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  #26  
Old 09/09/2005, 07:15 PM
bobt2 bobt2 is offline
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i'll trade you your brown crud for my hairy red algea
  #27  
Old 09/09/2005, 07:18 PM
dwculp dwculp is offline
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I will make that trade!! I have been battling this for two months now. Turning the lights out really helped, so I may go with turning the lights out for a 2 weeks!!!
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  #28  
Old 09/09/2005, 08:42 PM
dwculp dwculp is offline
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I am seriously thinking of adding a UV sterilizer to help kill any free floating algae in the tank. This problem now has me at my wits end!!
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  #29  
Old 09/09/2005, 08:48 PM
bobt2 bobt2 is offline
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mine is a few kinds of red growing on rocks. some looks like plants, some thin strands growing from the rock, some bright red and slimey and some dark red and no slime
  #30  
Old 09/09/2005, 09:36 PM
dwculp dwculp is offline
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How long has it been going on?
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  #31  
Old 09/10/2005, 05:53 AM
bobt2 bobt2 is offline
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quite a while. i prune it every other week.if you want i'll shoot you some pictures tonight
  #32  
Old 09/10/2005, 06:52 AM
lossman lossman is offline
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We currently have three kinds of algae.....red slime, brown "crud" and green. All at the same time!! We had the red slime so bad a few months ago that we used the Chemi-Clean to get rid of it. It worked really well but ..... here we go again! At least none of the three is really bad. The red is mostly in one corner of the fuge, the green seems to be on one area of the back glass and the brown is on one area of the sand and on the maxi-jet mag mounts. I'm going to pick up a phos pad today and put that down in the sump to see if that helps any. Our phosphates and silicates all measure zero now and nitrates are around 10 -15. Before anyone gives suggestions on cutting back on feeding, water changes, running carbon etc....we've done all of that. As per Randy in the chemistry forum, we are just going through one of those normal cycles for a young tank.

BTW, how does a UV sterilizer work to control the algae?
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  #33  
Old 09/10/2005, 08:06 AM
bobt2 bobt2 is offline
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i guess i'm lucky than, only the red micro algea, no slime, no green or brown
  #34  
Old 09/10/2005, 01:47 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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Well, we picked up our third fish for the main tank. He's in qt right now and hiding. Once he feels a little more "at home" and comes out we will take a picture and post it. He's a (now don't laugh...this is for real!!!) slippery dick wrasse. He's just a baby and does not have his full adult coloration so he's kind of bland now...pretty much black and white. He was wild caught so we will be really babying this one. The tank will stay dark most of the time and lights only when we feed him. We will be adding some copper tomorrow and we put in a lot of hiding places for him. Fingers crossed that this little guy makes it. BTW, we have not named him as yet and would welcome suggestions.
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  #35  
Old 09/10/2005, 01:59 PM
patsan patsan is offline
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Why are you adding copper?
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  #36  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:12 PM
skippy2 skippy2 is offline
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You could name him Peter.
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  #37  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:16 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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Because the last wild caught fish we bought, the blue hamlet, went bad so quickly. On advise from a couple of books and from our lfs (who actually said "It can't hurt and I add copper to all my qt tanks"). The book actually says to add a mild copper solution to the qt tank one day after adding the fish. This helps to prevent any disease outbreaks that might happen. We did not add any copper, nor did we even have any on hand, when we had the blue hamlet in qt. He was just fine the day we put him in, not even hiding. He ate well and seemed quite curious of his surroundings. The next morning, he was hiding a bit more, which we thought was perfectly normal. By that evening, I noticed that he seemed to be breathing a bit hard. I believe that if we had added copper at that time, he would have survived. Instead, we had to go through the agonizing process of watching him slowly die. It was horrible. Anything we can do to help this little guy survive, we are going to do.

Actually, I will be going back through all our books and building a "fish first aid kit" this weekend. I don't ever want to be at the point where some basic first aid supply could save my fish and me not having it on hand.
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  #38  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:18 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by skippy2
You could name him Peter.
LOL, we thought of that and were actually thinking of Pedro.

We'll be taking suggestions and will wait a week (just to make sure he survives) before settling on a permanent name. Keep em coming!!!

BTW, Brett suggested Wet Willy!!!!!
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  #39  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:23 PM
patsan patsan is offline
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By adding the copper, don't you then have to be really careful about what corals you'll put into the QT?
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  #40  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:30 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by patsan
By adding the copper, don't you then have to be really careful about what corals you'll put into the QT?
This qt is for fish only. Once we start getting corals, we will get another Walmart special 10 gal qt tank for those. I am not sure that copper will absorb into the glass or the silicone sealant, but it's best not to take any chances. The Walmart specials are cheap enough to have two.
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  #41  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:32 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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BTW, I have heard people say that the frozen cubes have a lot of excess nutrients and phosphates etc in the liquid and that they should be strained before adding to the main tank to help with algae problems. Since we are currently battling algaes, how do you strain the mysis frozen cubes??????
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  #42  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:35 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by patsan
By adding the copper, don't you then have to be really careful about what corals you'll put into the QT?
Another BTW....that's an awesome question, Pat and I am going to post this in the chemistry forum. I wonder how others clean their qt tanks when they have used copper in them.
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  #43  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:35 PM
patsan patsan is offline
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I just put them into a small strainer and run RO/DI thru it to more or less wash it off. It's hard to get the small pieces back though. I also tried doing it in the net, but that was even harder to get out of the net. More stayed in it than what went into the tank.

I always thought once you dose copper, the tank will always have copper in it because it leeches into the silicone. But I could be wrong. That's why I asked.
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  #44  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:44 PM
drk70 drk70 is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by lossman
BTW, how does a UV sterilizer work to control the algae?
My understanding of a UV sterilizer is you have a UV bulb contained in a tube in which you pump water through and is exposed to the UV light. Whatever goes through it is killed by the UV light I believe. The problem is it is not discriminate, it will kill the good stuff too.
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  #45  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:46 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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Brett had a great idea on rinsing the cubes. First we put the cube in a small plastic cup to defrost. Once defrosted we added some tank water to it. Then took Pat's idea of straining it through the net. But then, we took the net, put it back over the plastic cup (mysis side down, of course) and added some more tank water to wash the mysis off the net. It worked out great!!!

Thanks, Pat!!!
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  #46  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:52 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by drk70
My understanding of a UV sterilizer is you have a UV bulb contained in a tube in which you pump water through and is exposed to the UV light. Whatever goes through it is killed by the UV light I believe. The problem is it is not discriminate, it will kill the good stuff too.
That's what we thought. Since the algae is on the sand, glass and rocks, I guess the only way the uv will kill the algae spores is if you swish it up into the water column. I was talking to our lfs today (these guys are awesome, btw!!) and John told us to just stir up the sand bed, let the filter socks gather all the crap, use a ph to spray stuff off the rocks, let the filer take it all down, then replace the socks. Do this every day for several days and it should pretty much eliminate our algae problem and bring down our nitrates (which is probably what is causing our algae problem!!) So, today I put clean filter socks on, swished up the sand bed a bit and sucked up the red slime out of the refugium. Tomorrow I will do all this again...and the next day and the next. Until our nitrates and algae are pretty much gone. I'll keep you all posted how this affects our water parameters. I'm a little concerned about all the crap in the sand bed getting into the water column and doing nasty things. So, on advise, I am doing just a 1/4" of the sand bed depth at a time. We'll see what happens.
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  #47  
Old 09/10/2005, 04:33 PM
jnb jnb is offline
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research how much heat they add too

Quote:
Originally posted by drk70
My understanding of a UV sterilizer is you have a UV bulb contained in a tube in which you pump water through and is exposed to the UV light. Whatever goes through it is killed by the UV light I believe. The problem is it is not discriminate, it will kill the good stuff too.
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the only time i see my firefish is when i look down.... - behind the tank
  #48  
Old 09/10/2005, 04:46 PM
dwculp dwculp is offline
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A UV filter can help to control various sorts of algae that have free floating or swimming spores. The free floating portions get sucked into the UV, irradiated and killed and therby cannot attach anywhere. A friend of mine was having a green film algae problem in his fresh tank and installed a UV sterilizer and the problem disappeared almost overnight. Not sure if it would work on GHA.
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  #49  
Old 09/10/2005, 04:52 PM
dwculp dwculp is offline
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I went and got a small jar of Kalk at the LFS (paid an arm and a leg for it!) and Monday I am going to try and setup a Kalk drip. I just dont quite know how I am going to get the jug of Kalk water above the tank! I just need a small continer of about a gallon or so and run some airline tubing from it into the tank.
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  #50  
Old 09/10/2005, 04:59 PM
lossman lossman is offline
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Pat, Randy at the Chemistry Forum suggested cleaning the qt tank that had been treated with copper with straight vinegar or a muriatic acid solution. He "thinks" this will clean it properly but suggested that the tank get tested with a snail or less desirable invert first for a couple of weeks. Per advise of others, we will not be treating our qt with copper unless/until the fish shows signs of disease. It seems it would mess terribly with our biological filtration system. Right now the silly fish keeps laying over on it's side and playing dead. Seems this is normal wrasse behavior. In the mean time, I am having palpitations thinking we are in the process of loosing our second fish!! If this stupid thing lives, I might have to name him something really bad. Something this forum does not allow to be posted. Something that goes well with his legal name.
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