Help me with my frustration! IDs?

CajunCC

I take pictures
Sep 10, 2004
243
0
0
43
Harrisburg, PA
www.photobizarre.com
So I've had a 29 gallon marine tank set up for a few months now with two damsels who seem to be healthy and happy. The tank has about 2 inches of Old Castle on the bottom, two powerheads, and an Emperor 280. Lighting is an NO T6 10,000k and an NO T6 50/50. Stocking is a blue damsel, a blue velvet damsel, and a small-ish chunk of live rock.

I don't know if I'm worrying too much or what, but it seems like this tank has been tons of worries. At first, the sand wouldn't calm down, so the water was ALWAYS cloudy and every tiny bump or movement would stir up a huge cloud again. Fortunately that calmed down after a while and it seems to be ok now. But now i'm starting to notice all kinds of "stuff" in my tank. I'm sure it's from the live rock, seeing as that's kinda the POINT of live rock, but I don't know whether it's good or bad. Some of it, like the red stuff, looks ugly, but i don't know if I should leave it or what. I have pictures that i'll post so you can see the things i'm talking about and hopefully ID them and tell me whether they're good or bad!

redalgae.jpg

That's the first thing I noticed creeping up. Within a few days there was that red stuff all over the live rock and parts of the sand. It looks like a kind of red algae. It's not a problem on the rock or anything, but it looks really ugly on the sand. Anything i can do other than scooping up the very top layer of sand?

roots.jpg

That's another thing i noticed fairly soon after adding the LR. They almost looks like roots growing up against the glass or something. Maybe some kind of worm? I've never seen them move or anything and they don't seem to be multiplying.

shells.jpg

These are the most interesting find, to me. They're scattered over the glass and there's a few on the powerheads and such. I pulled off the flow diverter on one powerhead to get a closer picture. From a distance, they just look like little white dots, but when you get close, they almost look like a shell or something. They're very hard and my algae pad won't get them off the glass unless I really scrub hard. The inset of the picture shows a magnified view. To me, they almost look like a tube worm or feather duster or something, just really small.

grass.jpg

A few days ago, i noticed this little tuft on top of my live rock. It's obviously a kind of algae, but it's quite attached to the live rock. I tried to scrub it off with the algae pad, but it wouldn't budge, so i left it there. It's kinda neat looking, but I can't say I'd be thrilled to have it spread all over the tank.

So are any of my new finds harmful or invasive? Any easy way of getting the little white things off the glass or the red stuff off the sand? Perhaps a starfish or urchin or something that will eat it? More importantly, am I missing a key part of the whole setup?? Someone help if I am!
 
the little green/brown hair algae is a pain in the *** you shuld start to pull it off when you see it get a few terbo snails they like to eat the stuff


the little thing that looks like a shell if you keep an eye on them they will pop out with like fethery arms cant rember the name of the things but they tend to spread ..
 
first pic is cynaobacteria. You need better flow in that area. Syphon off what you can and maintain regular water changes.
2nd pic looks like bristleworm trails. good for your tank.
3rd pic is a filter feeder. also good but if you don't like the looks you can scrape them off. They will disappear eventually anyway.
4th is hair algae. Again, maintain a good water change schedule. Pull off by hand as much as you can.
Hope this infor helps. GL
 
skippy2 said:
first pic is cynaobacteria. You need better flow in that area.

Ain't that the truth. I rearranged the powerheads to get better flow throughout the tank and it seems like the stuff is going away now. Strange what a little water flow will do.

I don't mind the filter feeders at all, just the ones on the front glass. The camera likes to focus on them instead of the fish. :duh:

Thanks for the help on IDing them.

I've read a lot about having a "cleanup crew" and there are so many different opinions on what's best and how many and such. Snails, hermit crabs, urchins, starfish, etc. Any suggestions?
 
AquariaCentral.com