Major Rock move - need to share...

csacord · 08-16-2004, 11:00 AM

Well, I hope that I didn't blow it, but I couldn't take it anymore. I have been tryin to get answers on how to get rid of hair algae and well...no response. So I took matters into my own hands. Yesterday set out to remove algae. I had all my water ready for a water change, a few rubber maid containers, towels a new nylon scrub brush and a large cup of coffee.

First I assessed that I needed to move snails and hermits due to the fact that they don't move out of the way very fast. I moved all of them to a small container. My emerald crab however would not come out of a hole to save his life so I had to work around him. I pushed my power heads down and left them running and I siphoned my usual 20% into a rubbermaid container. I don't know if it helped but figured I needed to have the PH's running to help keep everyone happy. Can you tell that this makes me nervous...lol.

I then removed rocks and put them into the rubbermaid container and only scrubbed those that had the hair algae on them. I felt like I was totaly screwing things up. I am so new at this still...well, trial by fire I guess.

Anyway...now have the rocks out and cleaned. This gave me the chance to redo my aquascape. I spent more time looking at the rocks this time and finding the interesting sppots and worked it so less rock was burried in sand and more was exposed to the water table. Also made more of a reef wall look and set myself up with low flow/low light areas as well as nice high area to put new pieces. The water looked like crap though and I was really hoping that everyone was going to survive this onslaught.

I finally breathed a sigh of relief when all the once scared crittes emerged and I could do a head count.

I waited til late last night to do a water test...PH, Nitrates, Nitrites, Calcium, Amonia.

PH is low: 7.8 Amonia:Trace Nitrites:0 Nitrates: 20

Calcium:420

My Nitrates are pretty high. Could this be a result of my moving so much around and stirring up a bunch of garbage? Should I do another water change soon? Or just wait til then end of the week?

WEll, That is my advetures over the weekend. Thanks for reading.

hawaiianwargod · 08-16-2004, 11:25 AM

Do a 10-15% water change. The nitrates went up a bit because of the stirring and die offs due to scrubbing and LR exposed to air maybe. Your nitrates should go down in no time just adjust your skimmer on the heavy side. good luck and happy reefing!!

Yoshi22 · 08-16-2004, 11:31 AM

how long have u had yur tank up and running? That may explain a lot for the algea.

Brandon

csacord · 08-16-2004, 11:44 AM

Since May 5th. Not long. However I have been really fortunate up to this point. No real big changes in water quality. I have been testing religously since I started it. I have been getting my water from the grocery store. They have a machine that puts the water through R0 and ultaviolet. I wonder if the water isn't all that it is cracked up to be for tank use anyway. My LFS recomended that I get my water there.

Yoshi22 · 08-16-2004, 11:55 AM

you could set up your own R/O unit from your own water. I think it saves time and money, but u get lazy about refilling the tank. heh The algea problem is something that almost all of us go through when we start out. Its normal, let the crabs and snails clean, give it time. I had a pretty bad problem with red slime(cyano) and i put some chemical in and it worked, but for hair algea im not sure. When i had hair, i put in about 55 or something hermits in my 75, worked beautifully. The algea in the argonite is normal, i got that but i like it like that. If you dont like it, stir the argonite up and make it white again. Let your tank cycle, just give it time and in no time you will be having whatever you want with the right system of course.

Brandon

Melix · 08-16-2004, 02:15 PM

I'm with Yoshi. If you think you need them, get some more hermits or snails. Give the tank some time, and if it doesn't start to look better then you might want to look at chemicals. I prefer the more natural approach, but if you just can't stand it, chemicals may be the way for you.

Phishnoob · 08-16-2004, 03:52 PM

I agree with the R/O. It makes it so easy not lugging all that water around and the quality is great.

I do not have corals so I cannot comment on the DI part. Our good LFS is R/O only.

Time cures a lot of ills in this hobby. Mrs. Phish has a lawn mower blenny in her 55g and went really heavy on clean up critters. There is not a dot of algae in there. My 90g FOWLR has some mean fish that eat the clean up crew and poo poo poo and it is just a constant mess. Getting the detritus out of there and having good critters is a heck of a head start.

tabwyo · 08-16-2004, 07:05 PM

I too had a hair alge problem. Though not epidemic it was starting to cause concern. Now the cyano blooms I had were awful. I went bare bottom just over a week ago and I have only seen a dime size spot of cyano, which was removed just befor lights out. My hair alge is on the decline as well. I just reach in every now and then (daily) and pinch it off. My circulation is great now with no substrate so it usually winds up in the power filter. I wash my floss twice a week.

P.S. When do I stop being a squid. I've been out of the Navy since 2000.

tims · 08-16-2004, 08:01 PM

sorry we missed your thread on the HA cs..

Sgrubbing the rock is one of the ways to do it..no worries there.. and yes your levels will go off a bit once you stir up things. i would do a smal WC also..

a good question would be where the HA came from, what excess was in it to help feed it? i had used turbo's, they cleaned my tank of all HA in about a day and a half! i swaer by them.. some hate them..but what works for me may not work for you and so forth....
tab.. you can change that in your main user CP controls...

csacord · 08-16-2004, 08:56 PM

Thanks everyone...I was very concerned that I totally screwed up

yardboy · 08-16-2004, 09:48 PM

I'll "hear-hear" on the RO/DI unit. Face it, nothing gets in the tank that you don't put in the tank. The corallary is nothing comes out of the tank unless you take it out. So you buy some liverock that has a little dieoff or maybe was grown out in a system (natural or artifical) that had some phosphate in it, so you get a bloom of hair algae. During cycling you crank up the skimmer (you did crank up the sskimmer didn't you?) and do some water changes (yes?) to remove this phosphate. That ought to put a big dent in the hair algae right there. Then add a clean up crew to munch the remainder and convert it to body mass or organic phosphate to be removed with teh skimmer and water changes also. Trouble with this scenario is if your water for makeup has phosphates in it, you're spinning your wheels, just adding back phosphate for the algae to eat and grow. Phosphate is one of the most common contaminent of water, added to prevent corrosion of pipes. An RO will remove some of it, but only some. A good working DI will remove the rest.

hitillidie · 08-17-2004, 10:01 AM

Just make sure the water from the store is quality water, If able, buy an RODI unit or start buying from the local fish store. Usually water at those machines are not close to being good as the RODI unit. I used TDS meter to test that water and at time it's around 020, where my RODI unit water come out at 001, which is as good as it gets. If you hair algae is bad, you did a good thing by scrubbing them, now I would some type of phosphate remover to get the phosphates down and keep the algae from coming back. If the hair algae is bad and grown long, almost nothing will touch it. Hair algae could be an uphill battle you might have to do the scrubbing more than once. Just be patient, with good husbandtry it will go away.