Getting Rid Of Unwanted Algae

Not all algae is bad. The purple coralline algae is extremely beneficial to your tank in helping with the natural biological  filtration process. However, most reefers consider  green algae a nuisance and don’t want in their tank. So how do you get rid of Unwanted Green Algae? Unfortunately, there is no one simple answer as there are many different types of algae which cause many types of problems.  Many types of algae react differently to different treatments, so there is no silver bullet for algae.

hair algae

Let’s look at some Green Hair Algae. Oh, that does not look nice. Here we see the algae is growing wildly on the live rock . We want it off? What do we do?

Algae is a crafty foe, so we must do all that we can to defeat it. Instead of doing one thing, we are going to do three.  First, we are going to pull some of it off the live rock with our hands and a toothbrush.  This does three things. First, it looks a little better right away, which makes us feel like we are doing something. Next, it cuts down the competition with the protein skimmer for the waste nutrients that it lives on. Third, it cuts down the reproduction of algae, as algae begets more algae.

Next, we are going to feed the fish and corals in the tank a little less. The Algae use the fish waste and decaying uneaten fish food as food for itself.  So in this step we are looking to starve the algae, or at least not allow it the food to grow.

Hair algae is also photosynthetic, as light helps it grow. So we are going to cut back a little on the hours the lights are on in the tank.

Lettuce Nudibranch

Finally, “Release The Hounds”. This is the fun part as now you get to buy something. That is always how we like to fix things – just buy something to take care of it.

What should you buy? Inverts. Snails, crabs, shrimp. The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide has a whole section devoted to The Clean Up Crew, as some inverts we like much better than others.  Here is a picture of a Lettuce Nudibranch. These guys love to eat algae and I have found will often graze on a large patch of hair algae.

These guys are Nerite Snails.

Nerite Snails

They eat all types of algae, but our experience show that they like the top of the tank . A few of them like to go very high so that they are even partially above the  waterline .

Most dealers will put together cleaner packs – some Nerite Snail, some Nassarius Snail, a few Emerald Crabs, a few Hermit Crabs, and you have yourself  a ready made aglea eating army. We just tried out Reef Scavengers.com and were happy with the quality, price and service. They also have a great deal with shipping: free with any order over $99.

Scarlet Reef Hermit

How do they do that? Well it is two day shipping, but as most of these inverts are not as delicate as fish, so they are fine for the longer trip.

Good luck if you have an algae problem. Remember, it took a long while for the algea to grow, and it will take a long time to get rid of it. Nothing good happens quickly in a fish tank. So if you want your algae to go away, keep working at it.

The Vodka Test….

vodka is a trick

About six weeks ago we at The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintanence Guide took a chance with our demo tank. We added 1ml per 20 gallons to our demo tank to see if our nitrates would go down.

Here is the answer – YES!!! Wow, what an amazing additive!

Before we used the vodka, the demo takes nitrates were at 8 mg per liter.  Only one week after we used the vodka, the nitrates dropped to less than 1mg per liter! Since that first week we cut back on the dosing to every other day as the levels were so low so quickly. Even now, six weeks later with every other day dosing,  the nitrates are less than one mg per liter.

Did it hurt the fish? No, we have never seen the fish healthier. There colors are magnificent and they are as healthy as any hobbyist could ever want. The clown fish have even been spawning more often and laying their eggs on the rocks in greater numbers.

Eggs with Vodka

Did it hurt the corals? No, the corals are still growing like crazy.

Did it hurt the anemones? No, the bubble tips keep splitting and the green carpet is now over a foot in circumference with a shocking bright green shade.

What a great find! This seems to me a slam dunk. Our host of The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide, Bob Wiatroski, has said his customers have not had any long term effects using vodka. We  will keep an eye on the tank, but the first review is in and vodka might be the cheapest, most effective way of keeping your nitrates down in your reef tank.

As a final note, we do not recommend this for a marine tank with no live rock, as the vodka helps the bacteria inside the live rock and would probably not be helpful without the rock itself.

Want happy fish? Give them a shot of Vodka!

Drink Up!

No really, we are not kidding. We noticed that over the months, our nitrate levels in the Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide demo tank were slowly climbing up, even though we had not added any new fish to the demo tank. In fact, we even had a few less fish through natural mortality. On the other hand, many of the fish had grown, especially the Blue Hippo Tang who eats more than the four Ocellaris Clowns in the tank. We have 300lbs of live rock in the tank and sump, weekly 5-6% water changes, a MTC-1000 protein skimmer.

1 ml per 20 gallons to start

Bob Wiatroski, the host of The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide suggested some adding some vodka to the tank each day as the vodka encourages the development of the denitrifying bacteria deep inside the live rock. Bob has had customers do this and after 30 days, their nitrates fell to zero. All this with no ill effects to the fish. At this point we are adding 1 ml per 20 gallons. Since the demo tank is 210 gallons, we are adding just a little over 10 ml a day. Right now we are in the middle of this experiment, so keep posted to our blog to see our results.

Also, use the cheap vodka. Save the Stoli Crystal for yourself!

Flatworms!

The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide  shows you many beautiful things you want for your tank, but Flatworms is something you don’t want for your tank.

Flatworms are pesty parasites. I have heard that they eat the corals and I have also heard that they cover corals as to take away their light. Either way, your beautiuful corals can wind up dead.

So how did we get rid of ours?

As we recommended in The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance guide, we used Salift’s Flatworm Exit.

Here we had some Flatworms on a few corals in our quarantine tank. So before we put them in our main tank, we treated the whole quarantine tank. Make sure to siphon up as many Flatworms as you can. This does two things. First, it gets rid of them, which is what you want. Secondly, when Flatworms die, they let off toxins into the water. These toxins are harmful to your fish and corals, so you want to get them out of the tank as soon as possible.

After I treated the tank (just add the drops to the water), I quickly did a water change, siphoning up the dead worms from the bottom. After I waited a week, I repeated this process and have not seen a flatworm since.

If you have clams, I like to remove them from the tank before I do this Flatworm treatment, as clams sometimes will not react well to this medication.