algae bloom?

C

cathy

AC Members
May 2, 2003
79
0
0
Visit site
hi all, hope you can help. Have kept freshwater aquariums for 20+ years, am now having a go at marine! Did my homework, and I think I have a pretty decent set up for starts. 46 gal, canister filter, plenty of aeration, fluorescent plus actinic light. After adding crushed coral substrate and salt water sp 1.022, let the tank sit for 3 days, then added live rock and 2 damsels. am now a week and a half since adding the fish. Two questions:
1. Algae. am getting brown algae on the glass and the gravel; its not too gross, and does not seem to be interfering with the stuff on the live rock - there is plenty of interest there. problem or just normal maturation? Local pet supply does not sell phosphate test kit; am interested in this. anyone have a good online source? Any other suggestions/comments?
2. ammonia levels. was waiting for that spike to occur, but it has not. Day after fish were added, went from 0 to 0.5, but has stayed the same since! Verified testing by another method. Any comments about what is going on or what i should do?
 
Phosphate kits are available from most of the online stores--choose a reputable brand. If you had algae problems in FW, and are using the same water source, you may want to get a filter to remove the phosphates.

Brown algae is actually diatoms. Not usually a long term problem, commonly referred to as new tank syndrome. It will wear itself out, but can be ugly. Depending on what setup you're aiming for, you could add some grazers, snails, hermits, crabs, etc.

The addition of live rock (presuambly cured LR) is likely dealing with the ammonia from your fish. A small bio-load can be dealt with easily. Adding to your stock will probably cause some problems--not only with rising ammonia, but with territory. Damsels are fierce fish, and will be very abusive to anything you try to introduce. If you plan on having other fish, I would remove the damsels now. If you do this, you have the chance to fishlessly cycle the tank. This will allow you to stock confident that ammonia spikes won't kill off the new fish.
 
thanks for getting back to me - I did end up getting a phosphate kit; my levels are testing at 0.1mg. According to the package insert, they should be 0.1 or lower so I guess I am ok; its probably diatoms like you said - normal for a new tank, from what I read here and elsewhere. But I did get some snails to help me keep the house clean!
With our FW tank, which was in the same room, we did not have problems with algae; this room gets a limited amount of sunlight, and we keep the drapes drawn when we're at work. We are regulating the photo period for the tank.
 
Brown algae/diatoms are ugly, plain and simple. The good news in that snails should really help you keep everything under control. In a 46 gallon 2 or 3 snails ought to have the algae mowed down in about a week or so. Your phosphates sound fine.

If you really want to eliminate brown algae all together, then start using reverse osmosis water or de-ionized water for your water changes. If you want to avoid their cost, then you can use tap water (treated for chlorine, of course) run through a PUR filter. PUR seems to get out enough of the phosphates that they don't cause problems in my experiance.
 
your going to get alge. every new marine tank does its part of the process. actually you may get several different types of unwanted alges within at least the first 6 months. this is why they dont consider a marine tank as mature until it hits 6 mths to a year. if you check out some types of fish this is the reason they are listed differently as to when to add them because of the age of the tank. also a new tank until it matures can have many fluctuations in water parameters.when the tank has cycled and you get the alge this is the time you add your clean up crew snails, crabs, det kit (if u decide) and so on.

i see you added fish 3 days after starting your tank. do not add anymore. actually using damsels is considered old school for cycling the best way is to use table shrimp since cycling can ;be very hard on fish. damsels are about the only fish that may live throug a saltwater cylce since its so harsh. keep testing your water your ammonia will spike but with salt it can take up to several weeks to do this. it depends on the tank it could take a couple weeks to over a month. the only way you know the cycle is over is by testing ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. you want amm and trites at 0 since there the toxic part of the cycle. also in salt there twice as toxic as freshwater.

i would let the tank ride and see what happens a week is not long at all at this point. also most of the time (not all) the damsels that do survive the cycle have a habit of becoming very very nasty to anything added later. most damsels should be added last due to there aggressiveness. you should always stock least aggressive first most aggressive last

check out this site


reefkeeping 101
 
hi, and thanks for the response. I am doing daily testing for ph, ammonia, nitrate and nitrate; weekly for phosphate and calcium hardness. So far since the fish have taken residence (now 2 1/2 weeks) the ammonia has not budged from 0.5. So from your response, can I expect at some point, in the next few weeks, the ammonia will rise a bit more and peak? Then will have nitrites register in my testing?
The algal bloom seems to have stabilized. I did some basic tank cleaning last weekend ( ie rubbed glass with sponge) and although some has returned, certainly not all.
 
yes when the ammonia peaks thats when the nitrites will start but just give your tank some time and everything will straightent out
 
In my experience, ammonia levels rise frighteningly fast for about 8-10 days, and then taper off dramatically. If you plotted the readings on an XY axis, it would look like a rediculously exaggerated bell curve.

The fact that you have had ANY ammonia registering after 2.5 weeks is a cause for concern in my book. Nitrites come after ammonia, and take longer to go away, but I would be making sure that the water was properly oxygenated. Nitrifying bacteria use up far more O2 than fish, and the fact that you still have ammonia seems to point to an underdeveloped bacteria base. Make sure you have adequate water movement at the surface, as this is where gas exchange takes place.
 
How much live rock did you add? Are you using RO/DI water or tap water treated with ammonia detoxifiers? If you added a good amount of live rock, it may process the ammonia quickly and therefore you will not receive a large ammonia spike. Especially since you only added 2 damsels. If you are treating your tap water with an ammonia detoxifier, you will still get ammonia readings on the tests even though it has been detoxified.

Brian
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom