Tank cycled, here comes the GREEN

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grimlock3000

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jun 29, 2003
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maine
My tank is going on 1 month old. For the first 2.5 weeks, I did daily 10% water changes with distilled water and salt mix. For the last week, I have left the tank alone to check the water for stability. Everything is holding good at 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, <10 Nitrates, 8.2ph, 1.023-1.024 salinity, and ~10 DKH.

As you may suspect, my tank is getting overrun with algae. Most of my glass is clouding up with algae. Much of my LR is getting covered in puffy hair algae, and there is some hair algae on the substrate as well. I have some red macroalgae growing as well, which I do not mind. Currently, I have two Astrea snails in the tank, and two Blue Leg hermits. The snails keep one particular rock pretty clean, but they usually stay on that rock. The hermit go all over the place, but do not eat much (that I can tell).

At this point, I am looking for idea on what to do next. I know I need to get more snails and a bigger clean up crew. Should I clean the tank up a bit, THEN get the snails? Or, should I get the snails, and see what they can do first with a tank full of algae?

One more thing, my glass has a buch of copepods on it grazing on the algae. If I clean the glass, should I just run these over with the Mag Float, or should I care about saving them and try to poke them back into the tank?

//Update, I Mag Float'd the fonr and viewing side of the tank when the tank light was out. Did not seem to be many pods on the glass. My pod population is expanding like crazy, so if I ran a few over, it should be fine :eek:
 
if the clean up crew is the only thing in there, reduce the ammount of time the light is on to about 4 hrs. This will cut back algae growth so the cleaners can get to it. Not sure, but maybe some other snails would help. Sorry I don't know how big of a cleanup crew you need for a 10 gal.
 
Currently my tank light cycle is:

40w Actinic, Dawn 6AM -> 8AM
40w Daylight + 40w Actinic, Day 8AM -> 6PM
40w Actinic, Dusk 6PM -> 8PM

I suppose this is a bit much for two snails and two crabs :p When I started my tank, I had a bunch of Polyps on some LR. I also had Red Flatworms, which destroyed the almost all of the Polyps. Now I have ZERO Flatworms. I have 3 Polyps left though, they are doing pretty good under this light cycle...
 
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