rock cleaning

jfmorrison · 09/15/2012, 01:06 PM

Not sure if this has been addressed elsewhere, but a cursory search revealed little. I clean my live rock with a pipette, softly rushing water over the rocks. I got a little behind and some algae has grown over several of the rocks. How important is it to have a clean rock? Is there any livestock that will help with cleaning? Should i scrape/scrub the algae off?

jon99 · 09/15/2012, 03:28 PM

If algae keeps growing over your rocks you likely have high nutirent levels (usually either nitrates or phosphates). Algae is the symptom of the problem, not necessarily the problem itself.
It's not 100% critical that you remove the algae unless it's starting to grow over corals. This will in time kill them. However, removing the algae does help in an indirect way remove nutirents from the system. Several large (30% or so) water chages will help reduce the nutrient levels in the water and in time if the water quality is mainted the algae will disappear.
What color is the algae? This may give some insight into what kind it is and what might eat it to help keep it under control.

jfmorrison · 09/15/2012, 05:09 PM

Its green. The water quality is actually pretty good. I'll test again and post the parameters.

09/15/2012, 01:06 PM	#1
jfmorrison Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Posts: 14	rock cleaning Not sure if this has been addressed elsewhere, but a cursory search revealed little. I clean my live rock with a pipette, softly rushing water over the rocks. I got a little behind and some algae has grown over several of the rocks. How important is it to have a clean rock? Is there any livestock that will help with cleaning? Should i scrape/scrub the algae off?

09/15/2012, 03:28 PM	#2
jon99 Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Atl Ga Posts: 817	If algae keeps growing over your rocks you likely have high nutirent levels (usually either nitrates or phosphates). Algae is the symptom of the problem, not necessarily the problem itself. It's not 100% critical that you remove the algae unless it's starting to grow over corals. This will in time kill them. However, removing the algae does help in an indirect way remove nutirents from the system. Several large (30% or so) water chages will help reduce the nutrient levels in the water and in time if the water quality is mainted the algae will disappear. What color is the algae? This may give some insight into what kind it is and what might eat it to help keep it under control.

09/15/2012, 05:09 PM	#3
jfmorrison Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Posts: 14	Its green. The water quality is actually pretty good. I'll test again and post the parameters.