Looking for a worker for my coral QT

[ZipAdeeZoa]

Hello everyone!

about a month ago I got my first corals and they have been in qt for a while now, so long that some less desirable algae has started to grow off of the plugs. It's far from plague proportions but I was thinking it may be a good idea to have something in the tank to keep things a little tidier. The tank is pretty basic only containing a diy egg crate frag rack. I was originally thinking an Emerald crab, I know they can go rogue but I keep a close eye on my tank and because of how bare it is it would be no issue to remove it and take it back to the LFS. I was also considering some sort of hermit crab but not sure how effectively they could climb around the frag rack. I do have two hermits in my DT, one scarlet and dwarf blue leg but the blue leg has to stay in the DT because he is single clawdidly keeping my hair algae in check but I could try putting the scarlet in there to see what he might do.

Open to suggestions!

 

[MrsBugmaster]

How long have the corals been in QT? why not just take them off the current frag plug with algae on it and put them of a new plug . At this point, anything added to the QT, you will have to restart the qt clock.

 

[jsvand5]

If you don’t want to use a fish to eat it I’d go with Trochus snails. Hermits aren’t likely to keep up with it.

 

[ZipAdeeZoa]

Thanks for the responses!

How long have the corals been in QT? why not just take them off the current frag plug with algae on it and put them of a new plug . At this point, anything added to the QT, you will have to restart the qt clock.

they are currently at 18 days out of the 45, I was under the impression that I wouldn't need to reset the clock since a simple rinse would take care of any free swimmers potentially released from other corals (as per this article and another one that I am unable to find https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-invert-quarantine-time-frames.334584/). To answer your other question Most of these corals are softies and zoas which makes that slightly more difficult but mainly because I never really thought about doing that but going forward I certainly plan to! I'm starting to think I should just put my scarlet hermit in there and see what he can do.

If you don’t want to use a fish to eat it I’d go with Trochus snails. Hermits aren’t likely to keep up with it.

I was planning on getting a trochus snail for my DT eventually but thought that they would only really go for film algae and wouldn't bother with it once it got past a certain length. I have a diatom bloom in the qt that I'm not touching so that I'll have some food in there when I do get one. I'm avoiding fish because I'm mainly trying to avoid fish diseases with coral QT and want to make sure different potential diseases don't have a host.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Trochus will eat hair, film, diatoms, and cyanobacteria. They will eat long hair algae. They go up to it, not on it usually, eat their fill, then move on. Eventually they will eat it all. You can always get more trochus if the algae is still spreading after the 1st addition.

Gold ring cowries on the other hand will just camp out at a big patch of gha and eat for days. They do not like light though and would need a well shaded place to sleep during the day as they are nocturnal.

 

[ZipAdeeZoa]

Thanks for the info! It's looking more and more like a trochus snail is what I'm looking for! I work at the LFS tomorrow so I'll see if we have any!

 

[ZipAdeeZoa]

Well I managed to find one trochus snail at work yesterday and scooped him up! so far I'm very impressed with the work its been doing to the diatom bloom! I did see another trochus snail at work yesterday so if I need another I'm fairly confident It will still be there.

Thanks for the help everyone!