Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Not having a problem with it, but more a lack of it.
Tank has been setup 2 months now, and I would expect to see an algae bloom by now. A very tiny amount of brown algae will occasionally need to be scrubbed off the glass w/ the magnet. I scrubbed the rocks before placing them in the tank, to remove sponges, or anything that looked like it might be dying. The rocks did not smell bad to start with, more like the ocean. Had a very short cycle, but have blown plenty of junk off the rocks with the old turkey-baster.
I have wanted to get more of a clean up crew, but don't want them to starve if there isn't actually any algae. I have 10 blue legs, and 10 of the small turbos.

I have been feeding a lot, like more than a cube a day, trying to get more of a pod population.

The 3 fish I have are carnivores, so they don't rely on algae.

The only nutrient extraction I have is a very small amount of spaghetti macro, and my skimmer. I suspect I might be overskimming the tank, but am not sure. The skimmer will start removing brown stuff 15 minutes after I hook it back up from a cleaning. It seems really efficient.

I should mention lighting. I am using two vho tubes @ 160watts/ea.
I just replaced the bulbs yesterday, I did not realize how bad the old ones were. It seems twice as bright now. So the tank has been kept fairly dim, to try and make up for it , I was running them 14hrs/day. I should have my halides setup some time early in the week.

Did some water testing this weekend, and the ph is a little high @ 8.6, ca is low at 370 (working on it), Nitrates were undectable, did not test alk, phosphate or nitrites yet (I will tonight).

It's making me nervous, am I missing something important?

Depends on what type of algae you are looking for ? Are you looking for the upcoming nuisance algae bloom or Coralline ?

Do you feed phyto of some sort? Over feed that for a while and I'm sure you'll get the algae. I assume your looking for the "bad" type so as to feed the inverts in there. Oh and 3 carnivores and Pod population might not mix.

Am looking for the bad kind. I seem to have the starting of the good kind, just don't seem to have the bad kind yet. That is a good point about the three carnivores = 0 pods.... doh, sometimes the obvious escapes me.
Should be 2 1/2 because the royal gramma never leaves his hole unless something drifts by it.

I did for the first time notice there is a little green hair-algae on one rock, so its a start. I just thought that with a new tank the algae bloom was imminent (sp).

On the bright side, my scooter blenny was spotted chasing down dead mysis shrimp. He noticed them drifting by and will swim up (man he's slow) and drift sideways to catch it.. very neat. I have to turn the pumps down so he can catch them, otherwise they blow by too fast. He's quick over the sand, but can't swim up worth a poop..

Not feeding live phyto, but want to. That would be something awesome to hear about at the meeting if someone has experience culturing phyto/rotifers, etc....

That doesn't sound like a problem to me. If there is no bad algae then there isn't as much need to spend the cash on tons of snails and crabs. Plus 2 months isn't that long if you have a good skimmer and water quality. I thought i was doing good for my first six months with the tank without the problem algaes then bam. For the next year I was fighting to remove the hair algae. Well now the tank is up for 2 yrs and i have 2 or 3 problem spots. They are small but none of my cleanup crew touches them. Just give it time. In a few months you might be on here complaining about too much algae.

Same here... we have two places with hair algea and it is like the cleaner guys just avoid the area like it is condemned.

I was just thinking of my experience with my smaller tank. After the algae bloom, the pod population just exploded. The algae died back but the pods stayed. I will have to do the refugium I guess on here if I want to have any chance of having the little pod critters. I'm holding off until I get a new stand finished before I add that though.

I destroyed my canopy last night and added a raised section to the back for my halides, but did not get finished with it last night, so my tank is totally without light today. It's a storm day

Brandon wrote:It's a storm day

Yep, It's raining in our living room.....heh......

i dont get much algae either, and im pretty thankful, thats the last thing i want to battle right now