Is it safe yet?

My 5 year old, 12 gal tank, got covered in hair algae. I took my fish, crabs, snails and coral out of my 12 gal and put them in my 6 gal. for safe keeping.

I think the reason for the algae was bad lighting and lack of water flow. I cleaned out my impella in the pump and ordered new lights (wow, what a difference).

I scraped the back wall and vacumed as I went. I did water changes, changed my sponge, put a bag of purigen in and have had my llights off for 2 weeks.

It looks a lot better, BUT I don't want to rush it and get algae all over my coral.


This picture was taken when it was at it's worst


then it went to this:



This is what it looks like now:


Should I wait a little longer to put my tank back together or does this look like my cleaning crew can take care of the rest?


amonia: 0
trites: 0
trates: 0
PH: 8.2

 

shrimp, snails and crabs cud definitely take care of that

 

woohoo!!! I can't wait to put my tank back together!! And I bet my clown can't wait to get out of the 6 gal. My GSP have been unhapy since the move.
:bouncylau

I will post pictures when I put it all back together.

 

Parameters are in check and it looks sooooooo much better. Seems like you would be good to go IMO.

 

The only thing I would also do is take apart the korallia nano and soak it in distilled vinegar for an hour then use a tooth brush to get the dead algae off the pump. Not only will it look like new, it will work like new as well.

Huge difference. I would say it is safe to put your stuff back in the tank.

 

wow, cool, I've never heard that before. I'll do that tonight then put my tank back together tomorrow.;D

Thanks everyone!!

 

Do you have a phosphate test kit?

 

no, I don't.

 

Phosphate may be your problem. Use r/o Di water?

 

yes I do use RO water. It could be phosphates, but I figure everything I did would get rid of the phosphates anyway.

The reason I think it was water flow is that my pump was barely pushing my water, it was only a trickle. It wouldn't even turn my wave maker so my water was not flowing through the tank.

My lights were almost a year old (I usually reaplace them every Feb.) then someone told me if they are a cheap bulb, I should replace them every 9 months. Which is actually right around the time the algae started. You can see how bad my lights were, the top two pics were taken with the lights on. When I posted the new picture, I couldn't believe the difference.