MapleReefer
New Member
Hello!
I'm following up on a previous post, where I described some brownish/greenish algae that's growing and seemingly aggravating my hammer coral. It hasn't fully opened in quite some time now, and keeps losing tissue at its base. I'm not sure if I'm even starting to see the skeleton below the 'flesh' of the coral (see pictures below).
A turkey baster helps a bit: some of the algae comes off in big stringy clumps, but sometimes it seems to just really stay stuck to the rocks.
For background, I have a 12gal aquarium, with 2 clowns, 2 nerite snails, and 1 hammer coral. I also rencently noticed (~14 days ago) a bunch of copepods on the glass of my tank, I'm guessing they came from LFS water when I added the coral or clowns in early-May.
I use an AI Prime 16HD light, with a 10hr total light cycle, including 1hr ramp-up, and 1hr ramp-down. UV & violet are set to 140%, royal & blue set to 115%, green & red set to 5%, and cool white set to 6%.
I do have some phosphates detectable (~0.07 mg/l PO4 according to Aquaforest kit) which I'm working on lowering with Brightwell Phosphat-E slowly in a very small micron filter sock.
It seems to me like the nerites don't like this algae, as they don't really do much to clean it up, and it keeps growing.
The clowns seem happy, normal behaviour and eating. And the water column is clear (thanks to the copepods I'm sure).
I should also add, that the same algae (visually-looking) is growing a bit in the rear sump (I have an AIO, and the rear sump is open, so some light gets in). It's a lot less, but some is attached to the top of the heater.
I realize that this could just be part of the 'ugly phase' but I feel bad for the struggling coral, and also want to see what invert could be most helpful for this situation.
Looking for any advice you may have on what I can do to try and clean things up, especially save the hammer. Many thanks in advance!
I'm following up on a previous post, where I described some brownish/greenish algae that's growing and seemingly aggravating my hammer coral. It hasn't fully opened in quite some time now, and keeps losing tissue at its base. I'm not sure if I'm even starting to see the skeleton below the 'flesh' of the coral (see pictures below).
A turkey baster helps a bit: some of the algae comes off in big stringy clumps, but sometimes it seems to just really stay stuck to the rocks.
For background, I have a 12gal aquarium, with 2 clowns, 2 nerite snails, and 1 hammer coral. I also rencently noticed (~14 days ago) a bunch of copepods on the glass of my tank, I'm guessing they came from LFS water when I added the coral or clowns in early-May.
I use an AI Prime 16HD light, with a 10hr total light cycle, including 1hr ramp-up, and 1hr ramp-down. UV & violet are set to 140%, royal & blue set to 115%, green & red set to 5%, and cool white set to 6%.
I do have some phosphates detectable (~0.07 mg/l PO4 according to Aquaforest kit) which I'm working on lowering with Brightwell Phosphat-E slowly in a very small micron filter sock.
It seems to me like the nerites don't like this algae, as they don't really do much to clean it up, and it keeps growing.
The clowns seem happy, normal behaviour and eating. And the water column is clear (thanks to the copepods I'm sure).
I should also add, that the same algae (visually-looking) is growing a bit in the rear sump (I have an AIO, and the rear sump is open, so some light gets in). It's a lot less, but some is attached to the top of the heater.
I realize that this could just be part of the 'ugly phase' but I feel bad for the struggling coral, and also want to see what invert could be most helpful for this situation.
Looking for any advice you may have on what I can do to try and clean things up, especially save the hammer. Many thanks in advance!
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