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algae emergency!

mcmusashi5

GPO
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Jul 27, 2009
Messages
120
im kinda worried. you see there has been a weird looking algae. i hope its nit bubble algae check it out. tell me what to do
 

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Photos don't help a lot to identify this problem unfortunately so a clear description of what concerns you needs to be included. The brown just looks like normal brown algae to me (natural for a new tank and never quite goes away) but I am not clear if the white dots are air bubbles or something else. The bubble algae that I am familiar with is very identifiable as round green balls. It is a nusience but managable with care. Adding a clean up crew will help keep the rock looking nice once you have a decent cycle started. Unfortunately, one of the best rock cleaners are urchins but they are not octo compatible. I usually borrow a couple of pin cushion urchins from one of my non-octo tanks between octopuses to reduce the coraline and clean up the rocks.

I know you are trying to get clear pictures of the problem but you need to leave the rock in the water and let it cycle. If you can't get good pictures when you need them, put it in tank water in another container but don't leave it out once you have started your tank.
 
dwhatley;140022 said:
Photos don't help a lot to identify this problem unfortunately so a clear description of what concerns you needs to be included. The brown just looks like normal brown algae to me (natural for a new tank and never quite goes away) but I am not clear if the white dots are air bubbles or something else. The bubble algae that I am familiar with is very identifiable as round green balls. It is a nusience but managable with care. Adding a clean up crew will help keep the rock looking nice once you have a decent cycle started. Unfortunately, one of the best rock cleaners are urchins but they are not octo compatible. I usually borrow in a couple of pin cushion urchins from one of my non-octo tanks between octopuses to reduce the coraline and clean up the rocks.

I know you are trying to get clear pictures of the problem but you need to leave the rock in the water and let it cycle. If you can't get good pictures when you need them, put it in tank water in another container but don't leave it out once you have started your tank.
thanks for the help and the bubbles are oxygen from the pump
 
From my experience, to get rid of, or at least substantially reduce algae, you use coralline to outcompete it. Letting coralline algae fight the battle for you is so much easier than all the other methods. Of course to do this, you need make sure your calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, pH and lighting are all adequate for the coralline to lay down calcium (sounds harder than it is). Nuisance algae very rarely grows on top of coralline algae, not sure why. but it's what I've noticed.

Another option is to use lots of macro algae to steal nutrients from the nuisance algae.


Of course, there may be an underlying problem as well. What are your nitrates at?
 
No need to worry, that is all normal when cycling a tank. Bubble will get stuck under the algae and look worse than it is. A couple of small turbo snails will help clean it up!

Make sure you are doing regular water changes b/c live rock will have a good bit of die off when cycling a tank, it will mature much faster with regular water changes.

Bubble algae looks like larger green bubble that are separate from each other and grow out from the rock. I will see if I can find an example to post later!!
 

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