Emerald Crab vs. Hair Algae

[Lavey29]

So your telling me that just by placing tuxedo urchins in GHA forest you are forcing them to eat it. Thats like saying if you place someone who is anerxic in a room full of marshmallows you will force them to eat there way out. Pure nonsense!

I have 6 tuxedo urchins in my 200 gal. All of them where placed directly on GHA. Within 2 days all of them where climbing the glass, and never touched the GHA.

You most likely have briopsis not GHA. Mine cleaned an entire jungle in 3 weeks.

 

[Sean Clark]

Thanks for your incite @Lavey29 I appreciate you sharing your experience. Thank you.

 

[culvern]

The only thing that helped me get ahead of the hair algae, was removing the rocks (1 per week), scrubbing with a steel brush and then treating them with H202 before putting them back. I don’t think a CUC can get ahead of that much GHA. You have to get it down first and then use them to keep it that way. In fact none of mine seem to like the long stuff

Agree. Hair algae isn’t very appetizing to reef creatures. Go with manual removal, consider increasing water change frequency (at least a while), look into nutrient import/export to key in on the source.

 

[Andresnyc93]

Do you have any coral? If not just turn your lights off all together and just let ambience light be the only light in the tank, GHA needs nutrients and light to keep growing. Then just start getting really stingy with your feedings, only feed little bits of pieces of food until fish start ignoring the food and if there’s any leftovers on the rock I’d syphon it or turn up your wavemakers so it can get filtered out. I battled GHA for weeks and this did the trick the fastest. First picture was taken 3 weeks apart from second one and you can tell the rocks were completely covered with algae everywhere and pretty long as well.

 

[LiveFreeAndReef]

So your telling me that just by placing tuxedo urchins in GHA forest you are forcing them to eat it. Thats like saying if you place someone who is anerxic in a room full of marshmallows you will force them to eat there way out. Pure nonsense!

I have 6 tuxedo urchins in my 200 gal. All of them where placed directly on GHA. Within 2 days all of them where climbing the glass, and never touched the GHA.

Expecting results in 2 days is silly, especially with that size of a tank and how slowly urchins move. Just because you spent a bunch of $$ on CUC and didn't get instant results doesn't mean that CUC are "fake news" Could've saved yourself a few hundred with a little patience

 

[Matt Miller]

I added a few astraea snails and they did a great job on my rocks.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I have astraea snails, a couple turbos, about 50 blue leg hermits, a halloween hermit, an electric blue hermit, an emerald mithrax crab, and as of yesterday 2 pincushion urchins. The urchins immediately started eating hair algae, everyone else does as well, but they don't clear it out. Plan to pick up a couple more XL turbos soon.

 

[3429810]

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[Fishfreak2009]

These 2 went to work within 10 minutes of being acclimated. ORA captive bred pincushion urchins.

 

[3429810]

I feel your pain buddy! In the last 4 weeks I have spent close to $500 on fish and CUC's, trying to battle GHA. In my opinion, if you want to waste money in this hobby start with CUC's. They are the most overated, overhyped, of all the junk pushed on us. I think a turkey baster blow to the tank once or twice a week does far more good. Wish I had an answer as far as the emerald crab. My guess is it would be a waste of money and do far more damage to your tank than help by chewing on everything you don't want it to.

Probably would be cheaper to address the reason you have such a bad gha issue instead of spending hundreds on bandaids. Cuc only is effective if you let it be. If you have gha forests it’s probably so long most stuff won’t touch it. I have a mix of snails and crabs the decimate gha. Emeralds are not a waste of money and I think they get a bit of an unfair reputation. I have three in my 65 and one in my 13.5 qt, never touched a coral. I feed them a lot though.

How does blowing off the rocks better than a cuc when gha has roots? Are you sure you don’t have dinos or something?

 

[Roatan Reef]

Probably would be cheaper to address the reason you have such a bad gha issue instead of spending hundreds on bandaids. Cuc only is effective if you let it be. If you have gha forests it’s probably so long most stuff won’t touch it. I have a mix of snails and crabs the decimate gha. Emeralds are not a waste of money and I think they get a bit of an unfair reputation. I have three in my 65 and one in my 13.5 qt, never touched a coral. I feed them a lot though.

How does blowing off the rocks better than a cuc when gha has roots? Are you sure you don’t have dinos or something?

????

Good Question.

Since my CUC and running Phosguard with Activated Filter Carbon...have had no major issues. Had a nasty Diatom bloom for a week, but it has subsided and tank looks awesome

 

[Glenner’sreef]

Do you have any coral? If not just turn your lights off all together and just let ambience light be the only light in the tank, GHA needs nutrients and light to keep growing. Then just start getting really stingy with your feedings, only feed little bits of pieces of food until fish start ignoring the food and if there’s any leftovers on the rock I’d syphon it or turn up your wavemakers so it can get filtered out. I battled GHA for weeks and this did the trick the fastest. First picture was taken 3 weeks apart from second one and you can tell the rocks were completely covered with algae everywhere and pretty long as well.

Spot on!!! I’m curious your response to this post. Without light you have no algae. Where is your tank situated ? Near windows with direct light for even a couple of hours or diffused light for most of the day. I deal with this literally 2-3 times a week with many aquariums. I’m well aware of high phosphates and foods etc being the problem but but it’s sounding like you’re on top of those type of issues. Also lighting schedule? How old are your lights? Good luck.

 

[ScottyD36]

Emerald Crabs are the most veracious algea eaters around IMO.

Do you have a UV sterilzer or at least bulb? What media is the reactor running? How often do you feed?

I do not have any UV sterilzer or Bulb. My reactor is currently running Phosguard. I am switching out the phosguard for GFO. I feed once a day.

 

[ScottyD36]

Spot on!!! I’m curious your response to this post. Without light you have no algae. Where is your tank situated ? Near windows with direct light for even a couple of hours or diffused light for most of the day. I deal with this literally 2-3 times a week with many aquariums. I’m well aware of high phosphates and foods etc being the problem but but it’s sounding like you’re on top of those type of issues. Also lighting schedule? How old are your lights? Good luck.

I have two lights on my tank two AI PRIME 16. I am currently running the Eddie Putra light schedule. My tank is a 45 gallon long.

 

[SaltyRNFrank]

After 15yrs....found the Only way to beat GHA is to dose Nanno phytoplankton to starve it out... but evrryone is stuck in their own methods

What is Nanno Phytoplankton ?

 

[D3DPrintedThingz]

Did you read my post?

Lol