Taking out the rock and scrubbing it won't really take care of the problem The algae will come back in force. IME water changes won't really help...in theory they should but in practice they don't. Small skimmers are all junk too.
Nothing good happens fast in this hobby. However, if you load up a media sock with some GFO (many of our sponsors carry it please try to purchase from them if possible , Bulk Reef Supply is probably the cheapest), you will see an improvement. Then I would make sure you have a few snails to deal with the issue. I recently had a some hair algae growing on the sides of my tank. I added two small turbo snails to my 29 biocube and within a week, the algae was completely gone. I didn't do anything else.
A few other questions for you:
How long have you had this tank? Sounds like you got it already setup and moved it? Did you reuse the substrate? If so what is the substrate. What size biocube is it? How many fish are in there? How often and what do you feed?
Ive had the tank since 3-2-12. yes my cousin had sand in it so i just kept it in... is this bad? its a 29 gallon reg bicube not the hqi. i have two small small clowns, three chromis, yellow headed goby, two cleaner shirmp, star fish, 30 or so crabs, and about 6 or 7 snails. right now i feel once a day with frozen mysis shrimp. i will take a pic tonight when i get home from work but the back wall is getting pretty bad IMO. i use to have a 120gal saltwater tank and ive never had this problem so i def need some help. I am going to stingray bay tm to get some replacement bulbs fans and other stuff so i will pick up som GFO and people have been telling me to get a sea hare.
one more thing my cousin had live rock where the bioballs were supposed to be is that fine? should i take that out and rinse that out? and clean the chamber out?
Water change, leave the LR in the back as bioballs are useless, more waterchanges, add the chemipure, you could also get an algae blenny to destroy it and if its long enough you can take your fingers and swirl it in small circles and the algae will bunch up and you can rip it right off the rock with your hand in large chunks. also turbo snails and a royal urchin will help.
I feed my fish 2 - 3 times a week. They still grow and have great color and look as happy as I can imagine a fish looking.
I used to feed every day, and I had a major GHA bloom on my first tank, right after the big cycle was over. I went out of town for eight days, and never fed the fish the entire time. Turned the lights down to a 4 hour cycle to prevent the water from evaporating... when I returned, ALL of the GHA was gone - literally gone. Since then, I have always figured hungry fish might just have to eat algae every now and then, but I was damned if I was gonna feed the algae.
If you don't pull the rocks out for too long - read minute, not even minutes - you can scrub them and get them back in without too much concern for die off. But. remember - you are gonna starve the algae, so it WILL die off (and possibly feed other algae), so any algae you can remove takes some future nutrients out of the tank.
Start doing daily water changes if you can - RODI maybe 5 gallons a day until you leave. And stop feeding the fish. Really, they can even make it until you return next Sunday. Its hard to completely remove what you put in with that emergency late night tap water addition. Likely phosphates. Unfortunately, you don't get to pick and choose which water gets removed. So, dilute it dilute it dilute it with water changes.
12hrs is to long. 8-10 is plenty. Again harvest as much of the algae you can by hand. Chemipure elite, use ro/di water only, reduce lighting for a period of days.
Your fish can go lightless without issues. Could you house the coral with a friend or LFS? You really want to go without light. Remember your trying to starve the algae out. But if you have to have light. 4hrs is fine.
Originally Posted by jimsflies
Taking out the rock and scrubbing it won't really take care of the problem The algae will come back in force. IME water changes won't really help...in theory they should but in practice they don't. Small skimmers are all junk too., Bulk Reef Supply is probably the cheapest), you will see an improvement. Then I would make sure you have a few snails to deal with the issue. I recently had a some hair algae growing on the sides of my tank. I added two small turbo snails to my 29 biocube and within a week, the algae was completely gone. I didn't do anything else.
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