Liverock - why is it turning green?

[midol]

Hey, i like my purple/red pieces of live rock and for some reason they are turning friggin green, how can i stop that?

There are also parts turning whitish.

There is also a funny green thing about the size of a 10c coing and it has tiny tiny tiny tenticle thingys coming off it, it isn't completely soft and squishy but it isn't completely hard.

Any idea's on that?

 

[Bearfan]

Can you better describe the "green"?

 

[midol]

There is a dark crap looking green which reminds me of moss.

The light green i like but there is hardly any of it, the crappy looking one is on alot of my pieces, it might just be natural but i wanted to check since i find it quite ugly.

 

[mjvincent]

Is it slimy? Wondering about Cyano. What is your lighting? How long has the tank been up and running? What are your test parameters?

 

[haus]

How long has it been in the tank? I used 40 lbs of base rock and 8 lbs of lr. All mine is covered in a green algae, which stays on the rocks. Since I put more hermit crabs in my tank, it has started to go away, and the colors are starting to come out. I assumed that it is the bacteria converting my base rock to lr, and that is the process. It started as an ugly brown algae (diatoms?) and has converted into the green algae. This is just my experience with it, if I'm heading for a disaster, somebody help, but the green algae has not hurt my tank so far.

 

[midol]

Tanks been up for quite a while but i added $100 not sure how much in pounds/kg but i will be getting another $400 in the next week or so.

It was all Live Rock no Base Rock but 3/4 was cured.


My lighting, umm, one
36watt 120cm Sylvania Coralstar actinic blue light
10000K Ultra-sunlight Catalina compact
10k (50/50 actinic) Catalina compact

I hope that is sufficient as it was extremely expensive including the housing it is in.

 

[Jason]

All the rocks in my tank that aren't covered in coreline are covered in bright green macro. bright green lke a tennis ball.

The tank is only a little over 3 weeks old though.

get a lawn mower blenny if you can and kiss that stuff goodbye.

 

[midol]

I'll see if i can get one of them.

Do gobies really do anything at all, is there any purpose in them? I can get like an unlimited supply for free but i have 3 and they are vicious little bastards, they keep attacking each other.

 

[Gatorfreak]

I got a yellow tang recently and all the green stuff growing everywhere vanished.

 

[haus]

What kind of clean up crew do you have? I've noticed with my tank, that the more I add to the crew, the more of the green goes away. I have 13 hermits (various types), 6 snails (soon to get more), 3 emerald crabs, a cleaner shrimp (I don't know if he helps with the algae, but he keeps my tangs clean ), and a chocolate chip starfish. I added 12 hermits a week ago and the algea has been noticebly decreasing. My yellow tang is always picking at the stuff too.

 

[midol]

I didn't know it was safe to get a clean up crew while my tank just had live rock added?

If it is safe i'll pop down the road and get some hermits and snails.

Roughly how much would i need to spend on a cleanup crew not including the shrimp caus' arnt they expensive?

 

[Jason]

What size tank do you have and how much LR?


On a related topic:
how old is the tank?


cleanup crew depends on the tank

 

[midol]

75 Gal and only $100 worth, i'm not sure how much or how much i paid per kilo yet because within a week or two i will be getting around another $300, i just didn't want to plan on adding more LR till i figured out if this was normal.

Tank has had water in it since April and had cycled once then this live rock tipped my ammonia up a bit. (Got some LR when i got my lights just so i had something to look at while i saved for the rest of the LR)

 

[Jason]

ahhh ok 75 gallon.

I would get 20 snails and 20 hermits and go from there. just add more to the cleanup crew until things get clean. add a few and wait a few days, add a few more......


Your amonia is going to go up everytime you add live rock from all the die off. Maybe you could buy pre-cured live rock next time or cure it yourself in a bucket or something. you'll still have die off from precured rock but nothing monumental

 

[haus]

Plus a clean up crew will give you something to look at besides rocks and water

At my lfs, small hermits (blue legged, scarlet legged, etc.) and snails are $1.25 USD each. (Don't know what the difference is in Australian money) The hermits are amusing to me and do an excellent job of cleaning up, I plan on getting about 12 more.

I wanted to get 2 cleaner shrimp until I found out that they were $24. So I got 1. But in this SW hobby, really nothing is cheap.

 

[rockkfish]

guys if you want a good deal on snails and crabs try reeftopia.com let me know if you think their prices are pretty good especially if you have someone local who can go halves... me and my friend did and for about $75 bucks each we got 36 nasarrius snails 150 small blue legs, 24 cerith, 36 astreas, 4 peppermint shrimp (which my stupid goby ate my two for lunch) and 4 emerald crabs.==150.00

local fish store comparison: 150 bluelegs-133.50, 24 ceriths-23.76, 36astreas-35.64, 4 pep shrimp-19.96, and 4 emeralds-27.96 grand total==240.82.

free shipping if you buy the reeftopia packages==priceless

i know cheap spin on the visa commercials