New member

[Dippppy]

Hi all I'm new to this so please give me time to get accustom to everything, the lingo mainly haha
First of all I have a 48l river reef with some live rock , two percs ,one cleaner shrimp, four turbo snails , four hermits ,3 blue legs & 1 red leg a pollop of some description think it might be a mushroom?? But like I said not to sure also brought I think some green star xenia the other week well thats what my lfs said (I take it lfs stands for local fish shop!!) also got 3 little yellow pollops things that my mate fragged for me......I'm think thats it ... Oh yeah got some kind of green alge as well but not sure what sort good or bad..

The tank got brought for me by my beautiful wife as a pressie this year of a friend and the tank has been set up for about a year and a half with percs in .

Pics will follow when I work out how to as would like to know for sure what everything is and prob get some help with the alge I have got and anything else if thats cool

 

[Dippppy]

Some photos , I hope this works

 

[imtcurveball]

youll catch on to the lingo

 

[melosu58]

Welcome aboard. We are glad you found us here at AA.

 

[Dippppy]

These are some more photos of tank and as you can see the algae is quite bad , just looking for some help really as have upped my water changes to once every 9-10 days, picked it off , reduced lights down to 7-8 hours , and feeding smaller amounts not as often,
But I have heard you can get good algae and wondered if this was some???

 

[tlkng1]

That's hair algae and as you have seen, it can spread and take over pretty quick. Your hermits, especially the red leg, can take care of some of it as long as it is in control but you need to do an initial clean up. Try and pull off as much of it as you can and keep picking at it until your hermits can handle the job.

Check your water paramters. Hair algae tends to grow when there is a high level of Phophates and/or Nitrates.

Do you use Reverse Osmosis/De-Ionized (RO/DI) water for your water changes and evaporation top-offs or local water? RO/DI is purer and the preferred method if you can find it at your LFS (some make the water for sale) or use your own RO/DI unit and then add your salt.

 

[Dippppy]

Tlkng1 thank you for the info and advice, just to let you know I do buy my RO salt water from my lfs, and I do test my own water but after talking to a dude in a different lfs I have now found ,he has advised me that maybe my testing kits are out of date and to take some water in and they will test it for me and give me a print out of all my levels...but in the mean time I will be picking most evening to get algae under control .....prob is tho while in the new lfs I saw this little stunner ..........and the wife said get it soooo I couldn't argue with the wife and brought it

 

[Dippppy]

My new addition.........my red feathered start fish......she is stunning

 

[Flake]

feather stars rarely live long in captivity. They are filter feeders and need a very specialized diet to survive.

 

[Dippppy]

Again being fairly new to this I didnt do my research as I normal would and she was a bit of a impulse buy coz she was so gorgeous but I did buy some food which I got advised by the dude in the lfs its H2 Ocean filter feeder and I have read that they are nocturnal creatures and feed at nite mostly so I'm doing feeding session for her nightly

 

[Dippppy]

Feathered star fish ain't doing to good :-( seems to be falling apart....and I'm gutted as I still think she is stunning.....tried everything 4 diff types of food, day and nite feedings but she just doesn't seem to be feeding at all...well as far as I can see she doesn't :-( .....all water tests are good as get tested in lfs once every two weeks now .....any ideas anybody...???

 

[Dippppy]

My star fish is no more :-( sadly found her with no arms left on the bottom of the new tank this morning ...sad times and all of her legs had turned black so im afraid she has gone to the big marine fish tank in the sky .....even tho she was stunning I dont think I was quite ready for something like that maybe in the future