ID General Help

[whereisdani_r]

Hi all,

I’ve had algae growth for about three weeks now. It started with what looked like diatoms on the sand. The brown spread, and now we have some fun green slime on the glass. And some hairy stuff on my red rock. The corals look fine for now.

It goes away when I do my weekly water change and is crystal clear, then steadily throughout the week it returns full force.

And idea on what the solution would be to get this cleared up? Thanks for your help!

 

[cgdcinc]

Tank looks new. Probably just going through the normal ugly phases. I’d be careful how much you feed. Do weekly water changes. There may have been some phosphates in your rock you used. Manually remove algae where you can. Test often to see where your parameters are. It will all stabilize with time as long as your parameters are good.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

^^seconded

 

[whereisdani_r]

Thanks that’s a relief to hear it’s probably an ugly phase, I’m very careful with feeding.

When you say remove, how do you remove with damaging the bio load? Sand and rocks for example?

Is there anything I can add to my media tank that might help?

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Vacuuming your sand during a water change will stir it up and clean any left over food and waste. Be careful though as at first, it may spike NO3 and PO4 and make things worse for a bit (like cleaning a garage, make it worse while you are making it better).

Also, a clean old toothbrush works well for me for literally scrubbing your rocks in the tank. A good CUC can only do so much so manual removal can help. Algae will go everywhere. If you run filter socks, they will pick-up any suspended algae and when you change your socks, you remove the algae with it. I’ve been at this process for a month now and my algae issues are slowly getting under control. It will take MONTHS for your tank to settle out and come into balance. Just do your water changes, get a good CUC and scrub/vacuum the rest (every 1-2 weeks, not daily).

Your tank looks very new. Have a 9 month-1 year outlook for algae to be fully under control if you’ve maintained the tank well. It takes time. Be patient. Focus on stability rather than “what can I do to get immediate results.” Relax and enjoy the good parts of your tank. I find taking monthly full tank pictures helps me see the progress I’m making and gives me motivation during the ugly first year.

 

[cgdcinc]

[emoji115]This is sooo true! A tank really doesn’t settle in until around the 1 year mark. Especially when using dry rock IME. If you do everything you can to stabilize your parameters in the first year, it really settles in and gets easier to maintain. Less algae issues IME as well.
It’s a journey and has many different outcomes depending what you put into it. [emoji106][emoji486]