thanks a lot bromie. yea, it is a fairly new tank and i figured it was just part of the cycling process. i just picked up a few hermits today since my lfs was all out of snails right now. im just going to keep my lights on a minimum amount and then the problem should hopefully reverse itself. thanks again for the help and suggestions.
Algae in my tank!!
- Thread starter laxplaya8613
- Start date
bromie88;2888516; said:
Diatoms can be helped by getting lots of astrea snails. They love the stuff...
One way you can help the diatom explosion from happening in the future is a REALLY through washing of ANY sand before putting it in the aquarium. Tanks Ive seen set up with little or no sand washing usually have a bigger diatom problem in the begining. This is part of the cycling process, and they will run out of food/be out competed. Dont try and scrape it off all the rocks and sand you are wasting your time.
i just blast it off rocks with a powerhead. one generally always falls during the night anyway. so either way i used to get my hands wet every day.
Im not trying to discredit what youve said. Ive done both. If its a big deal and the tank is a "display" tank where everyone can see it and the algae is bugging you that much. Wage all out war. But it probably wont be particularly detrimental, and the astreas would do a great job on it in fairly short order. Its really up to him.
More maitenence=better results. So you are right. If he wants the best looking product, RIGHT NOW, he should plug up a lil powerhead and do a "dusting" as I call it.
More maitenence=better results. So you are right. If he wants the best looking product, RIGHT NOW, he should plug up a lil powerhead and do a "dusting" as I call it.
indeed. i would have had the snails but i had a Green Spotted Puffer. so inverts are basically a no go. an like i said, a PowerHead would usualy fall every night, so sand would go all over the rock as well... nice...
so i just blasted it off with the PH. its just easier. cleaning sand and algae off rocks everyday can get EXTREMELY repetative. so faster is better
but it turns out the puffer wasnt really arsed about snails, or hermits, or coral, or even shrimp. had a shrimp in there that was supposed to be food for about 4 months. then an anemone got it. wasnt even the puffer that killed it. in fact the shrimp used to beat on the puffer. and even used to steal food from the puffers mouth! risky as hell...
so i just blasted it off with the PH. its just easier. cleaning sand and algae off rocks everyday can get EXTREMELY repetative. so faster is better
but it turns out the puffer wasnt really arsed about snails, or hermits, or coral, or even shrimp. had a shrimp in there that was supposed to be food for about 4 months. then an anemone got it. wasnt even the puffer that killed it. in fact the shrimp used to beat on the puffer. and even used to steal food from the puffers mouth!
risky as hell...Yea... my 75 has been killing me recently. I just redid everything... follow-up waterchanges for dieoff with the rock re-arrangement ect... TONS of work. Everythings looking great. Powerheads decided, not to fall down (after HOURS of scrubbing, and hot FW soaks to keep those suction cups good), but instead to create currents that dump all the sand in the middle of the tank... 
So everyday, Ive been "dusting" and the problem is getting better... but not perfect. Lost a couple frags in the last dusting that got blown someplace in the rockwork that I cant find... Some great pink/green anchors!
So everyday, Ive been "dusting" and the problem is getting better... but not perfect. Lost a couple frags in the last dusting that got blown someplace in the rockwork that I cant find... Some great pink/green anchors!
