New Tank (to us) & Red Algae

Hello!

We just ended up with a 125 gallon reef tank that has been up and running for about 5 years. It has a LOT (too much if you ask me) of live rock, coral and some fish in it. It also has a LOT of red/cyano algae in it. :( The guy has admittedly not been taking great care of the tank, as he has run out of time. He said, "Just throw some snails in and it will be gone." Ha! I know that's not the case b/c we had saltwater tanks about 10 years ago & had this problem & it was a pain in the arse!

We plan to set it up in our basement & get a new tank upstairs but want to get things right first. He has a 90 gallon refugium which is also pretty filthy.

He has 3 blue tangs, another tang, a black and white clown, a green wrasse, a red serpent starfish, itsy, bitsy white starfish on the glass and I think that's it. I know he doesn't do frequent water changes. He only feeds every 4 days or so, flakes & frozen. He talked about another fish he had in there but doesn't see anymore so there is probably fish carcass unless somebody ate him. He said his lights are 9 months old and need replaced. So there are some obvious things.

We will be doing a BIG water change when we move it at the end of the month. We'll be getting a smaller tank for some of the live rock to make it less crowded (although I don't know if that's a problem but I think the fish will be happier). We have well water not tap water. It's good water. Anything to think about there?

Any other ideas to get us started on the algae? I don't want to battle this forever again. That's what finally made us give up before. We could never win the battle. So why are we taking on this tank? Hmmm...I might have said no had I done all this reading first! This guy worked in one of the big aquarium stores for 3 years & we never tried snails before so I kinda sorta thought...maybe? He said he just hadn't had the time to get over there to buy any...long work hours. Now I see not so easy. But no use crying over spilled milk. Onward!

Thanks in advance!

Susan (& Mitch)

Hello sand welcome to the site...glad to have you aboard. When you move the tank, I'd scrub the rocks with a toothbrush in a bucket of old tank water and replace the sand with new sand. A nice sized water change will definitely help, but I'd strongly suggest that you use only ro/di water because tap and well water has contaminates and minerals that you don't want in your tank and can fuel the algae. A mixture of various snails will help a lot also. Good luck with everything and keep us updated on your progress, and post pics. :)

Smitty said:

Hello sand welcome to the site...glad to have you aboard. When you move the tank, I'd scrub the rocks with a toothbrush in a bucket of old tank water and replace the sand with new sand. A nice sized water change will definitely help, but I'd strongly suggest that you use only ro/di water because tap and well water has contaminates and minerals that you don't want in your tank and can fuel the algae. A mixture of various snails will help a lot also. Good luck with everything and keep us updated on your progress, and post pics. :)

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Thanks Lionel. What kind of snails should we get? Sorry for the dumb question. I guess we could ask the store in the town where we're getting the tank. We don't have any stores here.

No such thing as a dumb question, unless it's unasked. :)
A mixture of turbo snails, astrea snails, nass snails, cerith snails...even some of those small mini reef hermit crabs will help eliminate a lot of algae and other stuff.

Smitty said:

No such thing as a dumb question, unless it's unasked. :)
A mixture of turbo snails, astrea snails, nass snails, cerith snails...even some of those small mini reef hermit crabs will help eliminate a lot of algae and other stuff.

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Thanks again Lionel! :)

Smitty has you covered.

Welcome to the site!

Smitty said:

Hello sand welcome to the site...glad to have you aboard. When you move the tank, I'd scrub the rocks with a toothbrush in a bucket of old tank water and replace the sand with new sand. A nice sized water change will definitely help, but I'd strongly suggest that you use only ro/di water because tap and well water has contaminates and minerals that you don't want in your tank and can fuel the algae. A mixture of various snails will help a lot also. Good luck with everything and keep us updated on your progress, and post pics. :)

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Hey Smitty (I see everyone calls you Smitty...I was so formal...do you have a preference?)!

Do you have a suggestion on sand...a specific type or where to buy? I know nothing about sand. Since we're going to replace it all might as well do it right! I sure do have a lot of questions. I reeeeeally want to get this tank cleaned up & running right. I feel so bad for all the fish & coral in there.

Thanks again!

Hahaha...yeah, everyone calls me Smitty, but it doesn't matter to me. As far as sand, just stay away from crushed coral and sugar sized sand. And don't waste your money on getting live sand either. And make sure it's aragonite sand.

Smitty said:

Hahaha...yeah, everyone calls me Smitty, but it doesn't matter to me. As far as sand, just stay away from crushed coral and sugar sized sand. And don't waste your money on getting live sand either. And make sure it's aragonite sand.

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Okay, that's good. Someone was telling my husband that we could just wash the sand. What do you think about that?

Yeah, you could...just wash it very, very, very well...and then rinse it some more until the water coming off the sand is clear. I've done it before with no issues and it saves you a few bucks too.

Smitty said:

Yeah, you could...just wash it very, very, very well...and then rinse it some more until the water coming off the sand is clear. I've done it before with no issues and it saves you a few bucks too.

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Maybe we'll give that a go.We'll see. Sounds like we're in for some work but I know it will be well worth it!

Hello and Welcome!

For your tank you are going to want 1-2 lbs per gallon of rock, so you might want to hold onto that rock. Its also good to have lots of rock because the fish establish territories over the rock work and not open water. Your fish will be happier because they will have more available space to claim.

I personally would return all the fish. Not having fish waste will help eliminate they cyano and then you can get fish you like. It is a MAJOR pain in the ass to try and remove a fish to tank that is all set up.

little_fish said:

Hello and Welcome!

For your tank you are going to want 1-2 lbs per gallon of rock, so you might want to hold onto that rock. Its also good to have lots of rock because the fish establish territories over the rock work and not open water. Your fish will be happier because they will have more available space to claim.

I personally would return all the fish. Not having fish waste will help eliminate they cyano and then you can get fish you like. It is a MAJOR pain in the ass to try and remove a fish to tank that is all set up.

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Thanks for the welcome! We're not too far from you...we're in Cheyenne. Oh...there is a TON of rock & coral in this tank. We plan to keep a lot of it for the fish, just not all of it. Let me see if I know how to post a pic. I really didn't want to yet since it isn't the tank we'll end up keeping, nor is it clean like I would hope, but it will give an idea.

Part of what we like about it is the fish. :) We are getting it from a private party, so there is no "returning" the fish. So what you're saying is that it's easier to get rid of the cyano if there are no fish in there? I imagine that's true but unfortch we're stuck. I AM worried that it's going to be a big PIA but I'm ready (I hope!).

yes, that is an excessive amount of rock...

And cyano feeds off of the excess nutrients in our tank water and one of the biggest contributing factors to excess nutrients issue is having too much fish waste and over feeding your fish. No fish and you can get a big head start on starving that stuff out.

little_fish said:

yes, that is an excessive amount of rock...

And cyano feeds off of the excess nutrients in our tank water and one of the biggest contributing factors to excess nutrients issue is having too much fish waste and over feeding your fish. No fish and you can get a big head start on starving that stuff out.

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Well, we are picking up a 90 gallon aquarium tomorrow night (in Denver actually...but this won't be their permanent home) so what if we put the fish in there once we got it going but kept all the live, algae infested rock out? This one will have a bunch of fake rock (is that what it's called?) that they can "enjoy". The only issue will be how they are currently fed. Right now they are fed every 4 days so I imagine w/out all that other stuff to feed off of that would need to change. Would that totally mess them up switching them back and forth like that on their feeding schedule?

You cannot put a fish into an uncycled aquarium, please read this for more information.
https://www.livingreefs.com/cycling-tank-adding-fish-and-corals-t26452.html

All "live" means is that it has a population of bacteria growing on it that can take the toxic fish waste and turn it into a less toxic byproduct. So those fish need to go back into a tank with live rock otherwise you are going to expose them to ammonia which will likely kill them, but at the very least it will shorten their life span.

So putting them into that other tank isnt a good idea

little_fish said:

You cannot put a fish into an uncycled aquarium, please read this for more information.
https://www.livingreefs.com/cycling-tank-adding-fish-and-corals-t26452.html

All "live" means is that it has a population of bacteria growing on it that can take the toxic fish waste and turn it into a less toxic byproduct. So those fish need to go back into a tank with live rock otherwise you are going to expose them to ammonia which will likely kill them, but at the very least it will shorten their life span.

So putting them into that other tank isnt a good idea

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Oh no...we weren't going to put the fish in another aquarium until it cycled. We had aquariums, both salt and freshwater for a number of years a long time ago. :) We did end up dealing with some red algae but nothing like this one has so I want to try to really get a handle on this stuff early on b/c I know what a huge PIA it can be. We only had one saltwater tank so we never moved our fish around. But that's great information about moving them to a tank without the live rock so thank you! We're going to be moving a lot of that rock into another tank but I don't think we'll be moving the fish around anyway. Our plan is to get this tank all cleaned up, get a brand new tank for upstairs and move all the healthy stuff that we want into a new tank once it cycles, make sure it's all up and running well and only then will we move the fish to their new home.