Now i can rest........

Well i finally moved out of my upstairs apt. and into a house. I have my tanks in the basement now with a drain in the floor . So now i dont have to stress out about a flood in my apt. In transitoin to moving i neglected my fish tanks...... I am going to take some pics to show how bad the algae got in my 55. I remember someone on here saying that 55's are hard to take care of. Im not to sure how it got so bad because my 38 actually cleared up during the time i wasnt doing water changes. I treated both of the tanks equally. The 55 had what i thought to be better filtration but i think i just proved the point that canister filters need special attn. I am going to be posting pics up to show the transition from algae'd up to back to normal. And now im going to start saving to get my 75 gal. up and running.

 

you been busy IHAVMTS

The before and after shots will look cool

Steve

 

Well the before pics are scary.....red slime and crazy hair algae. I would like some opinions on what to do. Should i scrub the live rock?

 

?????

 

Find out whats causes the algae first. If you have a canister filter, start with that. If its not possible to "up-grade" to a sump or refugium, you must keep up on the cleaning of those things. Thats why I personaly dont like those things.

Luna

 

IHAVMTS

I have seen much worse - and seen it beaten

As Lunatic stated above find the cause its either Nitrates or Phosphates or both at elevated levels that have caused this

if this where my tank I would

1 - remove what I could by hand at water change time
2 - remove any small rocks that wont end up causing a rock slide and scrub in bucket of tank water using a toothbrush
3 - if its Nitrate, give my cannister filter media a good rinse and also the cannister itself to get rid of any accumulated detrius
4 - add a Phosphate remover - GFO granular ferric oxide is popular
5 - cut down feedings to every other day
6 - clean my cannister weekly when I do my water changes

the above steps IME - can eventually combat many algae issues

Steve

 

I appreciate the advice Steve. I just want to tell you a little more about what has been going on in my tank. My feedings were cut down to twice if lucky but at least once in 7 days....I only had three fish in there at the time...now i have two...my blue spot tang did not live through another move. My bulbs for my light are old wich im sure is an contributer to the prob.

 

IHAVMTS

Yep the lighting aspect wont be helping
I reckon you know what needs to be done and Im sure in a couple of weeks you can post some great looking "after" photos

Steve

 

Oh yeah, old bulbs will most times allow algae to grow. It's not always the case, but what kind of bulbs and how old are they?