[Announce]

Hello everyone,

In early January we purchased a 29 gallon Bio cube, with the intent of starting up a salt water aquarium. We did so and everything started great, we have been through our ups and downs. But it seems like mainly downs.

When the tank was first set up we had no problems and up until around march we had lost next to no live stock (maybe a few snails - due to crabs, a six line wrasse, and a frog spawn)

But it was then that we got some horrible advice

"Take everything out of the tank clean it, put everything back in."

Although it seemed like the best thing to do it was definitely not.

During the process of taking everything out (we were careful) our flame angel had swam under a rock and moved it thus crushing and killing himself, our anenome got sick(and eventually died) from the move, and the other livestock were of course stressed.

after moving everything back into the tank soon after we had a huge increase in temperature with the change in temperature outside (you are all from the GTA you know how fast it warmed up this year) which had killed most of our zenia, our 2nd anenome, and of course stressed the live stock further causing..

Ick

We lost all but one of our fish (watchmen goby, got a pistol shrimp aswell they are awesome), 2 tomato clowns, 1 yellow clown goby, algae blenny.

So boom back to the start, this time we went slow very slow. but with all the increase in nitrates from the death of our live stock we were granted, hair algae (which i will get to in a second)

We recently decided to buy two more clown fish, two true perculas for $80 a very small pair, we had them about a week, and adored them (they hosted the feather duster :P) they were doing amazing! we went away for 2 days and they disappeared, both of them! Any idea what happened to them? we though maybe our large brain coral could have gotten one but both?!

Now we didnt plan on buying any new clown fish but we saw a very unique maroon clown with a spot! yes a poka dot!

Any way, we can't get rid of this damn Hair algae! although we are putting up a good fight, so i would like to know if any one has some ideas on how to get rid of this stuff.

A few things we have done:
Purchased a pin needle urchin (he does a really good job)
Ripped it off, cup, by cup (can normaly rip of about a cup worth per week)
and recently i just took out any non-essential rocks and put them in a bucket with no light.

Thanks for reading, and in advance for any input!

[Ninong]

Nuisance Algae in the Reef Aquarium - Part I
Nuisance Algae in the Reef Aquarium - Part II
Nuisance Algae in the Reef Aquarium - Part III
Advice: Consider The Source

[scubadude]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Nuisance Algae in the Reef Aquarium - Part I
Nuisance Algae in the Reef Aquarium - Part II
Nuisance Algae in the Reef Aquarium - Part III
Advice: Consider The Source

I concur w/ Ninongs suggestion....I would have put the last link first though

Considering the source is usually the best approach to all problem algaes