If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Photo by: vincent.limshowchen

I try to maintain and keep the equipment in my 75gallon tank clean and in good working condition. The problem is, doing this takes time and while I do my best to make time for it, I slacked off the past 3 weeks or so. I have 2 Hydor Koralia pumps to maintain sufficient flow for my corals, an Eheim ECCO canister filter for running phosphate remover and carbon, and an AquaC Remora protein skimmer.

The Hydor Koralia pumps are easy to clean, just a quick scrub to remove any algae and build up and then back in the tank. The canister filter is fairly easy as well and requires a simple scrubbing and replacement of the phosphate removing media. I add carbon to it about once a month. Running carbon too often or all the time can remove necessary elements from your tank. You should only run carbon for about 24 hours and only as needed (i.e. when your water starts to smell bad).

The equipment that requires the most time to maintain is also the most critical item, the AquaC Remora protein skimmer it’s a bit of a mess so I tend to avoid doing it. I avoided it too long this time, and I’ve paid the price.

Hair algae outbreak!

I had a huge algae outbreak some months back as a result of not maintaining proper water parameters. I work diligently to get the parameters correct, purchased a bunch of Turbo and Astrea snails and even a Lawnmower Blenny to help. I diligently did weekly water changes and kept my skimmer clean and running very wet (keeping the skim cup low to catch more organic material). Within a few weeks the hair algae disappeared completely, my tank was beautiful.

Then, I slacked off. I started doing bi-weekly water changes, and not cleaning the skimmer as often…boom, hair algae again! This time, it’s far worse than the first outbreak, and it’s everywhere!

The first problem was a low dKH (alkalinity level, thus low PH). I resolved this my adding Kent Marine Superbuffer. I got the dKH up to 12 and the PH to 8.1.

I then went to clean out my skimmer cup and it wasn’t even close to full, so I lowered the cup to wet skim. The next morning I checked the cup, as under circumstances it would be close to full when wet skimming. Again, almost empty…hmmmm. Checked the pump, it was fine…then it dawned on me that I hadn’t clean the skimmer or it’s venturi value in a few weeks. The light bulb comes on. Second problem, skimmer wasn’t pulling out enough organic material from the thank, thus fueling the hair algae growth.

Zero phosphates doesn’t mean there aren’t any

Phosphates are caused by organic material decomposing in the tank, and serve as the primary source of food for nuisance hair algae. Once you have hair algae growth though, your phosphate levels are generally going to show zero, leading the inexperienced hobbiest to think they don’t have a phosphate problem. Wrong! This just means the algae is consuming it all.

Sure hope this does it

I cleaned out the skimmer, added a new bag of phosphate sponge to my canister filter, did a 25% water change and scrapped the sides of the tank along with vacuuming the sand bed. It will be a few days before I’ll be able to tell if it’s making a difference, but sure hope I begin to see that yucky green stuff begin to turn brown!

I’ll keep you posted!