Green fuzzy stuff

[youtoo54]

I have green fuzzy algae looking stuff all over my rocks now. Any idea what it may be and how do I get rid of it>

 

[Cathic]

its either green turf or green hair algae from the description. What lighting are you using, how often do you do water changes, what type of water are you using (tap or ro/di) and what kind of a clean up crew do you have?

 

[wontonflip]

+1 Cathic....we need parameters, too. Old bulbs can cause algae, nitrates, phosphates, overfeeding, lots of things.

 

[youtoo54]

My nitrates are just now starting to show up. I just have 1 250 w MH light. (its 180 FOWLR). As far as my clean up crew there are 30 or so hermits and im not sure about the variety of snails I have leftr. Between my dog face puffer and my snow eal Ive had alot of them get eaten.

 

[wontonflip]

Have you increased your feeding? How old is the light bulb? Have you checked your phosphates? Your tank's been up for a year now, right? Might want to update your signature LOL! I would check your new water for nitrates/phosphates, too.

And going back to what Cathic asked, are you using rodi or tap?

 

[youtoo54]

Bulb is maybe 4 months old. I use tap water. I have not checked my phosphates yet. I feed them about every 3 or 4 days. After about 15 sec there is no food in the tank. The grouper makes sure of that....

 

[Bifferwine]

Tap water is the most likely culprit. It can contain high levels of phosphates, nitrates and heavy metals -- which fuel algae.

https://www.livingreefs.com/why-using-tap-water-bad-idea-t19865.html

 

[wontonflip]

+1 biff....I bet it's your tap. When I first started the hobby, I could not get my nitrates to go down. Turns out my tap had 20ppm of nitrates.

 

[AdamC]

Shouldn't he also feed them more often?

 

[Bifferwine]

Shouldn't he also feed them more often?

That can depend on a lot of things... How many and what kind of fish, how long the tank has been established. I used to feed my fish once every couple weeks. Yote (another moderator on here) would feed his fish every couple months. Most people feed once a day or every other day. Every tank is unique.

 

[AdamC]

I feed my fish twice a day but I also have 9 fish. granted most are 1-2 inches. I'm thinking I may have been overfeeding though. That is probably the hardest thing for me to figure out is how much to feed those guys because its hard to go by how much they can eat in three minutes because well the stuff gets blown around and some of it needs to land on the sand bed for inverts