Algae on Tank Glass

[workreefer]

I have been battling, for about a month, an algae (I think) that sticks to the glass of my tank. It's very difficult to remove with a scrubber and it occurs in green blotches and then grows to cover almost the entire glass wall of the tank in about 2 weeks. What is it and how do I get rid of it?

[gregt]

[welcome]


Your describing a typical scenario. There's not much you can do but clean the glass on a regular basis. Welcome to reef keeping.

[Skidge]

I know people say to keep your hands out of the tank, but the best way I've found for removing that crud is to regularly (almost every 2-3 days) wipe it off with a clean washcloth. Then occassionally there are the harder to get off spots, which come off easily with the edge of a credit-card type thing (I use a Starbucks gift card). I have a magnetic scrubber thing, but it just doesn't work as well as getting my hands in there. Of course, I also have a small tank (18 gals or so), so it takes less than a minute to do it.

[jackobox]

...and to think, I thought I had an aglae "problem". I just scraped my tank off yesterday after about a month and let me tell you, I should start making crackers like in that movie Soylent Green. How often do you guys scrape the glass and to what degree? When I scraped my glass, after about 15 minutes you could see little bubbles where the algae was so I went in and scraped again and are there any tricks for taking out the algae chunks after??? I just ended up buying a brine shrimp net and scooping away for 30 minutes.

[bdr127]

Check out these long scrapers from Kent Marine:

http://www.inlandreef.net/kencleanut.html

I bought one and it works well for the stuff you are talking about.... I'm actually planning on using it to scrape as soon as I get off the computer.

[jackobox]

Hey there bdr127, right next door.


I'm curious as to just what is a "typical" amount of algae in a tank. Should there be none except the coralline or a few tufts here and there??? My algae mainly hits my glass and some on my gravel, but I got a queen conch that's taking care of that problem. Also recently some of my rocks have been getting hit by some brown slimy stuff and I have yet to determine why I'm having so much algae.

I have a 40 gal. with 40 lbs of live rock, 3-4 aragonite bed, 0 nitrates, 0 phosphates and do a 5 gallon water change every week.

hmmmmm.....any thoughts or suggestions???

[jackobox]

water change is with RO water

[himoc918]

I had the same problem with the green algae all over the front glass of my tank. Just the other day I read about using a credit card to remove it. It worked great!! The best window cleaning advise I've ever had. The glass looks brand new. Just make sure its an old card before you use it.

[REEFLIFE]

The credit card works great until the fish learn how to use it....Seriously, I have to clean the front and one side of my tank every 2-3 days. I leave the back and another side alone so the fish have something to nibble at. I have a completely covered side with green algae but the back seems to stay in control by the fish and snails. Like someone said, welcome to reef life. No matter what you buy you will always have to clean the glass. I also use the Kent scraper. does work well on the tough stuff and you don't have to stick your hands so deep in the tank as you do with a credit card....my fish love it when I do, seems like they almost have teeth. Good luck.

[SurferStevo]

Over the last 2 months or so my yellow tang has recently started to follow me around when I'm scraping the glass. He likes to get the stuff (diatoms I guess) before it drifts away. A real PITA sometimes to deal with him when I'm in a hurry.