Need opinions...

[MermaidTail]

Hey all- I have a a mixed-reef 6gallon Fluval Edge that's doing really well. It's seven months old.

But I've been battling some minor green hair algae. It's not a huge issue, but I'm a little obsessive and don't like the look of it- even in small amounts. I'm just confused about the growth because I've been doing regular water changes every three days and have really reduced my lighting, using mostly actinic blue, and really try and limit the feedings. I currently use frozen mysis and Reef Roids. Coral and fish doing well, but the hair algae is still there.

Wanted some opinions...

I was considering doing a thorough tank-cleaning and sand stir-up. Because of the design of the tank, this would mean removing all of my live-rock and coral and stirring the sand bed and scraping the glass (there's coraline growth happening there), but wanted some informed your opinions on the matter.

Because I haven't done this sort of thorough cleaning, and the tank is 7 months old, I'm worried about stirring bad stuff up and upsetting the parameters and harming livestock.

Any opinions? Thanks in advance!



(My entire tank thread is here for reference: http://reef2reef.com/threads/new-fluval-edge-6-gallon-tank.233568/)

I've been battling some green hair

 

[Babygecko1233]

I have the same exact tank. My tank was growing green hair..i added 4 dwarf blue leg hermit crabs....they cleaned it all out and i added 2 dozen ghost shrimp. I aclimated them first (they will die off prob over night but your fish will eat them) once the hermits and shrimp cleared the green hair, red garcilaria took its place on my live rock. My opinion is add some hermits they dont harm any of my zoas or anything in my tank. Just the green algea and left over food.

 

[Babygecko1233]

When cleaning our tank .... We get bowls and remove all the zoas. The anemones stay and the 2 sargent majors we have stay in the tank..all the live rock is removed. We take the filters out and rinse them and add fresh activated charcoal/carbon. Then we take a shishkabob stick (cut the pointy end) and stir up all the debrees slowly and calmy a little at a time. The fish dont mind...they eat some of the stuff...along with the anemones ( 2 tube anemones and 2 baby condy anemone)...also run a protien skimmer...since the hole in the top of the tank is small we made our own protien skimmer out of 2 bottles and tape and an old bubbler. Pm if you have further questions since we have the same exact tank

 

[MermaidTail]

Awesome. Thanks so much for your replies! I have three snails and three crabs in there now and they don't seem to help. I'm also not looking to incorporate a skimmer cause I'm doing such regular water changes. I'm just mostly curious if a good sandbed cleaning could help?

 

[Babygecko1233]

Yes i would clean the sand.