New fish tank now with pics and more ?s

[Jasud]

Hello again, thank you for all the people who helped me on my last post with my questions about the aptisia. Here is a picture of my tank after about 10 revisions on the rockscaping:



Here are my inhabitants:
2- peppermint shrimp
2- nas snails



And here are my questions:
What the heck is growing on my rock and sand here and how can I stop it?






Thanks in advance for any help you give, and let me know what you guys think of my aquascaping

Jaime

[bmrescort]

How long has the tank been set-up and how much flow do you have in the tank. looks to me like you need more flow.

[geraldwhite]

Its a Diatom Bloom, the brown rust looking stuff in your tank is not uncommon with new tanks...

You can wait and it will go away with time as your tank matures, or you can purchase a CUC that will eat it... such as:

CERITH SNAIL
Family Cerithiidae (CERITHS)
Cerithium strercusmuscarum

[tcilmo]

I like all the purple, it is my favorite color. Cant wait to see some fishs swimming around in their.

[Deb91]

Love how you set up you rockwork,good job! What kind is it and where did you get it? Yeah you also need a bigger crew, and plast some of the stuff with a turkey baster.

[weaselslucks]

just one of those things you have to wait out.nice looking tank

[Jasud]

Thanks guys, I just bought a Hydor wave maker and the brown stuff on the sand is disappearing.
I got the rock at the LFS, but I actually don't know what kind it is it very porous and there was about 20 mussels on the rock. I took some off but I still have quite a few mussels/clam thingies on the rock. All still alive.
What crew would you guys recommend for a 29 gal tank?

[Jasud]

Are the clams/mussels bad for the tank?

[weereef]

Your rockwork looks great! From what little I know about diatoms, they require light and thrive in the presence of silicon. The source of the silicon could be your sand (if your sand is silica based). The silicon will be absorbed and used by the diatoms in time. Once the diatoms use all the available silicon they will become inactive and die. In the mean time you can use a turkey baster (or just your hand) to gently stir up the sand and try to use a net to catch what you can and remove it from the tank. You could also try turning the light of the tank off for some time ~48hr. Unless the bloom really took off I would just manually remove what I could and wait it out. Looks like a great start though! I am moving my tank in the next month and yours is similar to the idea I have in my head for rockwork. I want to have the walls free of rock to keep the walls of the tank clean of algae.

[MichaelRyanSd]

it looks like the rocks were created specifically for that tank...

[Jasud]

Thank you for the compliments,
The diatoms are getting worse, and I just got cyano appearing in one 1"sq spot.

Also just added a purple fire fish 3 days ago, that is doing really well. He came out all day the day after putting him in and stays out all day till dark.




Another question is: what would be your recommendations for a clean up crew now that you have seen my 29 gal BioCube.
I currently have 2 astras and 3 hermits