mseepman's 16" starfire nano

[mseepman]

Well after being away for much of Christmas my Nano tank is showing some struggles. I developed some type of slimy brown algae on all the SPS and it's already resulting in about a 60% death rate for them.

A couple are holding and I'm doing all I can to keep the stuff at bay. My parameters were pretty good, PO4 was a little high as I was due for a GAC and Phos change in mid Dec and didn't get it done until Jan 2nd.

None of my efforts seemed to be affecting this stuff so yesterday I tried some chemi-clean just in case this stuff was related to cyano. Funny thing is that my sand is as clean as a whistle...my fuge has a tiny bit of cyano but nothing major at all.

Anyways, the LPS and zoas are all fine so we'll just keep fighting the good fight and see what comes of it. Worst case scenario I make a Frag-a-lot order of $10 frags and re-fill the nano once I know this stuff is beat.

[Oscar]

That sucks.

[Bugsy]

Sorry to hear that Mark, if you decide to place an order with fragalot please let me know.

[Snufflupagus]

Hello,

Love the tanks you have, they are looking great! In reading I saw you were having some problems with an unknown algae. Well I have a small nano tank at work and it had the same kind of algae in there and I had no clue what to do about it. I took a shot at adding one single hermit crab to the tank to see if he would get rid of the algae and to my surprise two days later he had litterally cleaned over half a medium sized rock bare to the rock surface. I'd say if you are able to add a hermit crab to your tank, it's worth the shot. I think it's a blue legged crab we added, but don't quote me on that. I hope this helps.
I've also heard from a friend that tang fish will eat this algae up like nothing also, though I think the nano tank is a little small for a tang, if you have a bigger tank that can handle the tang after he is in the nano for cleaning reasons, that could be an option too.
Just trying to help. Hope some of my advise helps.

[mseepman]

Thanks for the compliments on my tanks. I really do love this hobby, I just haven't had the luck I wished for in my nano tank.

On the note of what to hit that algae with, I've got blue-legged, red-scarlet, and left handed crabs in the tank and they have no interest in the Algae. I've got a tuxedo urchin and even that won't touch it other than to decorate itself.

I've been sorely tempted to do the Tang thing but as it grows up, I really don't have room for it in my main tank and that just isn't acceptable. Maybe as time goes by, I'll figure out some way to do it.

[kien]

wow, you weren't kidding, you have a lot of mushrooms in there! Are they all the same species? What colour are they ?

[mseepman]

Originally Posted by kien

wow, you weren't kidding, you have a lot of mushrooms in there! Are they all the same species? What colour are they ?

Haha...and that's with me culling every week. Painful I know.

They are the blue mushrooms that seem to be incredibly hardy.

[new but handy]

hey man how's it going
I have got a 3" yellow tang you could try for a while to see if he will eat it