I got a tank late last year that had hair algae in it. I cleaned it pretty good (couldn't do much for the live rock) but now the algae is back but ten times worse. I added some hermit crabs, a sally lightfoot crab, and some emerald crabs but it is still a mess. The guy at the store said I needed them but they really aren't helping. Any suggestions?
Hair algae.
- Thread starter Bottom Sucker
- Start date
Oh by the way, the algae is now mostly on the rock. Where before it was mostly just on the glass.
Sounds to me like there are to many nutrients in your system, firstly do you have snales? As they are a million times better then crabs in all ways. How big the tank? Is it heavly stocked? What sort of filtration do you use? Water changes? Feeding habbits?
unfortunetly the crabs won't do anything about the hair algae but will help clean left over food and waste but now when you add what will help with the hair algae that invert is gonna be crab food I would check your phosphates and flow in your tank plus what are you feeding and how much? You could get a sea hare which should be not disturbed by your crabs and will eat all of your hair algae just really take the time to properly acclimate it and don't let PH, or salinity take any drastic turns or it might kill the sea hare.
p.s. add at least 1 snail per gallon like trochus, ceirth, abalone, nassirus, astreia. Stay away from chestnut snails, bumble bee, mexican turbo snails and any other turbo snails.
mr.reef24
p.s. add at least 1 snail per gallon like trochus, ceirth, abalone, nassirus, astreia. Stay away from chestnut snails, bumble bee, mexican turbo snails and any other turbo snails.
mr.reef24
You should get (borrow) a Dolabella sea hare. It will make short order of all your hair algae in just a few days. The downside is that it will then starve to death.
turbo snails are sub-tropical and when in reef tank there metabolism raises to much that they grow too big and knock over the live rock and corals and become a problem or do great and die and foul the tank since they will get big fast. However, some people keep them with okay success with a lower temp. but not worth risking all your reef fish and corals to make tank acceptable for a snail. Great question by the way Mazcote Yarquest
mr.reef24
mr.reef24