KTLW Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 I am fairly new to salt water tanks and I need some advice on algae. I have a 33ga tank that has been running for roughly two months. I have some live rock, mushrooms, xenia, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 clown fish & 1 Yellow Tang. I first started to get a brown algae all over the live sand, some of it went away but then I started to notice in the back of the tank that the algae was turning a reddish color. Then two days ago a notice in the front a small patch of a blackish algae but this algae had as my son explains it "little hairs" growing from it. I did a water test and everything was perfect & I am doing a 10% water change every two weeks. Is this normal or do I have a problem on my hands? If this is a problem, how can I fix it? If this is normal, how much longer will this last? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NonSequitur Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Sounds a lot like cyanobacteria to me.. I'm fighting with the same thing. The suggestions that have been made to me are: increase water flow to the covered areas, replace light bulbs if older than 6-9 months or so, less food less often (every other day). I'm sure I'm forgetting something that others will add. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrispar Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 sounds also like the lil brown algea on your substrate is Diatoms, mine took care of themselves after i changed the bulb in my MH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mFrame Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 3 days of darkness followed by a water change, siphoning up all the cyano you can, and adding flow. Adding flow can be achieved with more powerheads, rearranging rock so that flow from the powerheads is not blocked, and cleaning your powers heads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diabeetus Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 it might be cyano bacteria from the live sand. when you buy live sand, there is more dead organisms than live so that bacteria is feeding algae to grow. also cyano bacteria could be in living among the dead in your sand and is toxic to fish.this is a more serious case than what you are explaining in the above posts, but if you cant find the problem and it is getting worse, i would take the tank apart, remove all the live sand and put crushed coral as your subtrate after rinsing thoroughly. and also add more live rock to enhance your biological filtration. (only do this if you have to; it is a huge hassel, especially if unnecessary) good luck -Corey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrispar Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 thats exactly why i was told to use the CC over the live sand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diabeetus Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 ALSO...if it is cyano bacteria if you were to stir up the sand or scrub it off the rocks in the water it will spread like wildfire!! this is because of the floating particles caused by doing so will...well, spread it around the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JEN H Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 We have breakouts of cyano every now and then. We find the changing the way our water is moving help. We also cut out the lights a little early and try to reduce the feeding....and a water change. It seems to be something that doesn't really ever go away. We thought that some small conchs that may eat cyano were in our tank, but they seem to like the other kinds of algae better. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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