The "Uglies"...how long did you have them?
- Thread starter jgvergo
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Maintain nutrients and run some GAC. Don't use any other form of nutrient export. It'll clear up.
I had the normal algae uglies and then came dinos.... I fought it with h2o2 and a turkey baster. It took 2-3 weeks but I won. Then I had a gha outbreak which I again I used h2o2 to battle. Again I won. From that point on my tank has really cleaned up.
I have no algae growing anywhere on my rock or sand. My glass stays very clean, except now I have corralline starting to grow everywhere including my glass. I don’t want to jinx it but my tank is ugly free and pretty low maintenance at this point. Corals have now spread to the point they are crowding each other.
It’s takes some time but when you get here and look back it’s all worth it.
I have no algae growing anywhere on my rock or sand. My glass stays very clean, except now I have corralline starting to grow everywhere including my glass. I don’t want to jinx it but my tank is ugly free and pretty low maintenance at this point. Corals have now spread to the point they are crowding each other.
It’s takes some time but when you get here and look back it’s all worth it.
More photographic detail...
The Cyano should clear up with time but i also see some brown.. And if that brown is dino's that will not go away. Cyano and dino's seem to come together at least it was in my case. I was vodka dosing then came the Cyano once the Cyano cleared up in came the dino's. If the brown gets worse as the Cyano goes away it may be a bigger problem.
My tank has a good growth of bacteria (red cyano) but its fading away. ;-( Algaes - hair, bubble and some other type. My critters love the stuff. Never looked ugly to me. I live in the country and not the burbs. I keep my yard natural like my tank. I dont need to mow, weed, spray and water my yard like crazy or scrub my tank a lot. I keep macro in my tank, not the sump. Ahhhhhh the simple life
I fought uglies for a few months
tiggs
Active Member
My ugly stage in my current tank lasted about 3 months. The last month was a cyano on substrate issue, which was ultimately cured by increasing flow in the lower sections of my tank. I initially went Bahamas Oolite as my substrate, which is extremely small grained, so sandstorms were very common with any real flow. I corrected this by adding about a half inch of larger grained substrate on top, then switching out my wavemaker (which had a more direct turbulent stream) to a Vortech, which has a much wider and less turbulent stream.
When the last remnants of the uglies are primary on your substrate, there's a very good chance you're actually out of the ugly phase and either lacking in flow or in some cases are leaching from your sand bed.
When the last remnants of the uglies are primary on your substrate, there's a very good chance you're actually out of the ugly phase and either lacking in flow or in some cases are leaching from your sand bed.
Punchanello
Well-Known Member
I have the uglies too. A 5 month old tank. Battled green water for 2 months. Now that's clear and the light is hitting the rock again I have thick, luscious, green turf like algae on my rocks which the snails love but can't out compete. I assume this is normal.
Lots of everything. My tank is actually happy when everything seems... ugly. The ugly stuff gets masked out by all the color and most people don't even notice it but its everywhere.
ThunderGoose
Well-Known Member
I'm still fighting the uglies in my 55 gallon at 18 months. I think it's my complete lack of prior experience with salt water. I'm working on it, though.
On the other hand my nano never really got the uglies. It's been up about a year now and I'm quite happy with it. It's been a much easier and more satisfying system (very different - different sand, different rocks, different light, no skimmer, lots of small water changes (at least 3 or 4 a week - around 3-4% each time). Oh, and easier corals. It's a gorgonian and macro algae tank.
On the other hand my nano never really got the uglies. It's been up about a year now and I'm quite happy with it. It's been a much easier and more satisfying system (very different - different sand, different rocks, different light, no skimmer, lots of small water changes (at least 3 or 4 a week - around 3-4% each time). Oh, and easier corals. It's a gorgonian and macro algae tank.
More photographic detail...
How large is this tank? If it is 55g or under, I would consider doing a complete water change and scrubbing the rock in saltwater to get some ickies off it. Clean the tank well (scrape out) and put it all back in. I do this with my 40g whenever I leave and algae gets a hold of it. Same with my 20g and my picos.
Coral Passion
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The reality is your tank will only get like this due to poor nutrient control. We have a habit of wanting as many fish as possible and like to see them eat a lot so we over feed. Reduce your stock, keep up your husbandry and add some CUC and it will get back on track.
Mavric
Community Member
Tank has only been setup for 2 months and the uglies seem to have subsided for now... HOWEVER, I only have one fish and under a handful of cuc, so my bioload isn't substantial. I did recently get through the whole diatom phase as well as battled some bryopsis and aiptasia. I was also overfeeding like crazy which was causing some issues like a bacterial bloom that lasted a day or two.
WannaBSpaghetti
Active Member
Would you mind expanding on the method you used to fight algae with H202? This sounds like one of those things where if you do it wrong, too little, or too much, you can either lose to the algae or crash your tank.
I started with live rock so that helped a lot. Now i have to balance my feeding and monitor nutrients. Its over a year and I think I now have more trouble now than I ever had.
Any tank I own or advise online has zero allowed uglies phase
Zero, so that we don't purposefully seed our tanks with invaders
An uglies phase, prescribed to us by reef sages and authors, is the worst idea in reefing * not insulting anyone's algae issue, this is a challenge to book authors or advisors who don't run algae correction threads
In one way I love the practice,
Allowing a tank to undergo uglies phase is the reason our algae cure threads number greater than four hundred pages. Reefs that disallow all invasions day one never post in our threads, they're hand guided into coralline and coral scapes.
With no hyperbole, I'm vehemently against anyone in reefing, authors included, advising for uglies phases unless they have giant algae cure threads to post which show no correlation between the two. Used harsh terms bc new reefers are told to start this way, that it’s ideal, that it’s natural, they’re never given any alternative but to undertake a life of invasion. Even if it's always worked for those advisors and writers, we need to see how it's working for others and for losses in our hobby, stop teaching this immediately.
Am linking this thread to our works for algae cures across forums
I will never ever ever be out of the aquarium turnaround machine as long as we teach reefers to be hands off and let the tank decide direction and slowly, hopefully, come up to par.
Uglies phase teaching has wasted more substrata and animals than any paradigm ever taught in reefing , $$$ bigtime wasted
I'm guilty of starting out that way too, in the 90s all we had was books to learn from and they wrote the best they could at the time. In order to quit wasting marine life, let's all agree to ban the uglies phase/same bandwagon as tangs in a nano passion
Vote zero above. Please add in vote option “as I breathe, no uglies phase shall exist, opt out”
Zero, so that we don't purposefully seed our tanks with invaders
An uglies phase, prescribed to us by reef sages and authors, is the worst idea in reefing * not insulting anyone's algae issue, this is a challenge to book authors or advisors who don't run algae correction threads
In one way I love the practice,
Allowing a tank to undergo uglies phase is the reason our algae cure threads number greater than four hundred pages. Reefs that disallow all invasions day one never post in our threads, they're hand guided into coralline and coral scapes.
With no hyperbole, I'm vehemently against anyone in reefing, authors included, advising for uglies phases unless they have giant algae cure threads to post which show no correlation between the two. Used harsh terms bc new reefers are told to start this way, that it’s ideal, that it’s natural, they’re never given any alternative but to undertake a life of invasion. Even if it's always worked for those advisors and writers, we need to see how it's working for others and for losses in our hobby, stop teaching this immediately.
Am linking this thread to our works for algae cures across forums
I will never ever ever be out of the aquarium turnaround machine as long as we teach reefers to be hands off and let the tank decide direction and slowly, hopefully, come up to par.
Uglies phase teaching has wasted more substrata and animals than any paradigm ever taught in reefing , $$$ bigtime wasted
I'm guilty of starting out that way too, in the 90s all we had was books to learn from and they wrote the best they could at the time. In order to quit wasting marine life, let's all agree to ban the uglies phase/same bandwagon as tangs in a nano passion
Vote zero above. Please add in vote option “as I breathe, no uglies phase shall exist, opt out”
Last edited:
@hotashes
What would you guess my blood pressure is up to heh after reading this thread
Excellent thread btw, love it. You’ve captured the real essence of how reefing starts for nearly everyone, and how it progresses as algae challenges for the life of many tanks
The number of people this thread will help prevent and completely reverse algae invasions-thousands.
What would you guess my blood pressure is up to heh after reading this thread
Excellent thread btw, love it. You’ve captured the real essence of how reefing starts for nearly everyone, and how it progresses as algae challenges for the life of many tanks
The number of people this thread will help prevent and completely reverse algae invasions-thousands.
My tank looked like this a year ago with 'perfect' water conditions, now there's only algae on the glass that I scrape every 4-5 days and the occasional patch of GHA.
My problems were as follows:
- Feeding too much nori
- Not enough manual removal
- Not draining frozen food after thawing
- HOB filter that I didn't clean (thoroughly) often enough
None of those issues really popped up any typical red flags. After I addressed all of the issues, the algae completely went away. If I go back to old habits, the alage in the tank gets noticeably worse.
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