Tips on keeping aqurium glass clean

[Lisa Cain]

I have a 90 gallon aquarium and I am having a hard time keeping the glass clean. Can someone please give me some advice. In two days I get brown build up on the glass and I have tons of little white starfish. I have a phosphate bag, purigen and chemipure.
Am I doing something wrong. I have a sump with bioballs? Do I need a protein skimmer?

 

[sprinklerdudes]

how long has the tank been set up, are you feeding too much? and check your flow, some build up on the glass is normal, the brownish look is usually either too much bio load, overfeeding, also usually occurs in newer tanks, that are still trying to balance out. I use a old credit card, and gently scrape it off, let the filter do the work, also if you have a protein skimmer this will help . I have a few tanks, one is a jbj 29 cube i don't have a protein skimmer on it, and I leave the lights on too long, when I get busy i don't keep up with water changes etc, just life. and it can get a brown froth on the glass,

 

[Lisa Cain]

It has been up for about 7 months. I transferred from a 32 gallon biocube. I have 2 A1Prime Lights. I do have a tendency to overfeed. My fish eat like crazy. Also in the last week my stylophoria has been bleaching. Do you know what causes that?

 

[GoVols]

Lisa,
Can you slowly wing off the bio-balls for live rock in your sump? They spew out nitrates into the water column.
Read Randy's point #5, Real slow.
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/8/chemistry

If you buy one or two Harlequin shrimp they will eat your asteria starfish

 

[Lisa Cain]

Thank you! I need to resume reading Reef 2Reef postings.

 

[Lisa Cain]

Lisa,
Can you slowly wing off the bio-balls for live rock in your sump? They spew out nitrates into the water column.
Read Randy's point #5, Real slow.
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/8/chemistry

If you buy one or two Harlequin shrimp they will eat your asteria starfish

Are you saying that if I have life rocks I do not need the bioballs?

 

[GoVols]

It has been up for about 7 months. I transferred from a 32 gallon biocube. I have 2 A1Prime Lights. I do have a tendency to overfeed. My fish eat like crazy. Also in the last week my stylophoria has been bleaching. Do you know what causes that?

Have you tested your phosphates and nitrates with good and reliable test kits?

Yes,
A good skimmer would help too.

 

[GoVols]

Are you saying that if I have life rocks I do not need the bioballs?

If you have enough Live Rock in your reef then there's no need for Bio-Balls.
Bio-Balls spew out nitrates and cannot gas off nitrates off like deep pore Live Rock.

Can you read Randy's point #5 in his article?

"5. Remove Existing Filters Designed To Facilitate The Nitrogen Cycle.

Such filters do a fine job of processing ammonia to nitrite to nitrate, but do nothing with the nitrate. It is often non-intuitive to many aquarists, but removing such a filter altogether may actually help reduce nitrate. So slowly removing them and allowing more of the nitrogen processing to take place on and in the live rock and sand can be beneficial.


It is not that any less nitrate is produced when such a filter is removed, it is a question of what happens to the nitrate after it is produced.


When it is produced on the surface of media such as bioballs, it mixes into the entire water column, and then has to find its way, by diffusion, to the places where it may be reduced (inside of live rock and sand, for instance).


If it is produced on the surface of live rock or sand, then the local concentration of nitrate is higher there than in the first case above, and it is more likely to diffuse into the rock and sand to be reduced to N2."

 

[Lisa Cain]

If you have enough Live Rock in your reef then there's no need for Bio-Balls.
Bio-Balls spew out nitrates and cannot gas off nitrates off like deep pore Live Rock.

Can you read Randy's point #5 in his article?

Thank you!!! If I get rid of the bioballs will a skimmer, purigen, and chemipure surfice. Thanks for the article.

 

[Lisa Cain]

I have one last question. What is the most common factor that causes Stylophoria to bleach?

 

[sprinklerdudes]

protein skimmer will defiantly help, a power head aimed along the front glass will also help to keep it from accumulation as fast, and reduce the feeding if possible. I also remember that I had a tank I was feeding a lot of frozen food to several years ago, and it really seemed to dirty a lot faster then the others, I think it was just the food I was feeding at the time, some kinda cheap stuff from petco

 

[Lisa Cain]

protein skimmer will defiantly help, a power head aimed along the front glass will also help to keep it from accumulation as fast, and reduce the feeding if possible. I also remember that I had a tank I was feeding a lot of frozen food to several years ago, and it really seemed to dirty a lot faster then the others, I think it was just the food I was feeding at the time, some kinda cheap stuff from petco

Thank you!

 

[GoVols]

I have one last question. What is the most common factor that causes Stylophoria to bleach?

Start by testing your phosphates and nitrates.

 

[Lisa Cain]

Start by testing your phosphates and nitrates.

Ok Thanks!

 

[Jekyl]

Running any macroalgae? Maybe add some chaeto or dragons breath?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I went from every 4 days to 2 as the days have gotten longer and changing light schedule . It takes me 3 minutes...so I try not to fret over it.
In your tank, asterina stars are attracted to algaes. Wster flow such as gyre flow helps from build up on glass

 

[Som1else]

Get yourself a pack of razor blades and scrape it mercilessly. Mines always got some form of algae covering it, but i usually scrape it all clean once a month. Sometimes i use the magnet scraper in between the razor blading sessions.
I envy all you reefers out there with your forever squeegee clean glass.

 

[Hemmdog]

Get yourself a pack of razor blades and scrape it mercilessly. Mines always got some form of algae covering it, but i usually scrape it all clean once a month. Sometimes i use the magnet scraper in between the razor blading sessions.
I envy all you reefers out there with your forever squeegee clean glass.

You should buy a flipper lol. Good investment.

 

[Hugo]

They are asterina starfish, The article below will explain.
https://reefbuilders.com/2016/03/30...duction-to-this-common-reef-aquarium-critter/
How old is your tank ?

 

[Sallstrom]

You don't get away from cleaning the windows, as long as you want a living reef in the aquarium :) Maybe if you make sure no light hits the window, but that hard in most tanks.

In some tanks, the algae grow fast, in other slower. Sometimes it changes over time. If you clean the window every other day, you aviod harder algae on the window(which are harder to remove). So my tips is to clean the window with a magnet often, then you won't need to scrape off the hard algae that often.