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Aquarium Advice Apprentice
So I bought my tank as a complete setup from craigslist. The thing evidently came with several problems, most being minor. The only big issue is algae growing everywhere! The previous owner hid it well, or I am doing something wrong as it has gotten much worse since set up 6 weeks ago. My tank only has one fish in it(came with three fish, 1 sergent major damsel which died from ick, 1 three stripe which I am trying to catch but he is too smart, and a clownfish which was caught easily and used to help purchase a pair of juvie clowns). I feed the tank once every 3 days. When feeding the tank will get any where between 9-15 pieces of mysis shrimp. It depends on who is out and hungry. I feed the two bleached BTAs three mysis each per feeding, each peppermint that shows themself will get three shrimp, and the three stripe damsel will take between two and three shrimp as he is a little shy of the tweezers used to reach into the tank and reach the nems and shrimp. Now that background info is out of the way, I have lots of hair algae growing with red turf algae, red bubble algae, dinoflaggetts(not sure on spelling), some diatoms(not many, just in one spot since set up), cyano, and one other unidentified algae. Every species but the one that I don't know is growing quite fast and spreading everywhere. The red bubble started as one cluster of seven bubbles and now is in 5 different parts of the tank. The green hair algae is a huge problem, it has taken over my only frag and a rock that had the base of a leather coral growing on it. I can no longer see the base of the leather at all in the forest of hair algae that is getting close to 2" tall. I was originally told to do some weekly water changes, but the problem got worse(I was using r/o water, previous owner used tap). I did do testing and no matter what or how much water I changed, I had 20ppm nitrates which is pretty high for one fish and very light feedings. I am comparing to people with similar set ups that are fully stocked and maintain roughly 5ppm nitrates. This fact lead me to beilieve that something in my tank is leeching stored cheimicals such as phosphate and nitrate into the water, thus feeding the algae.
Now this is where my dad and I butt heads. He believes that I should be taking out each piece of rock and scrub with a tooth brush and remove the algae. Now, please speak up if you agree with me that scrubbing will not solve the problem. He is saying to do this in addition to getting new sand(used the old sand due to time constrictions with live animals upon purchase) and all new water. I believe that this will make problems worse or not have any affect what so ever. My idea is to start new with everything within the display. I would be getting new sand, new water, and 150lbs of dry rock and 40lbs or so of live rock from the LFS. This would be after a water and vinegar scrup down of the glass walls and overflow boxes to kill the stuff growing in those places. I am at a loss being that all it takes for my dad to think he is right is for one person to say what he was thinking. I have researched and asked in some other forums I am a part of and they never mentioned that scrubbing was a solution, but said a restart would be a good thing to do for long term success. So please help me. Ohh my photo period is 7 hours with 4x 160 watt VHO bulbs(2 daylight and 2 acintics)
Now this is where my dad and I butt heads. He believes that I should be taking out each piece of rock and scrub with a tooth brush and remove the algae. Now, please speak up if you agree with me that scrubbing will not solve the problem. He is saying to do this in addition to getting new sand(used the old sand due to time constrictions with live animals upon purchase) and all new water. I believe that this will make problems worse or not have any affect what so ever. My idea is to start new with everything within the display. I would be getting new sand, new water, and 150lbs of dry rock and 40lbs or so of live rock from the LFS. This would be after a water and vinegar scrup down of the glass walls and overflow boxes to kill the stuff growing in those places. I am at a loss being that all it takes for my dad to think he is right is for one person to say what he was thinking. I have researched and asked in some other forums I am a part of and they never mentioned that scrubbing was a solution, but said a restart would be a good thing to do for long term success. So please help me. Ohh my photo period is 7 hours with 4x 160 watt VHO bulbs(2 daylight and 2 acintics)