My algae tank - New thread

[Anonymous]

Kent Hi-S

 

[Ben1]

http://www.buckeyefieldsupply.com/showp ... y=38&Sub=1

I use the filtec membrane and two DI caqrts also. Whats the point of usng a higher rejection membrane if you polish the rest out with DI anyhow?

 

[sediener]

Whats the point of usng a higher rejection membrane if you polish the rest out with DI anyhow?

If I understand it correctly, DI only polishes out the ionic molecules. 10% of the neutrally charged contaminants are getting through both the RO and DI. Also it cuts down on your DI replacement frequency.

- steve

 

[MitchMc]

Set Up Date : Febuary 2003
......................
Specific Gravity / Salintity (g/g | ppt): ~1.025
Alkalinity (meq/l | dKH): 9
Calcium (ppm):400
Ammonia (ppm): 0
Nitrite (ppm): 0
Nitrate (ppm): 0
Phosphate (ppm): 0
.........................

from your tanks specs, this makes no sense to me given your comments concerning detritus

Would a filter sock of some sort benefit here with removing detritus? Probalby would become too clogged fast.

Detritus = food for hair ………screw what the test kits say there must be phos and/or Nitrate or it can’t grow its that simple there wouldn't be enough DOS in the water supply if RO filtered to feed the hair

I would recommend you scrub down your tank. (I have had to do this several times, as I tend to overfeed)

Hook up a length of plastic tubing to one of your power heads. Throw the head in the tank and then you can use the tubing like a water version of a leaf blower. Use another power head to pump water out of the tank and through some sort of mechanical filter with a return to the tank (jury rig one if necessary with eggcrate and poly for the first while then replace poly with something finer). Scrub off as much of the hair as you can and then start to use the blower. If you have sand I would stir it up big time get as much of the detritus out as possible. Stir and filter till you go blue in the face, your arms ache
And you wife threatens divorce. By then the water should be good and clear. :wink:

Scrub your rocks again to get all the hair you can, use the blower till your wife serves the papers and continue to mechanically filter water.

Seriously tho it could take most of the day depending on how much detritus you have and how effective you mec filter is

Do a 100% water change. This can be shocking to your animals but if you make sure ph ECT is identical it works….. if you don’t want to take the risk increase size of water changes to 40%.

Find a cheap supplier of distilled water and use that for top ups and water changes (call around and you can often find some small guy trying to set up his own Water co who has a distiller and will provide it cheap if you supply your own containers and come get it when he has extra)

This should deal with your water supply issue

Use serious phosphate remover..you will still have some crap came out of your rocks But you should have seriously reduced the nutrient/food level

Or you might just want to consider dosing your tank with sulfur its new but not that new and it looks very promising 8)

Cheers and good luck

MitchMc

 

[Anonymous]

Rob,
What else was listed in your water test? There should have been a lot more information given to you - One time this guy came to sell us a home water treatment/softener, he tested for all kinds of things for FREE!!!

http://www.airwaterice.com has nice systems for good prices. You could email/call them and see if they have any recommendations for you.

I really don't think the problem is with his tap/source water or with his ro/di/di, it's in the tank. Blasting the rock in tank and using mech. filtration to remove it is a good start, but probably needs to be done on a daily basis. Cooking the rock is going to be the easiest and cheapest thing to try next, and the offer of a skimmer still holds.

 

[Anonymous]

May look into my skimmer. Maybe it cant keep up with the excess tank nutrients to run wet enough.

If not, its coming down and I am out.

I dont know what else to do.
_________________
BMW K100

 

[ChrisRD]

I really don't think there's anything wrong with your RO/DI setup or your skimmer.

You seem to have a good handle on controlling nutrient input so I would focus more on getting something in there that will graze on the algae (pods, herbivorous fish, Mexican Turbo snails, hermits, etc. are all known to eat hair algae). Eventually, the rock will run out of nutrients to fuel the problem if the algae is being consumed, converted to poop, and skimmed out. Be sure to storm the rockwork with a powerhead or something every few days so detritus doesn't stay bound-up in the algae.

It probably wouldn't hurt to reduce your halide lighting period by a couple of hours a day too. I seriously doubt that would be detrimental to your corals and would make things tougher on the algae.

...of course the whole "cooking" idea could work too - might be a quicker solution...

 

[Anonymous]

I may tear it down, Re-cure (cook) the LR. I know this is not the answer on how the tank got infested or nutrient loaded to begin with but hopefully it can give me a good start in recovering the tank.

After the LR is re-cured I will use 100% new H20 as well. Add a good variety of snails and go from there.

I guess this is all I can do for now.

So probably will start this either Sunday night or Monday.

I will start a log on this so we can hopefully learn from it.
_________________
Honda NR

 

[Anonymous]

What you should have learned from your two tanks is:

1) with corals and little to no fish bioload, the corals themselves kept up with the bioload and therefore no nusiance algaes resulted.

2) with a fish load the corals did not keep up with the bioload and the result was and still is nusiance algaes. and the loss of your fish.

Sure tear down your system. Then a year later have fish with nusiance algaes or no fish again.

Or just add a small box with contained macros to help the system consume the nutrients and starve out the uglies.

Or just start considering the ugiles a necessary part of the system.

The choice is yours.

 

[ChrisRD]

Bob, you've given your opinion regarding how Rob should address his hair algae problem several times in this thread and Rob is obviously not interested in going that route. People come here for advice and discussion - not to be badgered with the same responses over and over again. If you have nothing new to add - please give it a rest.

 

[sediener]

Here's something I am going to try to wipe out the remnants of algae in my tank...

Pick out all the algae you can and then add about 200 snails/crabs.... pick off the big clumps of algae every couple days and blast your rock. Once you begin to see a decline in algae, start selling the critters to your LFS in batches of 10 or so every week until the algae/critter population reaches an equilibrium.

--

Oh, I have had a 25G refugium up with chaeto for almost a year and it isn't outcompeting anything... I think once I do have the HA under control, by cleaning off the detritus in the rock (which nutrients the HA gets directly) and having enough critters to eat what I don't pick out, the chaeto will absorb the free nutrients in the tank. The HA just seems to be much better at getting them right now.

- steve

 

[Anonymous]

Algae in a refugium doesn't outcompete algae in the display for nutrients. I don't know where that myth came from. I think it was pretty recent.

Algae in a refugium can outgrow the algae in the display only when there are herbivores in the display keeping it in check.

 

[MitchMc]

Bob, you've given your opinion regarding how Rob should address his hair algae problem several times in this thread and Rob is obviously not interested in going that route. People come here for advice and discussion - not to be badgered with the same responses over and over again. If you have nothing new to add - please give it a rest.

while bob seems to be somewhat "persistant" (if I was in the sump I might use other language :twisted: ) he is correct insofar as the nutrient build up problem will return, if you have so much excess organic crap in your tank that you post

Would a filter sock of some sort benefit here with removing detritus? Probalby would become too clogged fast.

then you have a problem with overfeeding/under exporting.

This will not go away unless addressed :wink:

Cheers
MitchMc

 

[ChrisRD]

I agree that if you're overfeeding/under exporting you'll have a build-up of organic crap in the tank resulting in water quality and nuisance algae problems. By the sounds of his setup and feeding schedule, however, I don't think that's Rob's problem...

 

[ChrisRD]

Algae in a refugium doesn't outcompete algae in the display for nutrients. I don't know where that myth came from. I think it was pretty recent.

Algae in a refugium can outgrow the algae in the display only when there are herbivores in the display keeping it in check.

I agree 100%.

 

[MitchMc]

I agree that if you're overfeeding/under exporting you'll have a build-up of organic crap in the tank resulting in water quality and nuisance algae problems. By the sounds of his setup and feeding schedule, however, I don't think that's Rob's problem...

Where are the nutrients comming from then?

The water ? not if its filtered they must be comming from somewhere :!:

:?: :?: :?:

 

[HClH2OFish]

Mitch,

If you've followed the full threads of Robs issue, you'll see that your comment is exactly where the problem is. There is *something* causing the algae to grow and nothing so far is helping to resolve the issue. It's *possible* but *unlikely* that his feeding is causing the issues based on previous information given.

I think you're misreading some of what's posted.

Rob, best of luck...this s#@#$ can be a major pain and I feel for ya. I'm slowly getting my algae issue on my 25 under control (heavy overskimming/added a dozen more hermits/frequent WC and pulling algae out)

With ya in spirit!!

 

[Ben1]

I think recuring the rock is the best thing you can do. Its a wise idea to just go ahead and do it. Just be sure do DIR. Use the RO/DI water you already can make and keep the containers dark. I would let it goa few months in the curing. One in a while pick up each rock and shake it in the bucket to help clean the detritus out. The idea is the bacteria will push the detritus out of the rock and the dark will force the rock to become 100% bacterial and all the algae will die off. Every 3-4 weeks switch the rock to a new bucket of freshly made RO/DI saltwater.

Best of Luck!

 

[MitchMc]

Mitch,

If you've followed the full threads of Robs issue, you'll see that your comment is exactly where the problem is. There is *something* causing the algae to grow and nothing so far is helping to resolve the issue. It's *possible* but *unlikely* that his feeding is causing the issues based on previous information given.

I read this thread from the out set, even to the point where I noticed some inconsistencies with what was being relayed i.e. the first picture posted shows a tank with sand, later

Would a filter sock of some sort benefit here with removing detritus? Probably would become too clogged fast. .................................................................................
I am debating on the fact of staying bare bottom or adding some sand back in. Big problem would be I will be adding a Tunze Stream to this tank shortly (I hope).

Is it bare or is the picture old or what, :?: further if it is bare how on earth does he have all that detritus he refers to in the same quote above.

It could be in the rock and leaching out, ……I have seen this debated from time to time

But it (phos or nitrate)would have to leach in from the water or he would have had this problem prior to now given how long the tank has been set up

Could be in the water) but given the levels he reported (TDS 349) the RO filter should get it out or he could go to distilled water, he was thinking of buying a tune stream, as I recall they cost min.$120 + US that will purchase a lot of distilled water.

There is always the problem with test kits and whether they measure organic or non- organic substances. I don't trust test kits where the result of the test is out of sync with the situation in the tank

As Rob himself said

The bottom line is the excess nutrients and fuel. If they are controlled and removed then no plant life will exist.

The fact that he has enough detritus in the tank to make him make the comment he did above tells me there has been a build up over time

I have not read his other threads but I did read this one from start to finish and his tank spec as evidenced by my first post.

Just my 2 bits


cheers
MitchMC

PS Best of luck with the cooking and cleaning Rob

 

[MitchMc]

double post