I could dose a cleaner again, but I am looking for the cause and treating without a cleaner with just adjusting my export through water changes and media. This is were a health clean up crew will mow through green hair and other algaes. Figure one snail per gallon. My tank will be for years old at the beginning of 2019 and I need to replace some of my clean up crew. Not to much but a couple.
I got 9 snails, 6 hermits, a fire shrimp, brittle starfish and and emerald shrimp so far for my cleanup. Tank is 40 gal but other than CUC only have 2 clowns. About 2-1/2-3 weeks ago I had an ammonia spike and found that I had lost 3 hermits (added more since), a cleaner shrimp and an emerald crab (replaced that as well). I battled the ammonia spike for about a week but I’ve gotten it under control. I did 4 25% water changes in that week and replaced two of my media boxes with live rock rubble rather than the phosphate/nitrate sponges they had in them. I used a bottle of Fritz turbo to build my good bacteria up and started dosing NoPox. Between the dead inverts and me using tap water to clean my media boxes, after thoroughly researching and talking with my LFS guy, this seemed to be the best option. I have an Aquatop Recife Eco 40 gal, so it’s a plug and play rather than having a sump. My parameters are back to being steady, nitrates were at 40 and after I started the NoPox, they are down to 10-15. Ammonia is 0, nitrites are 0, Ph is about 8-8.1 and salinity is around 1.022/1.023, starting to raise that up by tipping off with pre mix salt till I get to 1.025. I also took the filter sponge out and replaced it with a lufa and dumped a bottle of Tisbe pods to see if I can start a culture of them in my tank. Still unsure about if I want the lufa or if I will get some cheato instead. I’m hoping with the new additions to the clean up crew and the pods, it will start eating the algae awayI have been fighting the cyano battle for years. It comes and goes. I have used cleaner and though they work great, they throw the system back into a mini cycle since they are a antibiotic and kill some of the good bacteria
The same goes with any other algae with to adjust what one is doing. Lights I have found only really affect the diatoms but cutting back the white spectrum. Cyano love phosphates, green algae is a sign of high ammonia which turns into nitrates. The high ammonia is caused by to much raw food and die fish, and turns into nitrates. Nitrates can also be caused by the fish waste. Balancing the system can be frustrating but once you're in the grove your tank will look great.
This is were a health clean up crew will mow through green hair and other algaes. Figure one snail per gallon. My tank will be for years old at the beginning of 2019 and I need to replace some of my clean up crew. Not to much but a couple.
