# algae driving me crazy :)



## jj_applejack (Dec 5, 2007)

1) Size of the aquarium 29 galons (tall) with 30 pounds of live rock, 1 & 1/2 inches of sand.

2) 2 clown fish, about two inches in length, 5 hermit crabs, 3 snales, 1 Shrimp deep red in clour about 3 inches in legth and hides under rock all the time until it's feeding time.

3) Eclipse filtartion, with bio wheel

4) Lighting info 2 T8, 18 watts (standard day light bulbs that come with eclipse kit), I leave the lights on for about 12 hours most days

5) Water tests I have taken are normal, except ph was low, so I added Marine buffer to raise the ph to 8.3 brand name is Seachem, use a water conditoner called AquaSafe made by TeraQqua, Salt gravity level is 1.021 last time i tested it a couple of weeks ago, temp of the water is around 70

6) I have red/brown or red/purple algae (some of it is long and stringy looking)growing on the sand and on the live rock. The cleaning crew I have is not eating the algae fast enough. It does not bother me algae is growing on the live rock, but what can I do about the sand? Is their any algae eating fish, that could take care of the little mess I have?


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## Grey Legion (Mar 20, 2006)

It's not Algae it's bacteria and nothing will eat it. Remove as much as you can when you can, and try to put some flow on trouble area's. As time goes on it should run it's course and start to diminish.


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

More flow will help as well as adding a few to the "janitorial" crew. The following should help:

1x serpent starfish
1x Nassaius snail. The largish ones that are beige and cream colored and bury themselves in the sandbed. I know Sea U Marine has them in stock.

JME/HTH


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## Rodeo (May 5, 2006)

What you are having is cyano bacteria which is also called red slime. It will be hard to remove the natural way. Cleaning and frequent water changes might help if you disagree to use any medication. I use chemiclean or red slime remover which is safe for corals after a three month battle trying to get rid of them the natural way.


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

One thing that has slipped by the ol' mellon is the age of the set-up. Cyano outbreaks are part of the "breaking in" of the system. One of my set-ups after almost a year had it's first cyano outbreak. It's been 2 months of fighting it on a weekly basis and evey week it's slowly backing off. Just keep an eye on phoshpate and nitrate as well as using phosphate removing media and carbon and change them regularly.

JME


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