our tanks, which is a plus.
Sand-sifting stars eat small animals in the sand, so they invariably starve to death over time.
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Jonathan Bertoni |
09/21/2017, 02:09 PM | #9 |
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I think you will struggle to avoid algae on glass without chemical dosing.
I started dosing Vibrant the other week to combat red turf algae and bubble algae -- after a week the main difference so far is way less glass algae.
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Red Sea Max 250 |
09/21/2017, 02:54 PM | #10 |
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Your parameters are golden, but does that also include phosphates? If your phosphates are elevated, that means algae will be able to use it to grow, and other things like GFO and corals aren't able to keep those levels down.
Even with snails, they might not be able to clean your whole glass every day. My snails just left trails, and were never very thorough. Trochus and Turbos seemed to be the best (trochus survived the longest, spawned in my tank, and can flip themselves over and defend against hermits), turbos eat non-stop. Another thing might be your lights. I don't know the science behind it, but old halides are known to start outputting a lot of wavelengths that algae love. When I swap out for new halides, my algae growth decreases a lot. Overall: 1. check your phosphate levels 2. adjust your GFO (maybe more?) 3. try out competing for phosphates with chaeto or other macro maybe (algae reactor, algae scrubber, good 'ol fuge) with a good grow light (red/blue spectrum. those kessil h80 are nice for a small fuge, or even led grow lights on amazon) 4. Check your lamps (if you use halides or t5s etc) 5. Before tossing in frozen food, try thawing it out and straining the liquid out resulting in the actual fish food. A lot of times that liquid is packed full of stuff that can't be eaten and are quickly turned to nitrate/phosphate. 6. Your skimmer should pull at least one cup of skim a week, if not 2 full cups depending on your feeding and bioload. Not sure, but tuning your skimmer a bit might also help pull out stuff before it starts into the nitrogen cycle. |
09/21/2017, 02:57 PM | #11 |
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The best algae cuc in my experience are urchins, cowries, and sea hares
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