Tank maintenance for no Algae

[Anonymous]

Many of you have read my posts regarding the dreaded hair algae.

Can someone explain the proper maintance routines? Established tanks as well as tanks over a year old.

How much water changes?
What RO/DI filters?
What containers?
What exact steps?
How long?
How often?
What salt?
How much exactly per gallon?
Light cycles?
What suplements adn brands?
What frequency?
Anything else?

Anyone got a 58 Oceanic tank? Can someone give me their exact plans and equipment? CAn someone recommend an exact plan?

No refugiums please - No room for one and do not want one in the tank.

Current equipment.
Euroreef ES5-3
Aquatic Reef Systems 75 GPD RO/DI/DI.
Won titanium heater on a Ranco controller that also controls a clip on fain in the canopy.
Various pumps/powerheads ~300 GPH
No Sand in the tank currently
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[Fatal Morgana]

>...I hate my tank.......

Ok, now that's a good way to start your days...

Rob, I get myself into the HAH (hair algea hell) just so that I can feel what it is like in your shoe, and I am telling you that patience and hard work does work.

In two months, it went from HAH to a pretty nice tank with:

no water change (I know..., but don't do what I do
bad-ass RO/DI filter (note to self: time to change the prefilters...)
Container? :?
Hardwork, patience, presistence, etc.
2 months
2 time a week, remove algae by hand
IO salt, last WC was about 3 yrs ago
12 on/off, one bulb
Calcium reactor, DIY'ed, no supple/additive for 4 yrs.
once every few weeks, check the parameters, by after tank is stable, dose as needed.
Upgrade my skimmer from a RemoraPro to a AquaC-120 (thanx, tazdevil for the great deal!).

 

[Anonymous]

Many of you have read my posts regarding the dreaded hair algae.

Can someone explain the proper maintance routines? Established tanks as well as tanks over a year old.

How much water changes?

none

What RO/DI filters?

none

What containers?

none

What exact steps?

replace water the evaporates, rinse oyster shells once per week.

How long?

takes about 1-2 hours.

How often?

once per week

What salt?

IO

How much exactly per gallon?

untill sg is in the green

Light cycles?

18 hours per day.

What suplements adn brands?

none

What frequency?

0

Anything else?

get the plant life thriving and controlling the system. Until then you will have to rely on cleaner crews and manual removal of the ugly algaes. and without plant life to replace the algae you will probably have less water quality.

 

[Anonymous]

No refugiums please - No room for one and do not want one in the tank.

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[Anonymous]

Well, I don't know of anything that I can directly relate to your experience, but here is how it has gone for me. I have a 155g with a 100 sump in the basement, and a refugium.

I had an aglea bloom of unreal proportions. It was about an inch long, and covered every surface of my tank. The overflows were constatly clogged from algae. It grew right up the stalks of my many sps. It was a total tragedy and I lost all my hard corals while I was trying to figure out what was wrong.

We tried many things.

Replaced all the bulbs.

Added more current.

Run carbon more frequently.

Replaced the RO membrane a bunch of times.

Seriously upgraded the refugium to one of those shallow 60 gallon tubs.

Added several prefilters to RO unit.

Did six times a week 5 to 10 gallon water changes, rubing the siphon tube on the rock to suck out the algae. (I use Oceanic, not for any other reason than the store closest to me sell it though) Also did occasional large water changes

Nearly stopped all feeding.

Added a bunch of snails. Several times.

Pulled out the DSB. After pulling out the DSB, within a week the hair algae got this funny grey look to it and stopped thriving lush and green like it was. This was the most noticible and immediate change I had noticed from all my efforts.

Gave my skimmer a real good cleaning and set it to run as wet as I could.


Hair algae started to leave, still had a lot of cynabacteria.


As the hair algae began to recede more, I was finding more and more pockets of built up detritus. It is hard to see that stuff when everything is covered with a thick carpet of algae. Also, I think that before alot of the detritus just ended up in the sand bed. So I started making more of an effort to siphon out the detritus whereever I found it, and keep my tank as clean as possible.


We also then added a DI cartridge to our RO unit. After about a month of top up and water change with the new DI cartridge, I have zero nuisance algae.

I go a good week between glass cleanings now too.

So, what I learned from all this was I really think the key thing was removing as much waste from your tank as possible, and frequently. Also only use pristine water for your make up water. I don't think it was just one thing that did it though. It was just overall being vigilent about keeping the tank as clean as I could. About once a week on average we do a small waterchange, but focus on removing crud. I have a remote sump in the basement, occasionally I will go through my tank with a turkey baster or a powerhead and blast all the nooks and crannys, really get all the junk into suspension, and then it goes down the overflow and I siphon it out where it collects. I have a closed loop and powerheads in my tank, but stuff still settles out in places. We never just siphon water out, always look for something that needs to be siphoned out during the change, be it a pocket of cyano, or a rock that has some crud accumilated on it.

I hope you make it through this man, I know it is really tough.

I had a thriving refugium through all this too.

 

[Anonymous]

Anyone else with their maintenance regimen? Especially smaller tanks such as mine.


Using my current equipment and setup
Euroreef ES5-3
Aquatic Reef Systems 75 GPD RO/DI/DI.
Won titanium heater on a Ranco controller that also controls a clip on fain in the canopy.
Various pumps/powerheads ~3000 GPH
No Sand in the tank currently

Weekly water changes of 5-15 gallons. Siphoning out excess detritus.
Cleaning the skimmer collection cup every 3-4 days.
Reloading the Kalk reactor once every ~10 days.
Reefbuilder to keep the Alk high.

PH 8.0-8.2
Alk 10 Dkh
CA 440
Sal 1.024
Temp 79-80
Amon, Nitrate, PO4 all read 0 on the Salifert test kits.


I would like to change the flow patterns but need allot of help with that any ideas on how to plumb this tank.

Mag 9 on sump return.
Blueline 40 D (790 GPH) on a closed loop with a SCWD.
2 Maxijet 1200's
Seio 800.
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[Entacmaea]

Hi Rob, I am setting up a 70 gallon, with dimensions similar to your 3 foot long 58. Honestly, it looks like you have a pretty good set-up. Having not read your previous posts, I'm assuming you have hair algea now?

I am setting up a fuge on my tank, but have decided to go with a larger skimmer. I'm not sure what I can add to what has already been suggested, but I've learned in my previous two tanks that for me a skimmer can only skim effectively about half of its stated gallonage. If you have hair algea, and it seems you are doing good maintenance, you need to re-balance your nutrient equation, more export or less import. I'm sure you have realized this! And if you don't want to kill your fish or starve your corals, then increasing export is the answer. All of the ways to do this, in the absence of a fuge, have already been mentioned.

Honestly, I would increase skimming if I can and change the flow patterns in your tank a bit to see if you can flush out detritus or find the nutrient sink causing you trouble. Good luck.

Best, Peter

 

[rookie320]

I think the best way is to cut the source of food the algae is feeding on,therefor it will dye out.So less food and hand cleen the tank.Algae also need light to live,but you cant just shut it off so maybe shorten days or shut off some of the lighting.

Snails or star fish might help,if you get the right kind to eat that algae. But i havent yet had that prob. It helped me with smear algae.

A lot of work and patience.


ps if you put sand it is more work.it can get ugly....
Mine is out of display tank soon but in to sump.

 

[Tackett]

I upped my water changes to 10 gallons with oceanic every friday using RO/DI water and the algae dissapeared.
The biggest thing to be sure of is to check that your source water (water used to do changes with and top off with.) is free of phosphate and silicates. I found that this was my biggest contributer to algae problems. I dont have a refugium either (though it would be nice.) Every now and then I get an outbreak of cyano (like every 6 or 8 months.) very minor. Other than that, things stay in check.

 

[rookie320]

Ro/di Water is the best investment in marine aqua. For sure 99.9 % pure

 

[Anonymous]

I use RO/DI/DI
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[rookie320]

I upped my water changes to 10 gallons with oceanic every friday using RO/DI water and the algae dissapeared.
The biggest thing to be sure of is to check that your source water (water used to do changes with and top off with.) is free of phosphate and silicates. I found that this was my biggest contributer to algae problems. I dont have a refugium either (though it would be nice.) Every now and then I get an outbreak of cyano (like every 6 or 8 months.) very minor. Other than that, things stay in check.

Ro/di is the safest way to have safe water cause all other waters can have trace elements or chemicals(tap water or botled)wich are good for human consumption but may be tokic or bad for aqua use.

just as it is not good to use only ro/di water for human consumption cause there are no minerals in the water wich we need to live.

 

[rookie320]

of course if the systeme is maintained properly,otherwise it could be worst.

 

[Anonymous]

I say do water changes and a lot of them to start with. In my experience most algae problems are the result of a slow nutrient build up. Only water changes are going to solve that. I would also replace your lightbulbs if you have not done that in the last 12 months or so.

 

[bergzy]

interesting that no one mentioned a refugium for macro growth as a means for nutrient export.

along with good skimming, water changes and visible detritus removal...i can't imagine my tank without a refugium growing as much macro as possible.

 

[Anonymous]

.... you need to re-balance your nutrient equation, more export or less import. I'm sure you have realized this! And if you don't want to kill your fish or starve your corals, then increasing export is the answer. All of the ways to do this, in the absence of a fuge, have already been mentioned.

I thought that was what he was saying..

 

[tazdevil]

Upgrade my skimmer from a RemoraPro to a AquaC-120 (thanx, tazdevil for the great deal!).

That's you ?!? 8O I can't keep up with all these name changes, man I'm getting old.

 

[Anonymous]

I have no room for a fuge.
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[RondaGP]

I am so with you on the algae thing.
I'm starting to feel really discouraged too.

I have researched my heart out for the last four days (you would think I would be an expert on the subject by now). I got a lot of useful information from the articles in the library here.

 

[Anonymous]

I really think it is a luck thing.
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