How did you solve your algae problem?

[buggsmarinetank]

for some reason algae is not growing in mine.... i have algae eaters, and I have to feed them wafers to stay alive. Ive tried more light, direct sunlight...etc.. not results.

 

[mjvincent]

What would I do with about 70lbs of live rock if I switched to FW?

Ship it to me of course!!!!

 

[Racer X]

for some reason algae is not growing in mine.... i have algae eaters, and I have to feed them wafers to stay alive. Ive tried more light, direct sunlight...etc.. not results.

I'll be more then happy to give you some of mine!
But seriously, I'm glad to see all the posts. I've definitely gotten some new idea's. I hope the stories keep coming and remember, the more detailed you can be, the more it'll be able to help other people experiencing the same problems.

 

[jgc8fan]

Worked like a charm. Now I've got a sparkling clear tank with plants, and no algae.

Ha, I guess I'm not the only one. I'm seriously considering doing the same thing. My tank is about 1 1/4 years old and is seriously overrun with hair algae. I've tried everything you mentioned and nothing is working! It's driving me crazy!

I'm also not the impatient type, I even posted a thread a while back to encourage newbies that they can do it if they are patient! Now, I'm feeling like throwing in the towel myself.

What would I do with about 70lbs of live rock if I switched to FW?

It made all the difference in the world to me... I'll probably set up another SW tank in the future, but it's gonna be at least a 150 gal if I do. Right now I can't afford anything like that.

As far as the live rock... You might wanna post that in the FW forum... a couple of them have been talking about using live rock in FW tanks. Maybe there's a way to acclimate it slowly to FW? I just got rid of mine... It's all garden ornaments now... It was covered in green hair algae anyway so I wasn't too worried about it (I thought hair algae and cyano weren't supposed to grow on anything that had coraline algae on it, but the stuff grew over it anyway).

I will give you a warning... If you have green hair algae... I am thinking that it doesn't care what water it's in... A week after the switch I got tons of green hair algae in the FW!!! I've never had hair algae in any of my FWs before. A few algae eaters and some plants, and that took care of it though. Much easier and cheaper to fix than SW.

I do miss my burgudy clown, and my coral shrimp though.

 

[jgc8fan]

I've also read that having a skimmer can help so I'm hoping to get one before long.

Do not buy a Red Sea Prizm... I have one sitting in my garage right now... A complete waste. It doesn't skim at all no matter how much you adjust the flow, and will dump tons of bubbles into the tank for months until the acrylic it's made of ages. I have seen the Prizm Pro used in lfs, and it seemed to work a little better, but I'd avoid them altogether.

 

[arminkropp]

Here's pics after 5 days with 21 Turbos and 1 Yellow Tang.
Worked Like a charm!!!
Now I have to start feeding my Tang.
Pics are after and before

 

[Trixter]

Haven’t solved my algae problem yet, but I am about to buy an army of algae eaters. A friend of mine told me that the “plants” in my “water garden tank” needed trimmed, so I guess that’s my cue. 0

 

[gallagherjim]

I battled the green for about the last 4 months. I tried everything. RO water, new bulbs, cut down on feeding, got an algae blenny, set up a fuge, manually picked it off, ran phos-ban, litterally everything! I couldn't figure out what the cause was.

Well, i finally found it! About 6 months ago, i set up a CPR overflow. Today, i took it off to clean it (for the 1st time ) It was filled with chunks and gunk, I'd say i found the source of the nutrients. stay tuned!

 

[wlam18]

I have 75G tank and used to have 20+ hermits and 5 turbos. Thet did not help much. One day I cleaned up all the hair algae from my in-tank overflow, covered the overflow glass portion with auto tint film. I also placed one turbo inside the overflow. That clear up all the hair algea. And then a few weeks ago I found out if I leave the sump (also holds macro algea) light on during day time, it reduce 80% of the algae from the glass. Now I have moved most of my hermits and turbos into the sump. I am happy. My next goal is to find out how to keep the sand white all the time....

 

[mjvincent]

Do not buy a Red Sea Prizm... I have one sitting in my garage right now... A complete waste. It doesn't skim at all no matter how much you adjust the flow, and will dump tons of bubbles into the tank for months until the acrylic it's made of ages. I have seen the Prizm Pro used in lfs, and it seemed to work a little better, but I'd avoid them altogether.

You have a PM, I would like to buy the skimmer from you.

 

[gallagherjim]

try a sand sifting star. even with all my algae problems, the star keeps the sand spottless. I also have an engineer goby, who takes care of one side with his tunnels.

 

[AR15 guy]

Give it to me?!?

 

[StickyTuba]

Well,
I found that my inverts, no matter how many I had, didn't help. I did my water changes and kept a tight control over my nutrient levels. I finally asked at my LFS and found that they suggested two products.

ROWA Carbon
&
ROWA Phosphate

These two products worked like a charm. I put them in the back of my 12 gallon nano cube and in less than three days my algae problem was solved.
This is not a permanent fix, I know and I have added some more snails as well, but it sure kicked the problem in the butt and I am able to keep control of it now.

I hope that this helps.
Good Luck

 

[morphviper]

If you have a lot of algea growth of greens and browns. you can do it chemically, but I prefer the natural way and a lot of mexican turbo snails and several rock or lawn mower blennies will do wonders. The blenneis are very good about keeping it off the rocks