Cleaner Crew & Algae control

[alex8111]

I have 10 snails and 5 hermits in my 80 gallon.

The Algae seems to be getting out of control. Meaning when I clean the glass & sand myself, I still see new algae the next day. Within 48 hours for sure…The cleaner crew are doing their best working around the clock but it just seems that the algae is growing faster than they can handle or myself for that matter. I don’t even have that much light going. I do have 48” Coral Life compact lighting but I don’t want to have to keep it off al the time. Right now I only have 60 watts of florescent lights on and the compact lights are off. But when I turn on the CoralLife lights, within 24 hours I see algae all over the sand and glass…

Do you guys have this problem too? How do I keep this algae under control? Basically I do 10% water change every week or 20% every 2 or 3 weeks but still algae grows. So not only do I have my cleaner crew working around the clock, I myself clean the glass almost every other day and now I cant turn on my lights either…

Any suggestions how I can control all this algae? Is 15 cleaners crews not enough? Probably not. For a 80 gallon, how many is recommended?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[TRe]

get more snails..its best to get a variety

 

[alex8111]

get more snails..its best to get a variety

How many would you suggest?

 

[Lorna]

Well we need a bit more information.....how long has the tank been set up? What are your water parameters? Phos,Nitrate....though if you have high nitrates they can still register zero.....what else do you have in your tank? What kind of algae is it anyway?

 

[alex8111]

Well we need a bit more information.....how long has the tank been set up? What are your water parameters? Phos,Nitrate....though if you have high nitrates they can still register zero.....what else do you have in your tank? What kind of algae is it anyway?

Tank is 8 weeks old. Water parameters are where they should be except I don’t know Phos parameter. Don’t have a test for it yet. I had only damsels in the water until parameters reach right levels and then bought a tang and snails & crabs - all of the fish seem very happy. But the algae was out of control before I bought the tang and the cleaners. Algae started to show like 2 weeks into the cycle.

It’s the brown slimy algae that just covers all my rocks, glass, sand…out of control.

Honestly the 10 snails i have are working arround the clock. They kick ass. But more than they can handle. So i just dont know if its something i'm doing wrong with the water or its the fact that i dont have enough snails.

 

[TRe]

any pics??? what type of snails do you already have??? what type of tang? are the damsels still in there???

 

[Lotus]

It's still a really young tank. You can expect algae outbreaks for the first year. It's nothing to worry about as long as your nitrates and other major parameters are in control.

More snails will help. While some suggest one per gallon, you could always add another 10 at a time until you don't have problems. A variety of snails, including astrea, turbo, cerith and nassarius would be good.

 

[TRe]

i defintly agree with lotus...good advice

 

[alex8111]

Wow 1 per gallon means 80 of them holly mother of all…

Well I guess I would have to agree because it seems that much really is required (for me at least). I’ll buy 10 more and see how It goes. Good tip.

Yea all the fish survived the cycle. I only had 3 damsels. But I also did watch over everything on a daily basis. One of my damsels became unsocial for a few days but he snapped back to normal. The tang is a yellow tank who also is a big help but mainly the tang has been concerning with the plants on the snails then the actual algae in the tank lol.

Snails I think 5 are turbo and 5 are Trochus.

 

[TRe]

take my advice and get rid of the damsels before its too late... i made the mistake of buying one and it took me actually breaking down the tank to move before i could finally catch him

 

[Lotus]

I know, 80 snails might be too many. However, 30 or 40 isn't unreasonable.

 

[alex8111]

take my advice and get rid of the damsels before its too late... i made the mistake of buying one and it took me actually breaking down the tank to move before i could finally catch him

why what's up with damsels?

 

[TRe]

they can become very terratorial and just plain old mean not to mention they arent the nicest fish to look at.... generally when adding a fish that can become terratorial you want to add them last not first .... plus like i said they can be very hard to catch in a tank full of liverock/corals

 

[Lorna]

Ahhh there is a reason they call them damnsels.....yes they tend to take over the tank and harrass almost to the death anything else you add after. I can't believe some lfs still sell these as beginner fish......only because you can't catch them and they wont die. I had to resort to a fish trap to catch mine.....

 

[alex8111]

I figured that’s why you mentioned it (aggressiveness) but I wasn’t sure. However, the damsels so far seem to be very peaceful and its usually the tang that’s the bully. I know tangs are peaceful but the damsels don’t mess with him whatsoever. But he messes with them.

But I wont argue about this. You guys think it’s inevitable that the damsels will cause harm? Especially to any future fish I add like clowns, etc.

What do I do with them? Take them to a LSF? I do love the look of the 3-stripe damsels. can i keep just one or are they just little devils no matter what?