Algae takeover

[barbtrave]

I have anew tank that has 80 pounds of lie rock in a 75 gallon tank. I've added 3 damsels and all looks good for adding more fish . The algae has gone crazy in my tank on the glass and all over the rock. I scraped it off once but now its on the bottom of the tank from the glass. Do I need to remove it some how? How do I stop this take over. The 2 snails stay on the live rock not on the glass. How do I stop this. Its green fly away algai and red has now started growing. Its long and wavy kind of pretty.

 

[mjvincent]

I would check phosphates as that tends to promote those types of algae... Are you overfeeding? Are you using RO water or tap? These things can all cause higher phosphates... A protein skimmer may help. Also get more snails and some red legged hermit crabs could help too....

 

[austinsdad]

Look up diatoms. Could be some of that in a new tank too. Red my be cyano which could be the phosphate/tap water problem.

Definitely need more snails and hermits.

 

[barbtrave]

I used RO water and have a protein skimmer. Do I try to clean it out by hand? How do you keep the glass clean if the snails and hermit crabs don't do enough. Can you have too many snails?

 

[tmcpeek]

I had the same thing when my tank was new. Pretty normal. I use RO/DI water nad have no phosphates.

Add a few turbo snails and the glass will get cleaned very quickly. I added 12 in my 225 and also have some astrea's and nassarius and my tank stays pretty clean on its own.