Here I am on a Sunday morning, drinking my coffee and watching the news on a Tropical storm heading our way. When did I become my grandparents?! But as I sit here blogging I can’t help but hope we don’t lose power. Why? I’m glad you asked. Well a power outage is a threat to my 4 fish tanks (2 even more specifically). Yes you read that correctly, that is what I’m worried about lol not the fridge, air conditioner or entertainment being ruined by no power. Nope I worry because no power can be devastating for the 2 salt water tanks. They rely on filters, heaters and wave makers for oxygen and clean water. All which require electricity. We do have some battery powered air bubble stones to keep the water agitated which should provide the oxygen needed *sigh* hopefully!
With that being said I realize I have been a lazy blogger and have let some of my peeps down. Please forgive me *big puppy dog eyes here* *bats lashes*! I know I started out strong writing a post every week but they have been much more sporatic lately. Again big apology! There have been lots of fish activity over the past few months I don’t even know where to begin catching you up. Hmmmm, well our Saltys have been quite a challenge for the summer months.
Side note: Salt water tanks are always a challenge just saying! But the summer heat makes it worse!
Sooooo whats been going on? Man I wish I could just write this as one big run on sentence😂 I really should start a podcast. (Thinks deeply about this becoming a possibilty) I’m pretty sure you guys and gals would love my podcast because… well I’m a great storyteller and extremely funny! Not to toot my own horn but *toot toot* ! No seriously I think that will be my next venture. I will go back to my weekly post and look into this crazy new fad of podcasting. Wowwww…. completely jumped off track there. What the heck was I even talking about before I had an ADD moment? 🤔 Anyone? Bueller?
Okay, okay, let’s just say I was going to tell you about some of the issues Kraig and I have been dealing with from the 125 gallon tank. ( I said Kraig and I, however I really meant Kraig) Poor guy has literally put his blood, sweat and tears into this tank. So what is it that has had our heads spinning? Algea, algea and more algea. Different types as well.
The process for getting rid of anything in a salt water tank is never easy. Researching can be the worst because you mostly get forums of opinions and also lots of contradictions, so in the end you really need to do what you think is best for YOUR tank. Now don’t get me wrong you will probably not get it right the first time. But if you do congrats and a gold star for you! Pat yourself on the back and consider yourself lucky. Because we have been fish parents for a little over a year now and still we do not always get it right the first time. There are just too many ways to go about getting the result you need. Every tank is different. Each result is different. We sadly lost some beautiful pieces of coral due to this algea problem. No fish however! Which i’m sad and happy about. We are striving for a reef tank which requires corals to achieve that look. But I am glad it has not affected the fish.
This is an after picture of all the hard work and round two of getting rid of algea. I apologize for the quality but the reflection is from all of my windows on the glass. Notice no algea on the rocks or glass. Unfortunately we don’t have a before pic and honestly it’s because 1. it’s agonizing and gross to look at and 2. it’s embarassing and makes you feel like you failed. But as you can see we are not people who just give in!
Now what steps did we take to achieve no more algea? Well grab your favorite morning drink and take a seat, it’s quite a story!
So it starts you are looking at your beautiful tank and then suddenly out of nowhere this gross greenish brown sludgy, stringy yuck is flowing in the water like “heyyy ya’ll how’s it going?” Once we realized it was hair algea and it was starting to take over the tank, we were like “oh hell no satan not today!” So we started to research the best and quickest way to get rid of it. However like I said earlier research is the devil…ummmm hmmm excuse me *clears throat* I mean it’s not quite that bad I suppose 🙄 …. but it is very confusing and contradictory! Also hair algea decided to throw a party and invite some of his other friends like cyno and diotom. So now we are dealing with more than one type of algea/bad bacteria.
So what did we do? Well first a 3 day blackout which means turning off lights and covering the tank so no light can get in. Most algea needs light to grow and also heat. Did that work? It did-ish. Up next … Kraig researched some chemicals that are a more rapid solution. Once again it sort of worked buttttt is killed some of the good bacteria that keeps the tank balanced and feeds some creatures like snails and hermits as well as those super cute urchins. You know, my loves with their super cute hats?! Welp the urchins sadly died due to not enough food because of the good bacteria gone 😥 Frantic, frustrated, sad and worried about the rest of the living creatures our next step was to keep the house cold and for Kraig to scrub everything in the tank which is an etremely long and tedious process. Once again only helped a little bit. So next was a water change. We then did some more research, again when I say we I mean Kraig. lol We found out that our phosphates could be high and that could be contributing to the algea also. So our last hope was to test the water which we found out the phosphates were very high. We now added different types of chemicals and filter pads to lower the phosphates. I can now say after months of stress and worry that we would lose everything we finally have the algea 95% under control! (andddddd the crowd goes wild!!!) Now it seems there is hope, oh and also Kraig you need him to make this all work!! I’m really just his cheerleader and sidekick when it comes to maintenance and care of these tanks. So basically he’s Batman and I’m Robin!! Haha see what I did there 🤣🤣 Get it?! C’mon it’s hilarious!
That was long winded with lots of information there, hopefully you were able to follow along!
Moral of todays post: Salt water tanks are a big investment don’t give up! Patience and time! Also a credit card and oh get yourself a Kraig. (you can’t have mine though, because well he’s mine 💖)
I hope everyone stays safe during the storm! Thanks for reading! Lots of love and appreciation!
-R💜
Trials, Tribulations and Fish "Tails" 