Algae cycle?

Thank you reefer for the added input.

 

what extra clean up crew would you suggest?
I already have :
2 small turbo snail
2 -3 bumble bee snails
1 sand sifting star
1 sand sifting snail
1 cleaner shrimp
2 pepermint shrimps
my tank is 68 uk gallons
Thanks K

 

Hello, you could use maybe 12-15 Blue leg crabs. Your Tank is quite "loaded" for only 3 mos. I am not a weekly water change advocate as I believe your tank needs to "season" and establish itself. All this is normal and will take to 6-8 mos. to fully run through it's "complete" cycling. If you haven't cleaned the filters in these three mos. now is the time. Gunk will build up in the hoses so take them off and use one of those brushes with the long wire to clean them. Any media you have in there that is in bags need to be washed in aquarium water you remove (at a water change). This should be part of your monthly routine. Add a Phosphate reactor and use Pura Phoslock as the media. Like others have said, reduce the frequency and amount of food and try to stay away from flake and pellets.

 

Ok what most people did not mention is the right snails

Try removing the 10,000K lights for a week.

Depending on the size of the tank

lets say a 55 gallon, get

25 cerith snails
15 Astrea Snails

if you have any macro, get an emerald crab, it will destroy it

that should take care of your algae problem.

The 10,000k light makes algae grow like crazy

 

But dont my leathers need the 10,000 k off light?
Thanks K

 

If your mot a fan off every other week water changes then how do you redue you nitrate? i thought you had to do a water change every 2 weeks to keep the nitrate down?
Thanks for your input
K

 

woh, thats alot off snails! i didnt realise you could need that much!
Thanks K

 

Mine did fine. Its not permanent, just for a week, after you get the snails, lets the snails do their job for a week and then turn the lights back on

what most snails dont do is sand sifting, which cerith snails do, you can try leaving the lights on and adding the snails if you are concerned with coral health

 

ok will do but people keep sayin im over stocked so will adding aload off snail & other cleaners just add to the over stocked problem?
K

 

Your tank is not overloaded, its fine. You have 3 fish in a 68 gallon tank.

Get those snails, they are very small they wont increase your bio load enough to cause damage to your tank.