Cleaning live rock help!!!

[FishyFrick31]

How's everyone doing?


I'm new to this. Though I have years of experience with fish working in pet stores etc. this is personally my first time working on a reef tank.

A few questions for you about live rock etc.....

1.) how do you clean the algae off of live rock?
2.) what do you advise cleaning a live rock with?
3.) what if the live rock has corals on it?
4.) how often do you usually clean live rock?
5.) what types of organisms are best for cleaning liverock in a reef tank??

If you guys can give me personal advice or send me any how to videos that you think would greatly help me out with any or all of these questions I would really appreciate it.

 

[tonedogz]

How's everyone doing?


I'm new to this. Though I have years of experience with fish working in pet stores etc. this is personally my first time working on a reef tank.

A few questions for you about live rock etc.....

1.) how do you clean the algae off of live rock?
2.) what do you advise cleaning a live rock with?
3.) what if the live rock has corals on it?
4.) how often do you usually clean live rock?
5.) what types of organisms are best for cleaning liverock in a reef tank??

If you guys can give me personal advice or send me any how to videos that you think would greatly help me out with any or all of these questions I would really appreciate it.

I simply use a fingernail brush to take off any algae along with a bucket of clean saltwater you can also swish the rock around to get out any debris that may have accumulated in the rock

 

[mr_X]

I just keep the water as clean as possible and feed sparingly/reasonably, and the algae disappears on it's own. I never scrub my live rock with any type of tool. Keeping the water void(or as close as possible) of nutrients will limit algae growth. I have no algae at all on the rock in my tank. Except for some coralline of course.
As far as debris on the rock, I try to keep the flow on the high side to limit that, and when doing a water change I gently wave my hand over the rock to make a strong wave to stir that stuff up. It's mostly fish poop that's landed on my monti capricornis colonies that I do it for. I don't see a lot of stuff coming up off of the rock.

 

[FishyFrick31]

I just keep the water as clean as possible and feed sparingly/reasonably, and the algae disappears on it's own. I never scrub my live rock with any type of tool. Keeping the water void(or as close as possible) of nutrients will limit algae growth. I have no algae at all on the rock in my tank. Except for some coralline of course.
As far as debris on the rock, I try to keep the flow on the high side to limit that, and when doing a water change I gently wave my hand over the rock to make a strong wave to stir that stuff up. It's mostly fish poop that's landed on my monti capricornis colonies that I do it for. I don't see a lot of stuff coming up off of the rock.

Sooo your saying the algae that is on my rocks now will go away? It's not gonna stay there and slowly get bigger? And when you have debris on the rock do you shake it in the tank or in a bucket? And how do you get all the debris out of the tank? I feel like the filter isn't enough to keep the tank clean.

 

[mr_X]

It will go away if your nutrient levels are low. I don't get debris on my rock. I have adequate flow in the tank to limit this. Power heads serve 2 purposes: One is to provide corals with adequate flow, and the other is to keep the tank healthy by keeping detritus (uneaten fish food and poop) suspended in the water column long enough for your filtration to remove it.
The rock in the pictures on your other thread came from a nutrient rich environment. You've got to correct that or you'll always have algae problems, snails, crabs, and urchins, or not.

 

[saltcreep1025]

What kind of algae is it?

 

[FishyFrick31]

What kind of algae is it?

Still green hair