Alright, yeah I still have much to learn about reefing. My tank is very basic I don’t have a protien skimmer, fuge, or run any chemical media. How do you go about keeping algae off of corals?
You can try to brush around them with a tooth brush and manual removal. Do you have decent test kits for weekly testing? Do you use RODI and make your own salt water for weekly water changes. This is essential for new tanks. How long has the tank been up? Do you have complete current parameters?
Yes I use Hanna checkers and mix my own salt with an rodi unit. I use hw marinemix reefer salt and only dose alkalinity. Ph is 8.2, alk is 8, cal is 420, Phosphate is 0, nitrate and nitrite are also 0. I do 10% weekly water changes
You don't want nitrates and phosphate at 0 as you begin to add corals. No nutrients means your corals are starving. You want nitrates at 10 and phosphate at .05 to .1. Based on pictures everything seems normal to me for a 3 month tank. As various algae develop increase your cleaner crew accordingly. Bring nutrients levels up with increased feeding for fish. Continue weekly water changes.
Im a little confused on what to do since i don’t want my algae to overtake my tank but at the same time i know those nutrient levels fuel algae growth. My cleanup crew is one purple tang, 2 scarlett hermit crabs and about 25-40 dwarf nerite snails. I have a 55 gallon tank and not sure what i should add to my cleanup crew.
If i dose pods, do i need to add them on a weekly/monthly basis? I have no lfs that’s serious about saltwater… I have to buy the pods online so i can’t afford to buy them frequently without paying a hefty price. Been thinking about culturing my own pods but i don’t know how much the upkeep of it costs.
Culturing is fine. Get a couple jars of tisbe pods and they will multiply and occupy your tank as long as conditions allow for it. No need to get them monthly. Maybe every 6 months add some more if needed.
I decided to downsize my tank since i will be moving in a couple of months and I want my move to go easy and smooth. However to get that algae to go away a bit, I was doing more water changes (about 10% twice a day week), gravel vacuuming my sand to get decomposing matter out of my tank, and cleaning my filter media out in the water i’d take out of my tank during water changes. Be careful of doing too much cleaning all at once since it could do more harm than good by killing too much of your beneficial bacteria. If you have 0 across the board for those perimeters but you also have algae then it’s because those nitrates and phosphates are being sucked up by the algea. A properly sized protein skimmer for the amount of livestock we have would do good for the both of us hahaha. I’m still new to reefing and not the best at english haha. I hope I didn’t confuse you and gave you some ideas to help you out
Ok thanks, good luck with the move! That's exactly why I bought a 20 gallon instead of a 55, because I will probably move in the next year or two. Ha I needed something manageable.
