algae...

[Fish_fanatic]

Other then looking horrible in the tank, will too much algea compromise the quality of my water or health of my fish.

I have tons of brown, and redish/pink algae, just wondering if I should be concerned. Most of the redish algea is all over my sand bed, and I was wondering if there was any type of invert. that eats this stuff.

-Thanks

[melosu58]

How often are you feeding. Something is feeding this stuff.

[Fish_fanatic]

I feed once a day

[melosu58]

Need to feed every other day. Been doing this in my tank for several years with no algea outbreaks. The fish will be fine.

[haus]

I went from feeding once per day to once every other day with great success in cutting down algae. There is still algae growth, so I am considering every three days. How long are your lights on per day? That has a lot to do with algae growth too.

[seaham358]

Have you tested your water? Phosphates, nitrates..
Red algae on the sand sounds like cyno bacteria to me.. What type of water are you using?
I tried lots of inverts and none ate it to the point that it went away. PO4 needs to be checked.
is it slimy to the touch and east to blow off the sand? if so Cyno...Do a search on the site there are hundreds of posts on cyno or red slime.
Feeding once a day is fine, just don't over feed.

Water... Tap or ro/do or other??

[Fish_fanatic]

I use ro water and I am currently in the process of doing 15% water changes every other day to get my nitrates down b/c they are currently at 30. I also removed my biowheel in hopes that it would cut down on nitrates.

My lighting runs for 10 hours a day ( only 8 hours of full day light) and i have 192 watts running on this 33 gallon tank, should the running time be less?

The red on the sand does not easily blow off, instead it sort of clumps my sand together. Oh and I dont have a PO4 test kit, are they nessisary?

Any further help would be great cause all of the brown on the glass and red on the sand is making my tank quite ugly

Oh and on a quick other note, Last wednesday i bought a leather frag but it did not survive and I took it out today. Could this be b/c of my Nitrates?

-Thanks

Are you sure that the leather died. I have a leather in my tank that I thought was a slumped over goner only to have the polyps extend today, to my surprise. Leathers are really tough

[Fish_fanatic]

Ohhh, and one last question, Can most corals tolerate nitrate levels of about 30?

[schoeplein]

Most corals wont propagate normally with nitrates over 20. With that little water you should be able to swap out 2-3 gallons every week fairly easily. This is the only sure-fire way of reducing nitrates (other than feeding less, or removing fish). This will also help with your cyano and brown (diatom) algae. Brown algae is generally a sign of a new system. It will go away naturally after the beneficial bacteria builds up.

Is your tank's temperature stable? 33g can change dramatically from night-to-day. Try and keep it between 78-82. Temperature swings can spark the entry for cyano - a clean tank can keep it from coming back.

[Fish_fanatic]

Yea my daytime temp gets to 82 and night temp is about 78. Thanks for all the info. I plan to do 5 gallon changes every other day to get the nitrates down, then go to once a week water changes.

[schoeplein]

If your max temp reaches the same temp every day, try raising your bottom-end temperature to reduce the sway -- say 80-82 instead of 78-82. I'm holding mine pretty constant at 81°F day and night. Its the *only* thing I did to rid myself of Cyano (no additives, no excessive water changes, no reduced lighting, already feed every other day -- heck, I'm not even skimming my water). HTH

[Fish_fanatic]

Alright I'll try that, thanks for all the help

[seaham358]

A PO4 test kit is needed of your having algae issues, you need to test for PO4 and nitrate, silicate can also be a problem.
Ro water can have po4 in it if the water source has it because the membrane does no remove po4 or nitrates. So testing top off water would be a good idea as well as tank.

Never heard that temp swings had anything to do with cyno before? got any reading on this to pass around.. I'd like to read up on that..

I used to have red algae problems. Some of them even grew up to about 2 inches in clumps. My live sand was covered with these slime looking red algae thingies. However, I noticed that if I get direct sunlight, I get red algae even more.

I kept the tank away from direct sunlight, changed the fluorescent bulb to Coralife 50/50 6000K output. Then had hermit crabs, a choc star, and turbo snails to clean up stuff from the ground and the rocks.

The red stuff went away. Now, I only have green stuff...light green algae about 1/8 - 1/2 inch long so far. I don't know how to get rid of them.