!important!

[fishfishfish]

so in my brackish tank(see sig),i have dead coral as decor and crushed coral substrate.and there is a hard green and a hard purple algae the is on them.
this side is faceing upwards

this side is facing the substrate

it also covers the glass

how do i get rid of it.if i cant,i probly cant keep the tank or fish.plz help with anything you know

 

[kramers]

Wow, what a mess. Itake it this is in the 15g tank. Is it in direct contact with sunlight( next to an unshaded window)? I'm no expert by far, but I'd try an algae brush for the tank glass, maybe some algae tabs or algaecide , and turn off the lights on the tank and covering the tank to keep in total darkness for a few days to try and kill off the growth. As I said, I'm not a pro or anything, but this is something that I would try.

 

[Dwarfs]

Cut the amount of light the tank gets, and manually remove algae from the glass, unfortunately there aren't many (if any at all) practical algae eaters for brackish tanks

 

[fishfishfish]

dang.guess im outta luck.will a chemical kill it off.the tank is in my bedroom near a window but its always shut and the light has hardly went on the last week.

 

[kramers]

Yeah, chems can kill it but, you still need to remove manually large deposits like in the pic. As for it being in the window, do you have a backdrop or anything on the back of the tank to completely block light? If not, may look into something. I ask this because my tank is also in front of the window due to space constraints, but the is a backdrop, shades, and curtains so the only sunlight that gets to it is when the front door is opened.

 

[fishfishfish]

oh yeah thats what i meant by closed.haha.im not very discriptive.i have heavy blinds.but its not the glass i mind cleaning.its the coral.

 

[kramers]

Ok. As for the coral, the large pieces may be able to be rinsed or brushed off. As for the substrate, ooo, I'd try the chems to see if that takes care of it. I had a piece of coral that I had found on the beach one year, put it in the tank and it wasn't long before it too had growth on it so I eventually took it out. If worst comes to worst, ask someone in the saltwater section if they might have any ideas as to how to control it. I hope this has been of some help to you.

 

[fishfishfish]

oh it has.thank you

 

[kramers]

Not a prob. When you do found out something let me know. That way if i ever run into a prob like that I'll have a little better idea of how to handle it. Hopefully the substrate won't need to be changed out. Royce

 

[fishfishfish]

nah its the coral.i had it in this tank when it started as a malawi tank.same problem

 

[kramers]

Hmm. Well that sux. If you read down a little further, which I'm sure you probably have, tetra-man2 is also having a prob with algae. One of the replies was the use of a magna-float for the glass, although this doesn't quite help with the coral itself. Id still try the total darkness for a few days by covering with a blanket or something dark.

 

[fishfishfish]

will do.
ill also go to petsmart and see what i can grab

 

[kramers]

Cool. I hope it works out for you. Nothing worse than having a nice setup ruined by a nasty looking growth.

 

[nmonks]

I don't understand your problem with the algae. The green algae on the white coral and tufa rock looks nice. If you visit a brackish water habitat, nothing is sparkly clean, and everything is covered in algae. So what you have is natural and, I think, attractive.

Admittedly, it's not so nice on the glass, but a scraper will remove that. Just get in the habit of cleaning the glass every week, and it won't get into that state. I find the razor blade scrapers to be most effective when the algae is serious.

Don't use any algae removing chemicals not expressly stated to be safe in fresh and salt water. Freshwater formulations may not be safe in brackish water. Actually, don't use algicides if you can possibly help it. A lot of dead stuff in the tank is bad, and will add nitrate and consume oxygen as it decays. Better to scrape off the algae from the glass and then siphon it up.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[guppler]

I sometimes get more algae than I want, but usually it doesn't bother me much. I look at it as a kind of natural resource, especially when I can get critters to eat it. I guess you can't put most algae eating fish in a brackish tank, but it seems like there should be some shrimp or snails that could help.
Sometimes I remove a very algaeful object from 1 tank and put it into another that has less algae and critters that might apreciate it. I'm not sure how that would work with the salt and if you only have the 1 tank, I can't imagine much better than rinse, scrub, or let it dry out for a while. I don't know if it would work to bleach, cook, or otherwise treat it and then put it back after a rinse or soak in relatively fishsafe water if it's got unwanted chemicals in it.