Algae Problem In Secondary Tank - {pictures}

[Imaruki]

I've got a second tank, a small 12 gallon with a chocolate chip starfish, the feather duster I took out of the bigger tank for a while because the damn tang kept biting at it, a blue damsle, and another clownfish. The water was doing great up until recently. I had somekind of red/brown algae explosion. (The reason I bought a second starfish to put in this tank instead of pulling the one out of my 55 gallon and put one of my turbo snails from the big tank into this one) I was hoping they would clear it up, but all the snail really did was half way clear if off the live rock. The sand and glass looks horrible. How do I fix this problem? The guy at the aquarium store told me to put some PHOS-Buster in there so I did...didn't really do much of anything. Pics below on what it looks like:

 

[wflash3]

how many turbo snails u have in there? and also a sand shifting star help me with my detritus problem on the sand. More turbo snails if u have any will help on the rocks and glass.

flash

 

[Imaruki]

I have one turbo snail in that tank and one in my 55 gallon...so I have two total.....well, I'm leaving for the aquarium store now to pick up a sand sifter and attempt to get some more snails. Thanks, hopefully this will help fix this disgusting problem

 

[wflash3]

well it really helped me, keep me posted

flash

 

[Imaruki]

Ok...I got two more turbo snails, a sand sifting sea star, and a lawnmower blenny. They said that should clear it up in no time....I even bought a sea urchin too for my larger tank. Once I get these fish acclimated so I can put them in the tank....I'm just gonna sit back and wait....hopefully by Monday it will be cleared up for the most part. I was told I need to get some calcium for my tank too because of the snails and to help out my live rock. Is that true?

 

[wflash3]

well if you test your calcium and its fine then you dont need to add nothing. And calcium will only help coraline algae, which is a good algae. What you got at the LFS should clear up that brown stuff by the end of the day tomorrow.

flash

 

[Imaruki]

Nice...that sounds great! Any idea on how to get the live rock all colorful though? It's got a few tubeworms starting to grow from it and a tiny patch of what looks like green algae so far....it's been in there almost a month now.

 

[n3ont3tra]

If you have very strong lighting, like metal halides, that's usually a little too much for coralline algae. IF you have metal halides, I think they also cause a lot more algae as well.
If you have another kind of lighting, you should be getting a bunch of coralline algae. It might take a little while, though. Did you buy your live rock cured or uncured?

Also, is your tank in the sun for any part of the day?

EDIT:
You don't usually need to add calcium unless you have a lot of corals.

 

[Imaruki]

My room has no window....so no, it doesn't get any sunlight...just the artificial light from the Sunpaq bulbs....and I'm not sure if the live rock was cured or not. I know it was brown when I got it.

 

[Imaruki]

UPDATE: Ok...the snails are working great! As soon as they were ready to be put in the tank they went to work on the glass. Lawnmower blenny took off to hide in the live rock though.....I ended up putting the purple sea urchin in there temporarily to help eat the algae and man is that thing working fast! It's got a trail of clean sand behind it and now it's working it's way onto the live rock and cleaning it very nicely.

 

[wflash3]

UPDATE: Ok...the snails are working great! As soon as they were ready to be put in the tank they went to work on the glass. Lawnmower blenny took off to hide in the live rock though.....I ended up putting the purple sea urchin in there temporarily to help eat the algae and man is that thing working fast! It's got a trail of clean sand behind it and now it's working it's way onto the live rock and cleaning it very nicely.

yup, those things do they work

flash

 

[rhysiboy]

just a quik question what is the kalvin rating on your bulbs. If its in daylight spectrum that would explain your algae growth.

 

[Imaruki]

UPDATE2: Sand is just about clean....snails are still working on the glass. Sand sifting star.........eh, it just burries itself and shows back up hours later. Blenny...came out of hiding last night and started working, urchin decided to climb up on the side of the tank during the night and is still sitting there....live rock is nice and clean now though. Sand is white again in about 97% of the tank. Basically, this tank did a complete 180 overnight....thanks alot for the help!

 

[Lynden]

Yikes... trouble brewing here. Choco chip stars are voracious predators that can consume every invertebrate you have mentioned. Mine ate both my pencil urchin and my brittle star long ago.

 

[Imaruki]

Well, my purple sea urchin is about 3 times bigger than my starfish...does that matter? And the sand sifter pretty much stays buried in the sand most of the day. I was told however to keep it away from the anenome though.