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 what is up with this algae?!?!?

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shutterfish

shutterfish


Posts : 180
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Join date : 2011-07-16
Location : Corvallis

what is up with this algae?!?!? Empty
PostSubject: what is up with this algae?!?!?   what is up with this algae?!?!? EmptySun Jan 08, 2012 1:07 am

is this normal?

2 weeks ago I treated my 46 gallon tank with chemiclean bc of another cyano outbreak. I cleared out all of the cyano on the sand and scrubbed what I could off the rocks and then treated and that did a great job. Afterwards I treated with phosguard or one of those phosphorus products.

hen I got home from 6 days away, the tank was fed but not cleaned at all (glass was not cleaned, etc). There wasnt too much algae on the glass which i was impressed about and there's no cyano that I can see. So everything looks great and then I pull the top off my filter. Holy crap there's a FOREST of hair algae in there. I mean, it MAY have been there before I left and I didnt notice it but I thought I cleaned it up with a toothbrush before I left (that COULD have been another tank since I have so many)... anyway, check out the pics... is this someting that can grown that fast? And is it good or bad? I assume it is almost like having a refugium. And when a chunk of it falls into the tank my brown scopis loooooves chowing on it. As does my angel and my clowns.

But I do worry, what is fueling this growth and do I have a huge issue here? I have the following in the tank- 2 ocellaris clowns, 2 cardinal fish, 1 coral beauty, 1 scopis tang, 1 6 line wrasse. I have an aquamaxx 1000 or something like that- the blue HOB skimmer, a marineland filter... I feed up to one cube of frozen food a day or some pellets, plus now some nori since I added the tang (problems happened before the tang though... tang is about 2 months in this tank). Sometimes I rinse the food first, sometimes i throw the cube in frozen. I dont feel like i overfeed...

any thoughts? I do have low ph in this tank too (about 7.9). I have high lighting (2x250 DE halide 20k + 1 10k T5HO and 1 Actinic T5HO) but just reduced from 14k bulbs about 1 or 2 months ago.

anyway, i just have never seen algae like this and wonder what y'all think...

what is up with this algae?!?!? IMAG1351

what is up with this algae?!?!? IMAG1352

what is up with this algae?!?!? IMAG1350



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badxgillen

badxgillen


Posts : 2139
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Join date : 2011-07-14
Location : Corvallis Oregon

what is up with this algae?!?!? Empty
PostSubject: Re: what is up with this algae?!?!?   what is up with this algae?!?!? EmptySun Jan 08, 2012 1:14 am

i have the exact same thing with my Aqueon 55 in my main tank .its an algae scrubber on a small scale.the algae is eating the nutrients in the water so this is benificiary.just harvest it when its overgrown and you should be good.natural nitrate andphosphate reduction Very Happy
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shutterfish

shutterfish


Posts : 180
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Join date : 2011-07-16
Location : Corvallis

what is up with this algae?!?!? Empty
PostSubject: Re: what is up with this algae?!?!?   what is up with this algae?!?!? EmptySun Jan 08, 2012 1:19 am

saweeet! That's what I was hoping. Awesome. And when I harvest I can feed it to my tang (or will it be loaded with phosphate and put it back into the system?)... or whenever a chunk slides into the tank which happened today and set off a feeding frenzy Smile
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mvpaquatics

mvpaquatics


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Join date : 2011-09-14
Age : 39
Location : Portland

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PostSubject: Re: what is up with this algae?!?!?   what is up with this algae?!?!? EmptySun Jan 08, 2012 2:26 am

I would not feed that in a display tank. They tear it apart. It float around, gets stuck in rock or pumps, takes a foothold, and boom. You now have hair algae
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http://www.mvpaquariummaintenance.com
shutterfish

shutterfish


Posts : 180
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Join date : 2011-07-16
Location : Corvallis

what is up with this algae?!?!? Empty
PostSubject: Re: what is up with this algae?!?!?   what is up with this algae?!?!? EmptySun Jan 08, 2012 2:32 am

it appeared out of nowhere and that is IN my display tank. I havent added anything to that tank- aside from the tang and feeding it nori for the past 2 months (and not much nori)- and this happened after the treatment of chemiclean. So is it ok to keep in the filter? It will fall right into the tank when it lets go like I saw some do today. But the tang had eaten all the macro algae in my tank (hooray!) and it is on the prowl for greenery. That being said, i dont want hair algae all over my tank
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badxgillen

badxgillen


Posts : 2139
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Location : Corvallis Oregon

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PostSubject: Re: what is up with this algae?!?!?   what is up with this algae?!?!? EmptyMon Jan 09, 2012 2:21 am

MVP is right in the fact that it is possible for the hair lagae to find a dead spot and start a little patch there as there is obviously the nutrients to support it.in this situation the filter is acting as a more desirable terrain for the nondesireable algae and there it resides instead of your tank.it can be a fine line being so conected to your tank so i recomend harvesting as much as you can without letting it fall into the tank if you are going to keep it running as it is.you seem to be one who doesnt like risks with algae so this may not be for you but i have seen a couple of real succesfull algae scrubbers and the principle is sound when you think about it.once again i didnt provide you with a definate answer.sorry man. Rolling Eyes
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theRedSkull

theRedSkull


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Age : 42
Location : Corvallis, OR

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PostSubject: Re: what is up with this algae?!?!?   what is up with this algae?!?!? EmptyTue Jan 10, 2012 1:26 am

if its working and not a problem id let it ride, i like a more hands off approach myself...
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burningbaal




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Join date : 2011-09-08
Age : 38
Location : NW Corvallis

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PostSubject: Re: what is up with this algae?!?!?   what is up with this algae?!?!? EmptyWed Jan 11, 2012 8:38 pm

I'll be incorporating an algae scrubber into my future sump...pretty much the same idea, I'd do the 'harvest' with a siphon tube to limit how much gets free and dumped into the tank (the water current will tend to pull the stray bits into the tube)...I would harvest it, but I wouldn't freak out about it.
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