Hey i have a 20 gallon nano tank that has one clown and a coral banded shrimp. there is aproximatly 10 pounds of LR. What i need is a cuc to help with hair algea and some of the algea on the glass. Also I would like to add some cool inverts that are reef safe and non aggessive. All help is greatly appreciated
Help with inverts and C.U.C
- Thread starter SpJc11
- Start date
well I first would add more snail's at least 20 to help with the algae issue not the hair algae though. Second get a sea hair for the hair algae also check your phosphate's and your tank for dead spot's most likely your getting a nutrient build-up somewhere which is contributing bad nutrient's to cause the hair algae. Third what is your feeding and how much do you use frozen food, flake foods? You need some nassirus snail's as well at least 20 to keep the sand stirred slightly and they will also consume excess food in the tank astrea snail's only eat your diatom algae's but not hair. Stay away from hermit's and emerald crab's for the tank if you have coral's or plan on getting coral's.
mr.reef24
mr.reef24
i wouldnt advise a sea hare. once it eats the algae, and it will do really quick, it will starve, unless you feed it manually with sea veg, lettuce, seaweed ect... i would find a fishkeeping club instead, they generally have a sea hare that gets passed around each others tanks.
hermits will eat some of the hair algae, but will kill the snails as they need bigger shells.
get a couple of turbo snails for the algae on the glass/rocks, and some nassarius snails to stir up the sandbed.
if you have no coral, cut the lights. i used to run the lights 11hrs a day, and i had hair algae. i cut my lights down to 8 hrs per day (i have corals) and my algae receeded.
you could run your lights 1-2 hrs if you want. your fish wont mind. but if you do have coral id run no less than 7hrs. i wouldnt run less than 7 hrs in my tank.
your other cause could be eccess nutrients in the water, either from overfeeding/dead spots or from the water you use. cut down on the amount of food you add to the tank, add more flow with powerheads, or do more water changes. any one of these will cut down the amount of nutrients in the tank.
you may have nutrient rich water where you live, do a test and see what the parameters are before you add salt. you may need to purchase a Reverse Osmosis unit (RO), to try and get rid of some of the eccess nutrients.
you could add some species of chaetomorph or caulpera, these feed off phospates, nitrates/nitrites as they grow. you will need to keep an eye on the caulpera though. if it rins out of food (nutrients) it dies off and reproduces. and can take over a tank. i cut mine back every few weeks...
another idea is to get some LR rubble and fill all the gabs between your rockwork, to give your tank more filtration, and threrfore better denitrifying properties.
hope this helps...
hermits will eat some of the hair algae, but will kill the snails as they need bigger shells.
get a couple of turbo snails for the algae on the glass/rocks, and some nassarius snails to stir up the sandbed.
if you have no coral, cut the lights. i used to run the lights 11hrs a day, and i had hair algae. i cut my lights down to 8 hrs per day (i have corals) and my algae receeded.
you could run your lights 1-2 hrs if you want. your fish wont mind. but if you do have coral id run no less than 7hrs. i wouldnt run less than 7 hrs in my tank.
your other cause could be eccess nutrients in the water, either from overfeeding/dead spots or from the water you use. cut down on the amount of food you add to the tank, add more flow with powerheads, or do more water changes. any one of these will cut down the amount of nutrients in the tank.
you may have nutrient rich water where you live, do a test and see what the parameters are before you add salt. you may need to purchase a Reverse Osmosis unit (RO), to try and get rid of some of the eccess nutrients.
you could add some species of chaetomorph or caulpera, these feed off phospates, nitrates/nitrites as they grow. you will need to keep an eye on the caulpera though. if it rins out of food (nutrients) it dies off and reproduces. and can take over a tank. i cut mine back every few weeks...
another idea is to get some LR rubble and fill all the gabs between your rockwork, to give your tank more filtration, and threrfore better denitrifying properties.
hope this helps...
when you feed your frozen what do you do? Do you thaw it out in separate container, throw cube in? Sea hare's will eat the hair algae fast but if it is a big problem no concern needed about it dying and most of the time you can resale them when there job is done turbo's and hermit's will only eat your hair algae as a very very very last ditch effort for food I never have seen in the decade's in the hobby either invert eat it unless no food was added to tank and no other source's of food were available.
mr.reef24
mr.reef24
After several bouts with hair algae, i found that running a phosphate reactor, 6 hour lights roughly is what i used to kill mine off, and it sounds like you are doing a bit on the heavy side of feeding, most marine fish can be well fed, feeding them every 2-4 days, i feed my tank, phyto everyday (heavy coral pop), rot's every other day, and about every 3 days mysis, i dont feed any flake/pellet food whatsoever. Sea hairs are great depending on how much algae you have, they do have a verocious appatite, and mine always starved without supplimental feeding, then again if the hair is bad enough its fun to see them mow strips in it.
SpJc11;3217978; said:
do you rinse it off with sink water or RO water tap water contain's phosphate's but very good on not dumping the water in the tank at least you heading the right direction.
mr.reef24