High Tide Aquatics

Requesting permission to be lazy

svreef

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BOD
I’m converting my tank to freshwater but there’s a lot of green algae and coraline on the glass and overflow.

If I run it with cold freshwater and a ton of power heads for a few days, do you think it will go away and get filtered out?
 
I just don’t want to waste 200g of water. I guess I could try it and if it doesn’t work out, dump a bunch of citric acid in there…
 
I suspect it will dissolve over time. What time that is depends on how much it gets agitated and what the TDS (total dissolved solids) of the water is.
 
Freshwater will kill the saltwater algae and coralline and just about anything else in there. Probably wont particularly clean it up though.
 
I suspect it will dissolve over time. What time that is depends on how much it gets agitated and what the TDS (total dissolved solids) of the water is.
Just curious, what does tds have to do with dissolving algae and coralline? Haven't heard that before.

I think you would need to add acid, or inject co2 to lower pH to dissolve it...

Or just use a razorblade?
 
I'd do the vinegar or citric spray route. They're cheap, and you can go heavy on it. I'm not sure if it'd be asking for scratched up glass, but you could try a heavy vinegar spray followed by a magnetic scraper razor.

Or if you want to be really really wasteful and lazy, fill it back up, toss in some urchins, drain again when clean. Use natural saltwater cause drought. Then instead of going freshwater make it an easy urchin softie tank :)
 
And…it’s full and running

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I’m converting my tank to freshwater but there’s a lot of green algae and coraline on the glass and overflow.

If I run it with cold freshwater and a ton of power heads for a few days, do you think it will go away and get filtered out?
No, you will need to add some citric acid and then the coralline will either melt or soften up so it can be wiped away. However if you do an angelfish/discus low pH tank that will happen with time anyway.
 
I think the point he was making is cleaning the algae, while still be able to reuse the water later for his FW. he doesnt want to waste the water.
 
,well, you can use it to flush the toilet for a while…..

was going to tell yah to cover the sides with paper towels and soak your preferred acid, too late.
 
I would bet good coral that in 6 months, the corraline will dissolve in the fresh water, especially if you are keeping an Amazonian biotope with a ph of 6.3-6.8
 
If you did a planted tank, those bit of coralline etc would be great for buffering the system. But, end of the day... doesn't really matter much since small amounts.

What i would have done is let the tank dry out.... which will literally powderize the coralline and algae, making easy to come off the glass
 
The coraline is not a huge deal in my mind. It’s the green algae on the glass. It’s the kind that is really hard to remove with a scraper - all due to my neglect.
 
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