Algae Help

[EtxReefer]

Wondering what my best course of action is to get these rocks and sand cleaned up.

Background on tank: 75 gallon, 10 months running. Started with dry rock(wish I hadn’t). The ugly phase was rough and I feel like I’m mostly out. Running a skimmer 24/7 and have what is probably too much chaeto now in the sump. Roughly a dozen red legs and 5 turbo snails for cuc.

Nitrates have been undetectable for 3 weeks now no matter how much I feed (Salifert).

Phos was .04 (Hanna).

Should I just beef the cuc or is there something else I’m missing?

 

[mmorrison55]

Thought I saw some bubbles, but after looking close, I think it’s just hair algae.

If you do see green bubbles, get some emerald crabs. They eat it up.

For hair algae, your turbo snails should help, but may need to add some urchins. Also what fish species do you have? Rabbit fish,

Any corals? You could always try chemiclean, a lot of people report success with it.

 

[Boehmtown]

You need considerable more cleanup Crew. Like 1 a gallon. All different sizes and jobs. Same and Rick can't grow anything if it's getting moved around and walked through constantly .

 

[EtxReefer]

Thought I saw some bubbles, but after looking close, I think it’s just hair algae.

If you do see green bubbles, get some emerald crabs. They eat it up.

For hair algae, your turbo snails should help, but may need to add some urchins. Also what fish species do you have? Rabbit fish,

Any corals? You could always try chemiclean, a lot of people report success with it.

No rabbit fish as I didn’t want to rehome since it’s just a 75 gallon. Definitely no bubble algae in the tank. I have some easy corals like Duncan, mushrooms, Xenia, and monti.

I forgot, I am running rox carbon as of last week as well.

 

[EtxReefer]

You need considerable more cleanup Crew. Like 1 a gallon. All different sizes and jobs. Same and Rick can't grow anything if it's getting moved around and walked through constantly .

Any specific recommendations? Was going to make another order to reef cleaners this week. Looking at blue legs, a few more turbos, astraeas, and a couple of conchs.

 

[Danroo]

That’s ulva algae. Spreads like crazy and is a form of macro algae. Reduce your feeding and it’ll go away on its own.

 

[Boehmtown]

More variety the better, but conchs, Mexican turbos, emerald crabs and blue legs are my personal favourite.

 

[EtxReefer]

That’s ulva algae. Spreads like crazy and is a form of macro algae. Reduce your feeding and it’ll go away on its own.

Will do, thank you.

 

[slingfox]

As noted above. More CUC and variety. I would not add any more turbo snails. You have enough of those for that size of tank. Turbo snails are voracious algae eaters but they also can get very large so I would lean towards smaller snails for that size tank. You could also add one or two tuxedo urchins to a tank that size.

Believe it or not your tank still looks very new. That means you may still have a lot of uglies ahead. Stick with it and eventually coraline algae should takeover. If you don’t have any growing by month 10 you may want to go get some rock or coral frags with coraline algae to make sure your tank is seeded with it.

 

[JonasRoman]

Wondering what my best course of action is to get these rocks and sand cleaned up.

Background on tank: 75 gallon, 10 months running. Started with dry rock(wish I hadn’t). The ugly phase was rough and I feel like I’m mostly out. Running a skimmer 24/7 and have what is probably too much chaeto now in the sump. Roughly a dozen red legs and 5 turbo snails for cuc.

Nitrates have been undetectable for 3 weeks now no matter how much I feed (Salifert).

Phos was .04 (Hanna).

Should I just beef the cuc or is there something else I’m missing?

The low nitrate is probably because algue consume it. Its impossible and also wrong way AMO to starve algue. You can't because other creatures like the zooxanthelle yiu do not want to starve so some N and P must exist. And slightest N and P and algue can growth. So when you have algue, do not focus so much in parameters but instead cleaning crew.
The algue on the rock is thriving as they now has no competition. That the problem with starting with dead rock. The have and advantage.
I would advice you to buy more clean up crew of different kind. 2 sea urchins is one of the best cleaner that exist. They can almost polish the hardest surfaces. I have 2 since 1.5 years and my stone, which also was artifical, looks like LS direct from a reef.

I have the Tuxedo. They do not eat so much calcareous algue.

Jonas