:smack: I am having a terrible time with a brown algae growth. I clean it everyday and it is back within 24-48 hours. It covers everything...rocks, sand walls, etc. I clean it off with a turkey baster and it just blows off, and I hope the filter will clean it up. What can I do? I look at these gorgeous pictures of everyones tank and mine just looks so sad. One little clownfish, some emerald crabs, a goby and loads of brown algae. Any help pretty please?
Brown algae EVERYDAY!
- Thread starter MommyJen
- Start date
jesse92
Member
First things first this is a sign of poor water quality or filtration. When cleaning off the algae make sure YOU remove and dont hope the filter pics up the algae as all you are doing is spreading it by your current. Im sorry bout your tank brown algae is a huge pain but you should continue scrubbing it and manually remove the algae and do daily water changes....What filtration do you? Size of tank? and how long have you had the tank setup?
I have a Red Sea Max 130D. Its 34 gallons and comes with its own filtration system incorporated into the back end of the tank. It has a protein skimmer that I do have some trouble with, as I can't seem to get the foam to move all the way up the neck of the skimmer, even though the air is fully on. How do you manually remove the algae...would that be by doing the water changes, or is there something obvious I am missing? I followed the directions in the book(and the tank was set up about 6 months ago). It went through all of the phases that the book said it would (brown algae..then reddish algae...then green hair algae). When that subsided, all was good until about 4 months in, and I have been dealing with this everyday since. How much of a water change should I be doing everyday? Thank you so much for helping me!! 
MommyJen - being it's a rsm, I will give it a go and try to provide some answers.
First a few questions... how much live rock do you have in the tank? how often are you doing water changes & what %? How many hours a day are you running your lights? how many fish & what kind do you have? how often do you feed them & how much at a time? do you run the bio-media? are you running the black sponge filter? do you also run a finer blue/white one? if you run the bio media how often do you remove & rinse it? how often do you rinse the sponges? how often do you change the carbon? are you still running the rsm brand carbon?
post back & I will try to help... my rsm is 100% algae free & has been since the cycle finished at about two months ...
First a few questions... how much live rock do you have in the tank? how often are you doing water changes & what %? How many hours a day are you running your lights? how many fish & what kind do you have? how often do you feed them & how much at a time? do you run the bio-media? are you running the black sponge filter? do you also run a finer blue/white one? if you run the bio media how often do you remove & rinse it? how often do you rinse the sponges? how often do you change the carbon? are you still running the rsm brand carbon?
post back & I will try to help... my rsm is 100% algae free & has been since the cycle finished at about two months ...
I would use a razor blade and siphon as you scrape, you really don't want to use a scrubber and let it fly all over the tank. Shut the pumps off so there isn't any flow in the tank and start scraping/siphoning but don't drain the tank doing it, maybe 10gals or more if need be each day. Move as fast as you can scrapping so you take out less water. Good luck
Ok...here goes. I have 7 larger pieces of live rock..enough to make a decent pile in the center of the tank. I do water changes about once a month, lights are on about 8 hours. I only have one clownfish, and a goby and some emerald crabs. I have been afraid to add anything until I get this mess under control...I feed once per day about half a frozen cube, and I alternate with krill, brine shrimp, bloodworms, etc. I use the black sponge filter and clean it everyday lately although before it was about once each week. No I don't use the finer one...yet... Yes, the bio media is in it, but I have honestly only removed and rinsed it a few times since start up. I have only changed the carbon maybe two times and yes its the rsm carbon. Whew...!
Ok here we go... imo... if you try the following... you will see remarkable improvement in one week & maybe a near cure in two...
1st... pull & rinse the bio-media every month (others will say ditch it, but mine looks like new & is not used as a biological filter, but only as a spacer to allow for flow & for the carbon to sit on top of, a real key in the rsm aio - my Live rock & sand is my bio filter) run hot water over it in the sink, until clean.
2nd... replace the carbon... buy & use in it's place the 11 oz Chemi-Pure Elite carbon (the Elite has GFO to reduce nitrates) - the manufacturer says the chemi pure will last six months - replace it 4 times a year - every three months... the is a big key...
3rd... for one week turn your lights on for only 5 hours a day
4th... perform a 30% water change now, siphon & suck up what you can... and scrape & then do 10-15% water changes every week ( 5gals)
5th... start feeding every other day & only what they can consume in two minutes before the food can fall to the bottom - a very very small amount...
6th... after one week, run your light no more than 7 hours a day for the next month
7th... add a better cuc - I suggest 20 snails... Ceriths, Nassarius, Margarita Turbos, Astrea & Banded Trochus
8th... rinse your sponges at least twice a week...
give this a go... and I think... you will be very happy with the results it works for me... this may sound like a lot... but I don't spend 15 mins a week in tank maintenance... and have zero algae... or just enough to feed the snails
1st... pull & rinse the bio-media every month (others will say ditch it, but mine looks like new & is not used as a biological filter, but only as a spacer to allow for flow & for the carbon to sit on top of, a real key in the rsm aio - my Live rock & sand is my bio filter) run hot water over it in the sink, until clean.
2nd... replace the carbon... buy & use in it's place the 11 oz Chemi-Pure Elite carbon (the Elite has GFO to reduce nitrates) - the manufacturer says the chemi pure will last six months - replace it 4 times a year - every three months... the is a big key...
3rd... for one week turn your lights on for only 5 hours a day
4th... perform a 30% water change now, siphon & suck up what you can... and scrape & then do 10-15% water changes every week ( 5gals)
5th... start feeding every other day & only what they can consume in two minutes before the food can fall to the bottom - a very very small amount...
6th... after one week, run your light no more than 7 hours a day for the next month
7th... add a better cuc - I suggest 20 snails... Ceriths, Nassarius, Margarita Turbos, Astrea & Banded Trochus
8th... rinse your sponges at least twice a week...
give this a go... and I think... you will be very happy with the results
it works for me... this may sound like a lot... but I don't spend 15 mins a week in tank maintenance... and have zero algae... or just enough to feed the snails
I forget to ask... but you are using ro/di water correct? If not, start...
I buy my ro/di water (5 gals a week) from the local fish store & yes... it's a huge key - the tap water is feeding the algae...
at the very very very minimum - try this... Tap Water Filter
Aquarium Water Quality: Tap Water Filter
Aquarium Water Quality: Tap Water Filter
burntricer
Member
#1, if you have a 34 gallon tank and your feeding 1/2 a cube...your WAYYY over feeding!
cut that way down, i literally feed each of my fish 2-3 brine or a mysis or 1, and they eat right out of my eye dropper. and its helped my alge huge!
cut that way down, i literally feed each of my fish 2-3 brine or a mysis or 1, and they eat right out of my eye dropper. and its helped my alge huge!
johnmaloney
Well-Known Member
if it is diatoms just wait it out. they feed of bio-available silica, it comes on all new tanks. no need to worry about the filtration it will eventually burn itself out, there is nothing you can really do about it except for time and manual cleaning or get somethign eating it to take the edge off. it will persist regardless.
John... what you posted is exactly what I tell everyone with a new tank
but in this case... mommyjen said the tank was six (6) months old & did cycle & go through the normal diatoms phase...
so I think... what she has going on... is related to... #1 using tap water, running bio-media & not cleaning it that is full of nitrates, infrequent water changes, old exhausted carbon, over feeding & a weak cuc - imo
Almost all the rsm aio tanks & there are lots of them... go through the normal progression you described, and then are pristine with in two or three months.
but in this case... mommyjen said the tank was six (6) months old & did cycle & go through the normal diatoms phase...
so I think... what she has going on... is related to... #1 using tap water, running bio-media & not cleaning it that is full of nitrates, infrequent water changes, old exhausted carbon, over feeding & a weak cuc - imo
Almost all the rsm aio tanks & there are lots of them... go through the normal progression you described, and then are pristine with in two or three months.
nightfire76
Active Member
im having the same problem,i went through the diatom phase though now it seems to be back a bit,might be my own fault being that im not doing weekly changes since i dont have fish or a CUC in there and my amonia is at around .5 and my trites are around the same too
beachbabies
Member
I had a huge brown hair algea prob too. I have a 30 hex tank w/ wet/dry and the whole nine. it's just for seahorses, i have some zoas, and LR, and gorilla ogo. and a hair algea prob so bad that i couldn't see into my tank 3 days after scrubbing it spotless. i added 50 pink leg hermits, a yellow tang and a kole tang, it helped a little, it took a whole week for the tank to bloom. then i turned off the lights. the room is near a window, but not recieving direct sunlight, and i haven't had a bloom in 3 weeks, since the lights went out. i was worried about my zoas and LR at first, but ut they're all doing fine, zoas are reaching a bit, but otherwise ok. HTH
drydens
Member
I have a Red Sea Max 130D. Its 34 gallons and comes with its own filtration system incorporated into the back end of the tank. It has a protein skimmer that I do have some trouble with, as I can't seem to get the foam to move all the way up the neck of the skimmer, even though the air is fully on. How do you manually remove the algae...would that be by doing the water changes, or is there something obvious I am missing? I followed the directions in the book(and the tank was set up about 6 months ago). It went through all of the phases that the book said it would (brown algae..then reddish algae...then green hair algae). When that subsided, all was good until about 4 months in, and I have been dealing with this everyday since. How much of a water change should I be doing everyday? Thank you so much for helping me!!
Have you used the RSM Skimmer Troubleshooting flow chart? It worked for me (same problem with bubbles not going up the tube all the way)
David Shaw
Well-Known Member
I can only sympathise, having algae issues must be hugely distressing and dissapointing. I am really lucky i have no problems at all. From day 1 with my RSM 130D (3 months old now) i went by the book and followed everyones advice on here. My setup and maintenance as as follows;
Set the tank up from scratch with live rock, live sand and R/O water from the LFS. Under advice from the forums i removed all stock media and sponges.
I modified my RSM with the InTank Media Rack and a Tunze 9002 Skimmer. I run RowaCarbon and RowaPhos in the media rack (i am in the uk and it is the equivalent to the US version purigen) I plan to replace this media combo every 3 months and I use white floss on the top of the rack under the water inlet, which i change daily.
I water change 30% every week with R/O water from the LFS and clean the glass every 2nd day regardless of if i see algae buildup on it or not. I have not stacked the live rock the the back wall, i have left a 3 inch gap so i can scrub the back smoked glass wall and also this allows for good water flow.
I check the water parameters weekly and my only additives at this stage are calcium (depending on the weekly test results). All my other readings are fine and within the suggested ranges.
I clean all plastic inside the tank ( lid, hinges etc ) and skimmer cup 2 or 3 times a week and get rid of any salt deposits. I also filter out the water from the chamber of death every second week just in case any old food deposits have found their way in there.
I have 2 hermits, a fire shrimp and loads of turbo snails as my CUC.
This has all worked for me, so i can only offer them up as suggestions. I think the number one reason i have managed to keep algae free is the R/O water changes every week. Tap water is asking for trouble!
Hope this helps.
Set the tank up from scratch with live rock, live sand and R/O water from the LFS. Under advice from the forums i removed all stock media and sponges.
I modified my RSM with the InTank Media Rack and a Tunze 9002 Skimmer. I run RowaCarbon and RowaPhos in the media rack (i am in the uk and it is the equivalent to the US version purigen) I plan to replace this media combo every 3 months and I use white floss on the top of the rack under the water inlet, which i change daily.
I water change 30% every week with R/O water from the LFS and clean the glass every 2nd day regardless of if i see algae buildup on it or not. I have not stacked the live rock the the back wall, i have left a 3 inch gap so i can scrub the back smoked glass wall and also this allows for good water flow.
I check the water parameters weekly and my only additives at this stage are calcium (depending on the weekly test results). All my other readings are fine and within the suggested ranges.
I clean all plastic inside the tank ( lid, hinges etc ) and skimmer cup 2 or 3 times a week and get rid of any salt deposits. I also filter out the water from the chamber of death every second week just in case any old food deposits have found their way in there.
I have 2 hermits, a fire shrimp and loads of turbo snails as my CUC.
This has all worked for me, so i can only offer them up as suggestions. I think the number one reason i have managed to keep algae free is the R/O water changes every week. Tap water is asking for trouble!
Hope this helps.