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Removing Algae in saltwater tank

19 years ago

What is the preferred method of controlling or removing Algae in a Salt Water tank. Water is clear algae ranges from brown to green to the red type. Its almost a string algae in places. Anyway any tips or advice is appreciated as I am new to salt water setups so not sure the best method of removing it..

Comments (12)

  • 19 years ago

    What we used to at a tropical fish wholesaler was to scrape the algae from the front of the tamks, just for aethetics, but the algae itself was considered desirable and beneficial for many fish, partilarly Tangs.

  • 19 years ago

    Yes my one Tang likes it but it is starting to take over a bit and want to control it before it really gets out of hand.. any suggestions on removing it. I tried the spong like scraper but it doesnt work, the walls are easy enough to clean but on the live rock is next to impossible to remove.

  • 19 years ago

    A few minutes of using a good stainless steel scraper oughta take care of the glass. I wouldn't bother with the coral, though, and I wouldn't mess with adding algicides. The only other thing is limiting the light a bit.

  • 19 years ago

    My aquarium is acrylic..

  • 19 years ago

    Acrylic.... hmmmm.... abrasives are a good and bad thing at the same time. You may just have to live with it or go with less lighting and/or more vegetation eating fish. I wouldn't recommend chemicals.

  • 19 years ago

    Check for ammo, nitrate and phospates. Usually alge dies with no neutrients in the water. Are you feeding the corals?

  • 19 years ago

    Biological control, turbo snails eat encrusting brown and green algae, certain species of tangs ( yellow eye & chevron ) also eat that kind of algae but ( and this is a big but ) I do not recommend them since they are specialized feeders, once they eat the algae there´s nothing left for them to eat, other tangs do not like to eat filamentous algae but dwarf angels like flame, half black, singapore, coral beauty do eat filamentous algae and they are not specialized feeders.

    Check your levels, nitrates and specially phosphates along with heavy lighting allow a lot of algae to grow.

  • 19 years ago

    Algae has really leveled off lately. I introduced a yellow tang the other day and he is cleaning up nicely. Its a new tank so things needed to get cycled a bit, looks like it has now.. Tang has cleaned the rocks better than any method I could of done.

  • 19 years ago

    Since you have live rock inreasing your flow will cut down on algae,as well as your nitrate and phosphate levels.This will in turn further inhibit algae.

  • 19 years ago

    Huh? I have worse problems now than algea which is fine now.. My plumbing came undone and flooding my kitchen, pump went out and I lost most of my corals, also didnt help that I added some chemical that I should of never put in which happened to be the same night.. but newbie mistake I wont make again.. I have replaced almost all the affected coral.. still holding out that my toadstool will make it but doesnt look promising..

  • 19 years ago

    Your red stringy algea (cyano bacteria) will not be controlled by a tang or cleanup crew. This is not desireable nor is it actually algea. it feeds on excess nutrients in the water. Phosphate(Po4), Nitrate(N2o3)or(N2O4), Phytoplankton, and any uneaten food that decomposes will cause algea growth. it is natural for an abundance of algea to grow in a new system(usually in the first 3 months.)
    there is an excellent forum just for saltwater aquarium hobbyists.

    Here is a link that might be useful: www.reefcentral.com

  • 15 years ago

    How can I safely remove green string algae from my live rock.