Seeking Advice: Choosing Fish for My Nano Tank and Battling Hair Algae

[NicoEyes]

Hey everybody!

I've got this ongoing issue with consistently low nitrates and phosphates, except when I go overboard with feeding but really feeds hair algae problem. I do manual removal of the hair algae but it always seems to come back with vengeance. I'm thinking of addressing this by bringing in more fish and adding new members to the cleanup crew. I had 8/10 spiny trochus snails and 3/5 nassarius snails die all the same time. I'm eyeing a banggai cardinalfish and a red tuxedo urchin for the tank, and maybe more fish, but I'm unsure about the species. I'm looking for peaceful ones that won't hassle each other.

I've been feeling a bit unlucky in my tank journey. I used to have a helfrichi firefish and a 6-line devil, but unfortunately, they're no longer part of the crew. I also had to relocate an emerald crab to the sump because it nearly wiped out a whole zoa colony in just half a day.

I'd really love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how to proceed!

Here are the tank details: 24Gal, 11 months old.
Current residents:
- 2 Mocha gladiator clownfish
- 1 Yellow watchman goby

Clean-up crew:
- 1 Halloween hermit
- 1 Blue lightning hermit
- 4 Blue hermits give or take
- 1 Scarlet hermit
- 1 Strawberry conch
- 2 Nassarius
- 2 Spiny Trochus (acting sluggish)
- 1 Coral eating emerald crab (in sump)

Corals/Anemones:
- 2 BTA (1 Black Widow, 1 Rainbow)
- 1 Rock Flower Anemone
- Soft corals only atm, had bad luck with an lps hammer when my tank was 6 months old.

 

[Snowxcross]

Hi Nico - I think by what you mean with "low no3 and po4" is that they're both close to zero, correct? I would assume that's the case. That's also the reason for the GHA because it's taking in your no3 and po4. Here's what i recommend and you can let others chime in as well.

1. Keep your lights on but reduce your schedule to say half the run time, also reduce all the white to zero. You only have a small amount of softies, so running only blue lights will be fine.

2. Definitely reduce all feeding. Very minimal feeding will be fine - especially no AB+ or amino acids, etc.

3. If you have a skimmer, run that 24/7

4. Add some beneficial bacteria - Microbacter 7 or Dr. Tims waste away. Good bacteria will fight bad bacteria.

5. If you're running GFO keep using it, Rowaphos is good, it also removes Silicates, so if you have silicates in your RO/DI, Rowa will do a great job at removing it.

6. Dose Nitrates, i use NeoNitrate by Brightwell. You want to detect some numbers in your test kits.

7. Definitely do not do water changes, it wont help anything.

Algae Scrubber would work great too, you want some sort of NO3 export (grow the algae somewhere other than your display). Some use a refugium, i have had better stability with a scrubber.

Just be patient too, it could take 2 weeks to see some results, as you do, slowly kick back up your lights, and be sure the flow in your tank is circulating the tank enough that the water is going through your mechanical filtration and skimmer the best it can. Lastly, if you pull that algae off, get an urchin or turbo snails. They'll keep it from coming back while you dial in your system. It's also only a 24g, but look into a utilitarian fish or two, they also help with algae like a tailspot blenny or something.

Hope this helps, good luck!

 

[Z0RN]

You could try treating it by dosing Vibrant. Or you could dip the affected rocks in hydrogen peroxide mixed with saltwater in a bucket. Mind you, that’s more of a nuclear solution. Also, emerald crabs like eating hair algae, females tend to be less destructive than males.

 

[NicoEyes]

Hi Nico - I think by what you mean with "low no3 and po4" is that they're both close to zero, correct? I would assume that's the case. That's also the reason for the GHA because it's taking in your no3 and po4. Here's what i recommend and you can let others chime in as well.

1. Keep your lights on but reduce your schedule to say half the run time, also reduce all the white to zero. You only have a small amount of softies, so running only blue lights will be fine.

2. Definitely reduce all feeding. Very minimal feeding will be fine - especially no AB+ or amino acids, etc.

3. If you have a skimmer, run that 24/7

4. Add some beneficial bacteria - Microbacter 7 or Dr. Tims waste away. Good bacteria will fight bad bacteria.

5. If you're running GFO keep using it, Rowaphos is good, it also removes Silicates, so if you have silicates in your RO/DI, Rowa will do a great job at removing it.

6. Dose Nitrates, i use NeoNitrate by Brightwell. You want to detect some numbers in your test kits.

7. Definitely do not do water changes, it wont help anything.

Algae Scrubber would work great too, you want some sort of NO3 export (grow the algae somewhere other than your display). Some use a refugium, i have had better stability with a scrubber.

Just be patient too, it could take 2 weeks to see some results, as you do, slowly kick back up your lights, and be sure the flow in your tank is circulating the tank enough that the water is going through your mechanical filtration and skimmer the best it can. Lastly, if you pull that algae off, get an urchin or turbo snails. They'll keep it from coming back while you dial in your system. It's also only a 24g, but look into a utilitarian fish or two, they also help with algae like a tailspot blenny or something.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Hello Snowcross!
Normally both no3 and po4 are bottomed out but I just started dosing no3. Should I still aim for 5-10ppm? I had some GFO on the side that I am using now and my skimmer is running 24/7. I will most likely get Microbacter 7 or Dr. Tims tomorrow.

Would It be too much to get a lawnmower blenny, red tuxedo urchin, pink-streaked wrasse (I hear they are a lot better than their purple relatives)?

 

[NicoEyes]

You could try treating it by dosing Vibrant. Or you could dip the affected rocks in hydrogen peroxide mixed with saltwater in a bucket. Mind you, that’s more of a nuclear solution. Also, emerald crabs like eating hair algae, females tend to be less destructive than males.

I was thinking about doing that but like you said only if I needed to go nuclear.

 

[Snowxcross]

Hello Snowcross!
Normally both no3 and po4 are bottomed out but I just started dosing no3. Should I still aim for 5-10ppm? I had some GFO on the side that I am using now and my skimmer is running 24/7. I will most likely get Microbacter 7 or Dr. Tims tomorrow.

Would It be too much to get a lawnmower blenny, red tuxedo urchin, pink-streaked wrasse (I hear they are a lot better than their purple relatives)?

It won't hurt, if you can pick off most then the urchin and turbos will do better than the blenny. The blennys are great for preventing, not fully removing, same as the clean up crew, but imo they do a better job. Nitrates at 5-10 is fine, if you're testing and see nitrates climbing, stay on that path until you're happy with a number.

 

[NicoEyes]

It won't hurt, if you can pick off most then the urchin and turbos will do better than the blenny. The blennys are great for preventing, not fully removing, same as the clean up crew, but imo they do a better job. Nitrates at 5-10 is fine, if you're testing and see nitrates climbing, stay on that path until you're happy with a number.

I think I have turf algae and not GHA the more I look it up. I am currently looking for the best way to get rid of it.

 

[Snowxcross]

I think I have turf algae and not GHA the more I look it up. I am currently looking for the best way to get rid of it.

You got to figure out the root problem. As far as I see, it's due to low nutrients. Yes, pick it off, scrub it off, all that. But to prevent it, good clean up crew, and keep your parameters high enough your test kits can detect them.

 

[slogan315]

I am almost done battling algae on my 11 month old tank. It was a fight for a long time because I was chasing numbers on nutrients out of fear for starving corals, Cyano, and dinos. Dosing neophos and neonitro daily.

The secret for me was to stop dosing nutrients. When inorganic phos levels are really low, algae will stop growing or whither away. My corals are getting enough organic phos to keep growing, and my cuc has been able to consume algae faster than new algae can grow.

Prior to starting dosing, I had a few corals starve and dinos. I think this time around it worked because I had more mature rocks and more fish producing organic waste. So the organic nutrients were keeping up with the corals needs.

Edit: btw my system is phos limited as I can keep a measurable amount of nitrates but 0 phos. So anytime I dose phos my algae explodes.