Looking for help please.

[lsumon]

My nano aquarium is around 8 months old. All my numbers are good. I’ve only 3 clowns, a few snails, hermit crab and an anemone. This white stuff came out of no where. I’m assuming it may have come with an addition but other than that I’ve no idea. I can’t seem to control it. I clean everything and do water changes but it’s back within a couple of days. I’ve scoured these forums and can’t find any that seem to match. Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Called Lingbya - scrub with toothbrush outside of tank, add liquid bacteria st 1.5ml per 10 gallons and reduce white light intensity
Adding chitons, astrea and nerite snails will help keep in check

 

[Jedi1199]

I am going to defer to Vetteguy on that one as I have no idea myself.

Just wanted to say Welcome to the forum and the Dark Side...

 

[lsumon]

Thank you As you can probably tell This is my first salt water tank. I’m just trying to learn what I can.

 

[lsumon]

Can you please tell me why scrub the outside of the tank? Anymore suggestions? I scrubbed the outside and cleaned the inside walls. i also cleaned the filter medium, did almost a 50% water change and added liquid bacteria. 2 days and the mess is starting again. =(

 

[shadow_k]

@brandon429 he can help you out too

 

[brandon429]

Shadow nice find for sure

what an interesting growth I’ve never seen one before like it so far, agreed some correctly done cleaning will help the above cleaning isn’t thorough enough.

to get started, Isumon post some clear pic this way:

do one as a clear top down shot where the camera is aiming down into the tank from above so we can see the rocks, sand, walls of the tank etc.

then one more pic standing back that shows the whole front facing of the reef tank

these are preps for the correct cleaning process building up / planning stage

 

[mdb_talon]

Can you please tell me why scrub the outside of the tank? Anymore suggestions? I scrubbed the outside and cleaned the inside walls. i also cleaned the filter medium, did almost a 50% water change and added liquid bacteria. 2 days and the mess is starting again. =(

There is no need to scrub the outside of the tank. I assume he was referencing if you have rocks/etc that can be taken out of the tank to scrub

 

[lsumon]

Thank you. Here are the pics. this tank was spotless 2 days ago! The white stuff is not as bad but it’s def starting again. I have purchased a in tank filter for the first slot as I got fed up trying to make the skimmer work!

 

[brandon429]

Ok good that set back perspective makes it look much less daunting. Further tuning: do you have a way to control the light spectrum to remove all whites and only run blues


not that it’s required, but it’s helpful, whites drive assertive plant growths in some systems. Common algae seems to have hitchhiked in from live rock added, two fish and small gallons feeds algae well lit on full power at all times heavy whites. How much of that is correctable


eventually we just clean it out a special way but aligning these above are the prevention steps

 

[lsumon]

I’ve not even had any light on except for feeding time because I enjoy watching them eat, but that stock light does have blue. Someone told me blue was worse ‍i just hope whatever it is won’t harm my fish. And it gets frustrating seeing it so messy.

 

[brandon429]

Are you able to remove all white lighting and make it shine only blue like windex

that above has white mixed in

currently we are discerning if your light can be changed to run solid blue or not

it doesn’t need much more than glass cleaning but if you don’t realign some parameters you can see you’ll be glass wiping twice a day a while. White vs blue level is a way of affecting intensity shining into the bare system, all for the plant taking

 

[lsumon]

Ty so much for your time and great advice! Luckily I’ve no plant life atm so having it off is working for me. When I turn it on blue I only see the blue diode. I’d like to order a new lid and light as money allows. This morning as I fed the fish I noticed these tiny something (they look like clear little ants) on the bottom of the tank.

 

[lsumon]

Any idea what these little things are?