Red Algae and Green Hair

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R

rmorse

Gr8 Stalker
MFK Member
Feb 14, 2008
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Great Mills, Maryland
Hi, This is Bobby's Mom. I have questions about the tank that he gave me and I would appreciate any help anyone can give me. I am still very new to this; just about a year. I have a Bio-cube 29 that I really love. I have been consistent at doing partial water changes every 7 to 10 days. I mix my salt water at least 24 hours prior and let it rest. I am buying my water; deionized, as my well water has nitrates in it. We found this out after about 4 weeks. I am changing about 5 gallons at a time. My nitrates have spiked to 40 (last May) but have been staying between 0 and 10 now. Bobby's girlfriend gave me "PURA NitrateLock" to try and control the nitrate level. This has worked well, I believe. I ran tests on 9/6/09 and here are the results: ph 8.2, nitrate 5.0, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, phosphate 0, calcium 420 and Kh 125.3 I turned off my heater back in August as my tank got to 83.8 degrees. It stays between 79.2 at early morning to 81.8ish in the evening. I have my lights on a timer and they come on at 11am and go off at 9:10pm. I am attaching some photos, I hope they help. I would love to "clean up" the algae, but am not sure what to do. When I use the gravel vac, my tank looks good for about 48 hours and then I'm growing the red algae. The green hair has been growing since my little sally lightfoot crab died on/about 7/4. He was 11 months old. I'm not real sure why he died. I also lost about 5-7 snails before and after the crab died and have also lost 3 of my hermit crabs. They left their shell and I found them dead. Thanks for all your time and effort on my behalf! Looking forward to hearing suggestions. Again, thanks! Theresa Morse

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well it sounds like you need more snails, like trouchus, cerith, abalone, asteria to control your red slime and algae. there must not be enough flow which is creating dead zones and building up detritus and leftover food which is feeding the algae and with no snail's but 7 in a 29 they have no chance to keep it in check you should have at least 1 snail per gallon and no need for crabs or hermits they don't eat algae just eat snails and scavenge for what they can get they are more opportunistic feeders eating algae for them is a last resort. When you do your water changes heavily aerate the saltwater in the bucket for the 24 hours even making it 72 hours before the change would be better. for the Hair algae get a sea hare they do wonders on it and will eat other forms of algae. Don't get pulled into the hype of miracle supplements that don't work the last think is the nitrates they should die off once you get some more flow and cleaners in there to get ride of the dead zone and algae and the excessive nutrients.

mr.reef24
 
Thank you for your information. I will try to get some more snails this weekend. I will also try to mix up my salt water sooner and let it aerate longer. I'm not sure what a sea hare is, so I will look that up! Thanks again, Theresa
 
If you start hitting on my mom Cam.....
 
shhhhhh, I got this...

Actually, while you're here, can you put in a good word for me?























jk, lulz ;)
 
:ROFL::banhim:
 
like rmorse said, a sea hare should do the trick. you could get more snails as well.

wow, the algae problem in that tank is nothing compared to the amount of it in my tank...
 
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