brown & green algae

J

jacqueline

New Fish
#1
Dec 28, 2004
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#1
In my 1.30 meter tank, there is live rock and tapwater with salt since two weeks ago. For the past week there has been a tremendous amount of brown long growth on the rocks and it looks horrendous. The Ph, nitrites & nitrates are fine. The brown colour is turning green. Do I need to do something or let nature take its course? Will it dissappear on its own?
PS. also I have noticed coming out of a liverock, long blue tenticles with black rings around it. It looks like its stuck in there and tries to get out.
 

1979camaro

1979camaro

Ultimate Fish
#2
Oct 22, 2002
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#2
first: there is nothing which comes to my mind which has long blue arms with black rings unless it is soem sort of serpent star...chances are if it got in there somehow it can get out

second: the algae bloom is generally a part of the cycling process so it will, to some degree, take care of itself. once your tank parameters stabilize you can introduce a cleanup crew consisting of crabs and snails to help control algae

hope that is useful
 

S.Reef

S.Reef

Superstar Fish
#3
Dec 1, 2003
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#3
yeah...the algae is part of the curing process...pretty normal. The thing on the live rock kinda sounds like a blue ringed octopus...hope not.
 

J

jacqueline

New Fish
#6
Dec 28, 2004
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#6
No, it doesn't look like an octopus, the legs are hairy, no suction cups. Today we bought a hermit crab, hopefully he will do his job with the tremendous amount of algae. Lotsa long thin worms come out of the rocks too, but they likely end up in the filtersystem eventually. Perhaps one of these weeks I can finally buy a pair of fish.
 

1979camaro

1979camaro

Ultimate Fish
#10
Oct 22, 2002
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are you nuts? there is absolutely no reason to have that many cleaner shrimp, they serve no algae cleanup purpose, the only potential benefit is to clean parasites off of fish, and you certainly wouldn't need 15 in a tank of that size for any reason...furthermore, that is overkill on snails and hermits...there is absolutely no need for that large of a cleanup crew in an established, stable, properly maintained tank unless it is several hundred gallons...and even then probably not necessary...i would reccomend maybe 1 medium snail (margarita, cerith, trochus, etc) for every 5 gallons and maybe a few bumblebees and nasarius to stir up the sand and 1 dwarf hermit crab (blue legged, red legged, or zebra) for every 5-10 gallons...of course, in a large tank i think it is nice to have an emerald mithrax crab rather than a brigade of tiny hermits...if you were to go that route you would need even fewer...as far as the stars, unless you have a really large, nutrient rich system usually 1 or 2 per 55g is sufficient as they are very efficient detritivors and can easily starve after they clean out your DSB.

it is really much better to start out with a smaller number and add, why waste money on animals you don't need which will quite possibly die in a tank without enough biological matter to sustain them...?
 

W

wayne

Elite Fish
#11
Oct 22, 2002
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#11
It's not going to fix the problem anyway. You may have noted Jacgueline lives in glorious Holland. Unfortunately I can guarantee that the tapwater in HOlland, as the low nearsea part of a river, will contain horiffic amounts of nitrate, phosphate and fertiliser traves. Until this problem is solved (meaning RO machine realistically) algae will always be a problem.

I agree with Camaro's cleanup crew recommendations although the exact animals will likely to be different to those in the US as they come from the Indo Pac, not Florida. No cleaner shrimp.
 

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