Algae?

[Nathan4557]

I have had my 29 gal Biocube set up now for about 4 weeks. There is 25lbs of live rock and i have a live sand bottom. Two pieces of the live rock came out of an existing reef and are covered in coraline algae. I am now starting to get a bright lime green algae which is starting to dust (cover) some of the other live rock. The algae is not hairy. It is kind of crusted on the rock like the coraline would be. The algae also does not come off very easy, Meaning if i brush it with a toothbrush it does not come off. I have read some stuff on the internet specificly from GARF which stated that sometimes your rock will become covered with this bright green algae just before the coraline algae starts. So does anyone have any opinions?

ammonia = 0
nitrite= 0
nitrate= 5ppm
ph= 8.1

Not sure what the others are these are the only kits i have so far. I am doing 5 gal weekly water changes.

 

[nixer]

in 4 weeks its surely not coraline.
thats takes time
whats your seeing is typical for a new tank.
it will go away eventually. you might also see algae on the glass. cyanobacteriacould also come in to play.

 

[Reloadeddevil]

Also if u can. Go to liveaquaria.com and order a algea attack pack for 30 gallon. That pack helped me a lot, and after 5 months it is still going strong. Also i dont know if you have a timer on ur light or not. But timing your light like 3 hrs during day and 3 hrs during evening will help u with ur algae problem a lot.

 

[Dalbery]

During your cycle you will get algae outbreaks. Are you using ro water? I wouldn't worry about a clean up crew until your tank is cycled.

 

[raymond]

good algae takes time lol, like everything else in life, if you want to speed up the process some, you can get a rock covered in coraline and scape it off the rock into your water supply. it will seed your tank

 

[Henry C]

This is normal for a new tank. I cooked my rock ( to kill mojano anenomes and aiptasia) and had it running in another tank for 5 weeks before setting it back up in my 90 gallon and it's been up and running for almost 2 months now and I have the brown hair algae. It's almost gone now. I just did water changes and added a clean up crew and they have done an excellent job. Do you have a clean up crew working in your system?

 

[btkrausen]

You could also look into preparing some GFO and carbon to run in the tank in case any algae doesn't go away. I run mine in two different reactors now, running off a manifold from the return pump. GFO will suck up phosphates, which algae uses to grow.

 

[Captain Nemo]

Probably not coraline algae since your tank is only 4 weeks old. I would be checking the alk also to watch it for when you get ready to put corals in. Just my opinion

 

[aalvarado87]

I don’t think there is a whole lot to worry about its def. not coralline algae as that takes some time to start to build up. I would let it ride out just keep an I on it I do agree that you could run some gfo or bio pellets or what not. It would be best if you could get a hold of it now and not have to worry about it later. Also if you go on reefcleaner he has an identification page for good and bad algae’s.