My tank is a wreck

[AlexKilpatrick]

I'm back from Jordan, finally, and after a month of absence my tank is a real mess. When I left, I had just LR and it looked fine. Now I have LR that is covered by nasty hair algae, some of it six inches long.

It looks like my skimmer suffered from lack of cleaning, so that was the first thing I remedied. I'm hoping that will help fairly quickly. The tank is also about 87 degrees, so I ordered a chiller. I'm also planning to leave off the lights for a couple of days. I don't have any corals to worry about, so I hope that will do a good job of nuking the hair algae.

Any other ideas to help me remedy this quickly? I'm not feeding the tank at all, so I have no idea where the hair algae is getting nutrients to grow.

Alex

[Reef69]

IMO..I would do a big water change, good amount of water out. Syphon all that algea out, set your skimmer back up, if the parameters are right, a good cleaning crew would do a good job.

[::pete::]

Any live stock in the tank? How "live" is the rock?

If there is nothing to worry about as far as the rock goes cut off all light for a few days with some black garbage bags after manually cleaning out what you can.

[Reef69]

id say a cleaning crew would eat all the algea he cant get rid off, plus it will keep the growth under control.

[cailan]

get a few big turbos. i had a 30 gallon up for several months with no snails and alot of hair algae. I got a yellow tang and he did a pretty good job- finally got around to getting some snails and they made a pretty big dent in the algae growing all over the back of the tank. i can actually see through the back of the tank now!

[GaryP]

Turbos will go a good job on glass but IMO other snails and especially hermits are better for cleaning LR. It sounds like the tank cycled while you were gone.

Here's what I would suggest. Unless you are running 400 watt MH I don't think a chiller is necessary. There are a lot better things you can use your money on. I think cooling fans are adequate for anything less. Do go ahead and do a SERIES of 20-30 water changes. Clean your skimmer once a week. Use some sort of physical filtration, perhaps a filter sock. Change it out once a week. Add a clean up crew consisting of a variety of snails (astea, cerith, nerite) and micro blue leg hermits. Tangs or a foxface will help with the really long stuff but hermits will eat it down to the rock. I don't feel that turning off the lights is all the helpful. I think the hair algae will just sit there and wait you out unless you are going to do it for months. I don't know of many people that paitent. If you can take the rock out, then clean it in a bucket of salt water with a tooth brush. Run carbon and phosphate absorber to remove the nutrients that are causing the growth. Change it out weekly.

[AlexKilpatrick]

I have always been a chiller-skeptic, but I have a couple of fans and this tank is still staying arounf 86 in a house that is 76. (checked with 2 thermometers). I'm running 3 250 W HQIs, and a pretty good-sized return, so I guess that is what does it. I'm hoping a chiller will just keep the temperature stable, and I would just as soon not be filling up my freshwater reservoir every week anyway.

And I assume you mean 20-30 gallon water changes, not 20-30 water changes? :-)

I just started the phosphate absorber. I had to run my RO/DI without the RO for a while, and I guess that may have introduced some phosphates.

Thanks for the tips.

[Instar]

Alex - don't beat your head against the wall. There is nothing you can do to hurry the normal cycling of a tank and live rock. You have to get through all the algae cycles and the last bad one before coraline starts to grow is hair algae. No amount of remedies will side step this. Water changes are a good idea now that the tank is cycled because it will bring trace elements and buffers back into balance. Then, to get rid of the algaes, some animals to eat it will be your best friend. No light or other extremes are not the answer. You should (or can) however be running low output actinic lights 24/7 now with carbon if you want to get the coraline up and growing. This is possible considering you have no corals. Algae munching critters combined with low output actinics and carbon will get that coraline up pretty fast after you do the water change.
In regard to fans for cooling, thats what I use. Works great if positioned correctly. I use one under the tank to blow the heat from the refugium light away and one on the tank brace to blow light heat away. Temp is always what I set the heater at up to 79F. so long as I climate control the house.

Running a DI without the RO part blows the DI cartidge. You will have to replace that one now. And it will also blow your membrane if you ran water through it without the filters in place and if thats the case, you have probably ruined your unit completely doing that. Chlorine from the water gets to the membrane and eats it away so it becomes useless very fast. Such a unit will ruin the DI cartridge in a few gallons of water passage.

[AlexKilpatrick]

Running a DI without the RO part blows the DI cartidge. You will have to replace that one now.

Shoot. I didn't know that. Oh well, it was due for a replacement anyway. Thanks for the info. That probably means my top-off water is quite a bit less than ideal.

I understand what you are saying about using fans, but it just doesn't seem to be working for me. The tank I have has a pretty open canopy, but it still retains a ton of heat, even with fans. I left the lights off for an entire day, and it has only dropped one degree. And as it is, I am evaporating about 8 gallons a week. I sure don't want to evaporate more if I can help it.

[GaryP]

What's the cfm rating of your fans? I was having similar problems with heat. I replaced the four 30 cfm fans with four 100 cfm fans and my problem was immediately solved. I was running the four fans 24/7 and still not able to keep up with it. Now I just run 2 of them on a timer with the MH bulbs. The other two are for high heat problems I occur in the spring and fall when the windows are open and its more humid in the house.

Remember, its not necessarily the temp inside the house as much as it is the humidity that is sometimes the major problem with temp control. The tank cools itself by evaporation. If the humidity is high, evaporations slows and cooling is less effiient. The only way to solve that is by moving more air. When I have a problem I just plug in my spare set of fans and I see an almost immediste decrease in temp as a result. Yes, I do lose water as a result, but water is a lot cheaper than electricity and those fans use a lot less electricity than a chiller. You can also get the variable speed fans that have a thermostat tied to a rheostat. They increase their speed when the temp goes up. I have also seen computer cooling fans that are adjustable. They have a manual adjustment that allows you to increase/decrease the fan speed.

[AlexKilpatrick]

You bring up an interesting issue. I have always wondered whether it is actually cheaper to run a chiller, or to drop your house down to the temperature needed to keep the tank cool. Even though chillers are inefficient, it is going to be cheaper to drop your tank 5 degrees than it is to drop your entire house 5 degrees. I guess it all depends on what temperature you are keeping your house at. If you don't have to drop your house temp, then the evaporation is free for you (except for the time it takes you to refill your top-off).

With me right now it isn't a cost issue. (we'll see if that changes when I figure out the actual cost to run a chiller) I don't want the noise of 4 100 cfm fans -- my tank is already too noisy. The chiller will be somewhere else where the noise won't matter. Also, I don't want to be replacing 10 gallons of top-off water every week. I don't mind tank maintenance, but I want to avoid carrying buckets around if I can. Because of where my tank is, I can't automate the top-off repleneishment.

[GaryP]

Also, I don't want to be replacing 10 gallons of top-off water every week. I don't mind tank maintenance, but I want to avoid carrying buckets around if I can. Because of where my tank is, I can't automate the top-off repleneishment.

Between my 125 and 75 gal. I use about 5-6 gal. per day of top off water. I use 6 gal. camping water jugs from Wal-Mart or Academy. They have a spout on them and are convenient for adding water. I also use them as a way to pre-dilute my additives such as calcium and buffer.

Noise is definitely a down side for fans. I can't hear anything in my living room over the noise of the parrots so its not a big issue for me anyway. There are some that are quieter than others but if that is your main concern, then you are probably better off with a chiller. I would recommend you oversize the chiller. The price difference between a 1/4, 1/3, and 1/2 hp. is not that much and that will allow you to use it on a larger tank if you decide to upgrade in the future.

[matt]

And as it is, I am evaporating about 8 gallons a week. I sure don't want to evaporate more if I can help it.

How big is your tank? On my 110, I evaporated at least 15-20 gallons a week. Unless you're talking about a very small tank, 8 gallons/week is not much, and is an indication that you could really increase evaporative cooling. I think humidity in the house is a bigger factor in slowing down evaporation in the tank than house temperature. My tank temp would shoot up during periods of high humidity.

My guess is that the algae is the result of residual die-off and curing off the rock; probably being fueled somewhat by less than perfect top-off. In addition to the earlier comments, I'd suggest using kalkwasser as top-off; the high ph and carbonate hardness will tend to discourage hair algae and promote coralline. I'd keep your lights going, let the algae consume excess nutrients in the tank, manually removing as much as you can, and the hardest part, be patient for the system to balance out. If you cut off the lights, the system will just have to re-balance when you turn 'em back on.

[NaCl_H2O]

I'd keep your lights going, let the algae consume excess nutrients in the tank, manually removing as much as you can, and the hardest part, be patient for the system to balance out. If you cut off the lights, the system will just have to re-balance when you turn 'em back on.

Absolutely agree! It is a cycle that needs to run its course. "Killing" (that's not really possible) the algae will just release more nutrients into the water column for a MASSIVE bloom when they come back on someday!

[GaryP]

"Killing" (that's not really possible) the algae will just release more nutrients into the water column for a MASSIVE bloom when they come back on someday!

Alex,

That is exactly what I called nutrient cycling in last month's presentation on nuisance algae control. I wish you could have been there for it. One thing I do, and was doing this AM as a matter of fact, is put in a sock filter when I am cleaning a tank. That helps "harvest" the algae that is being cleaned. The algae caught in the filter is "exported" out of the system and and this helps limit cycling.

I have been fighting a weird turf algae problem for the last several months. As a result of using phosguard very heavily I have noticed an increase in diatoms in my tank. Phosguard does have a tendency to leach silicates into the water and silicates are a nutrient for diatoms. So, I traded one algae problem for another. I'd rather have the diatoms though. They are a lot easier to deal with. Now that the turf algae is under control I can reduce my phosguard usage and control phosphates with Kalk and the diatoms will slowly go away. The sock filter does a good job of removing the diatoms that are in the water after I clean the glass.

[gjuarez]

If the tank is still cycling, I would let it cycle. How long has this tank been running? If it is already cycled, I would do weekly water changes to decrease nutrients in the water and let the algae starve to death.

[AlexKilpatrick]

I haven't tested it, but it should be cycled. It had been set up for about two months.

Just getting the skimmer back up and running has helped. A lot of the hair algae is starting to detach on its own. I'm using a filter sock, and I will do water changes as soon as I get a new RO membrane.

Thanks again for all the helpful advice.

[Dozer]

Alex- If you've got some containers or buckets or something come over and I'll give you some RO water. I should be home Monday.

Also, I may be ordering some filters and things, so if you place an online order let me know and we can split the shipping if you want...

[AlexKilpatrick]

Mike,

Thanks a lot for the generous offer, but I don't think it is worth the trouble. I'll have my RO cartridge in a couple of days (already ordered). My tank is stable in its wretchedness, and a couple of extra days is not going to make a difference.

Also, my tank is 180 gallons, so it would take 4 buckets just to make a 10% water change. That's a lot of water to be driving around with. :-)

Alex

[AlexKilpatrick]

Hey everyone, thanks for all the advice. About half my hair algae has turned white, and it is coming off very easily in clumps. Here is what I did so far -- I don't know which part was the most effective since I did it all at once:

- Cleaned the skimmer. It produced a lot for 2 days, and then stopped. My guess is that is because I have no bioload
- Started dosing kalk (had been meaning to do this for a while)
- Added a phosphate sponge (2 days)
- Added carbon (2 daya)

I have been blasting the hair algae with a powerhead and it comes off and makes a big storm. I scoop up as much as I can with a net, and the test gets caught in a filter sock in the return (or falls to the bottom to get vacuumed later)

Hopefully in a couple of weeks I will be back to where I was a month ago. <sigh>

[GaryP]

Whatever you are doing, its working. Good job and congrats.

[AlexKilpatrick]

Oh yeah, and I also poured in a liter of Vodka.

:-)

[GaryP]

In for a penny, in for a liter.

[matt]

Oh yeah, and I also poured in a liter of Vodka.

:-)

I imagine you're kidding about this, but there recently (in the last couple of years, anyhow) was a European study about the addition of alcohol to aquariums for nitrate reduction, I think. I'm sure you could find something about it archived on reefcentral. It raised a big stir when it came out; I'm certainly not suggesting that you actually dump booze in your tank!

Have fun
Matt