hi everyone, hope you can help me, recently got a marine tank set up, have four fish at the moment and a couple of shrimps, three clowns and a damsel, im being plagued with brown algae and dont know what to do about it, have been told its lighting, my books all say i should have the lights on for about ten hours, and my supplier of my marines say only six or seven, could this be the reason ??? the tank is quite big, forty eight ins long, twenty eight ins deep and eighteen ins wide. i have two 39watt lamps, 34ins long, one white and one blue (t5) i think, but as im very new to this and never kept any other fish im struggling !!!
also i do lose a bit of water to evaporation and just put in tap water at the correct temp, this i keep at 24 degs and the fish seem ok at that, so another question is should i do water changes and how often, ph is ok and salinity is fine so once more im being told different things, please help me, just a thick trucker who wants to keep the beautiful marine fish alive and in good health ???????
regards keith

Hi Keith and welcome to the site. first of all you need to get your water sorted out, topping up from the tap is a big no no in marine, the reason you have brown algea every where is because of the tap water, tap water is full of NO3(nitrate) and PO4(phosphates) and algea will thrive in a tank with any reading of both of them. So you need to find a good source of RO water that has been through a DI resin (RO = reverse osmosis) this waill take out 99% of the impurities in the water, ie Nitrates, phosphates, other minerals, bacteria, dissolved organics and heavy metals to name but a few.

What do you test for at the moment and what are your results?
and what depth is the tank, and are you only keeping a fish/invert tank and no corals?

Regards Richard

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hi richard, well i never got told about the tap water, or ro water for that matter, at the moment i have a tetratest for no2 which has been and still is coming out at the correct colour and 0.3mg/l so im assuming that is ok, and the sg is 1.024 or 32 salinity, the tank is two feet deep and at the moment i have quite a bit of coral that i bought at the shop, not live stuff in water but was in a sack. the fish i now have, got it wrong just now, are three clowns, one yellow tang, one damsel a couple of shrimps and a feather duster, all seem to be thriving, feeding on brine shrimp and they soon eat all that, just the tank and the algae prob really, thanks for you help so far, maybe my guy isnt so well up on marines, although he has a lot of tanks of them and they all look healthy !!! taking it easy at the moment as the tank is only about five weeks old at the moment. we want to add quite a few more fish yet as the tank is quite large, would like a couple of anenomes for the clowns but hard to come by and i dont want to kill any of the fish by getting it wrong !!!!
regards keith

hi richard, as a just joined this site user am finding it quite difficult to navigate, ment to reply with my last but dont know if you got it, seems to me to have just gone onto the board , slightly confused here, but i hope you got what i sent ???
regards keith (hiawatha)

HI KEITH , Hold On, do you mean that you have only set this tank up for five weeks ? has your ammonia and nitrite peaked ?and disappeared ?.personally I think that that you have rushed into this. how long has the fish been in there? I think the last of your worries is the algea,get your self an ro unit and start doing regular water changes,While you are doing the water changes syphon off as much algae as you can without distressing the fish . If you cant purchase a ro unit yet ,go to your local lfs and buy some ro water,you can buy the water containers there to.I buy salifert test kits which I find totally reliable . do regular tests.Dont know if you've got a skimmer if you haven't buy one, by coral I take it you mean ocean rock looks OK in the beginning until it goes all slimy green personally wouldn't give it tank space, when funds permit get yourself good quality live rock excellent filter full of life see my pics (ps dont forget to aerate the ro water prior to use or when mixing up a batch of salt water IN YOUR CONTAINERS )NOT IN THE TANK)we all have to learn sometimes it can be disheartning and very expensive when things go wrong (see my thread ) Hope it all turns out fine for you all the best grandad.

hi grandad, thanks for that, getting a bit confused now, i meant that the fish had been in the tank for around five weeks, the water and rocks been in for about four weeks longer and has peaked and disappeared now, was testing every day for about a fortnight, the hardiest damsel has been in longest, about a fortnight then came two clowns two weeks after that, then a week after a tang and then, two weeks after another clown, so in fact the tank has been on the go for about i suppose ten twelve weeks altogether, dont time fly, obviously got it all wrong, and its older than i thought !!
ro unit, no havnt got one and dont know what it is, havnt got a skimmer either, as for syphoning off algae, its not floating, just on the glass and on the rocks, fish all seem to be fine at the moment !!!
getting a bit disheartened now, dont know who to believe lol, will get some live rock when i can, as filter already have under gravel plus and external one, so plenty going on there !!!!
how do i airate my ro water in container before mixing, and surely i dont need to mix salt with it, as salt dont evaporate, so dont want to get too much salt in, wow, theres a lot more to this than i thought !!!!
regards keith

Keith, www.ultimatereef.com is definatly worth a look. Will tell you absoloutely EVERYTHING you need to know.

hello keith, I spent 3 hours last night trying to answer you ,gave up about 3 am. I would get to the end press submit and nothing happened. Here we go again. If you are not going to get an r.o unit yet,go to your local fish store ,they will normally sell 5 gallon water containers. you can buy these empty, or they will fill them with r.o water for you at cost of around £2.50 a container full .the containers themselves cost about £6.00 each . but you can keep taking the empty ones back for refilling. ( bit of a nuisance that's why I said get your own r.o unit. )next to airate the water in these containers , you will need an airpump airstones airtubing (and non return valves to stop the water back tracking up the tubes and wrecking your pump ,If you turn your pump off for any reason ) assemble and and place the airstones in the containers ,turn on , you are now airating the water. airate your water for 24 hours .next you are correct in saying that you do not have to add any salt in the water you use to top up the tank to replace evaporated water, but remember when you are doing a water change you are removing the salt that is in the water as well as removing the water ,so this has to be replaced.what I do is pop a heater in each water container ,wait for the temperature to reach the same as your tank .(use a thermometer to check) add your salt slowly making sure you mix it well until you reach the same salanity as your tank, airate it for a further couple of hours prior to use ,check salanity again ,if its still the same as your tank ,then the water is ready to use.(turn off your heaters fifteen minutes before removing to give them time to cool down) While you are waiting for the heaters to cool down clean the algae off the glass and allow it to settle on the bottom of the tank,Get yourself a new bucket and use only for fishkeeping fiter your syphon at the bucket end with a fine net or tights etc and syphon the settled algae from your tank, once you have taken enough water out of your tank , at least 10 per cent take your rock out give it a good scrub and rinse in the water you have just taken out and replace back in your tank.top back up slowly, job done.on your system I personally would do a weekly water change. I would not add any more fish for at least a couple of months,I would install a protien skimmer And wait for things to settle down plenty of information about skimmers and r.o units on aquarist classifieds and e bay and any store that sells them,dont get disheartened almost everyone I know have problems when starting up and all the way through there is always something that can be improved upon . all the best grandad.

hi grandad, well sorry im a bit late reading this but get what you are telling me, sounds quite involved and will visit another fish place that is round the corner, seems like i need to spend quite a bit more, air pumps and heater etc but should be ok with that, cant do anything til friday now, as thats my day off, so sat looks like a busy day. my local man told me it was mainly mylighting, but as i said i dont know if mine is adaquete, but think it should be, not sure what a salifert test kit is but my hydrometer that gives salinity cost a lot so it should be good, yeah !!!!
sorry you had such a hard time getting your reply to me and your help is much appreciated, thanks very much
regards keith

thanks slash, will have a look
regards keith