Quick question about tangs

[John Bolden]

I would skip the tang and go for an urchin. My pincushion goes to town on it (though even these might get too big for a 20 and you will have to supplement with nori).

Manually removing the big clumps and adding some money cowries might do the trick as well. They have the added benefit of:

a. Looking awesome
b. Being Seemingly not interesting to hungry hermit crabs due to shell shape
c. Unlike their bigger cowrie cousins are completely reef safe

(Also manually removing big clumps will serve as a nutrient export mechanism which will help the underlying problem)

Ok thank you ill research those but some of my corals wont stay glued no matter how much I glue them.

 

[John Bolden]

Also can anyone ID my algea just to make sure that its gha or if its another algae .

 

[Reefalistic1]

So I have a 20 gallon with tons of gha and Ive been reading/watching brs and tangs seem like the best way to go but if you have read or seen my tank its a 20 gallon and I know that you cant have a tang in there forever but could I get a small tang in there and when I upgrade my tank transfer it over or return it to the store when it gets too big? If so what tang is best for gha.

I have a 30 gallon reef and have had a small tang in it before the main thing I found out is as long as it is small and you have swimming chanel's your tang will be happy for quite a while

 

[Pipo5]

Don't waste your money on a tang I had the same problem in my 40 cube i bought 12 snails at my lfs for 10$ I told them what my issue was and it gave me larger ones and a week later all my rocks are clean And I couldn't be any happier stress free

 

[Tired]

I have a 30 gallon reef and have had a small tang in it before the main thing I found out is as long as it is small and you have swimming chanel's your tang will be happy for quite a while

It's not a good idea to buy a fish you can't permanently house in your tank, and a baby tang that's properly fed should rapidly grow far too large for a 30gal. Tangs do not belong in nano tanks, unless they're too small for the main tank.

 

[John Bolden]

Don't waste your money on a tang I had the same problem in my 40 cube i bought 12 snails at my lfs for 10$ I told them what my issue was and it gave me larger ones and a week later all my rocks are clean And I couldn't be any happier stress free

What type I have 2 decent sized snails and all they care about is the glass. I also did a water change today and got about 70% of the algae off the rocks and I limited the light to 7 hours a day.

 

[Pipo5]

I was told to always keep the glass clean to keep them of the glass and on the rocks

 

[John Bolden]

I was told to always keep the glass clean to keep them of the glass and on the rocks

Hmm that seems like a good plan.

 

[ClownSchool]

I also recently wet bed a reef farm’s video that said a short, high intensity photo period helps against algae.

Man, my auto correct comes up with some weird stuff…anyway…a Halloween urchin is also a good addition to your CUC.

 

[sergifed91]

I had green hair algea in my tank. I manually removed it. But couldn't keep up. So I got a sea hare. Worked like a charm once algea was gone he got rehomed. Never had hair algea again.

 

[John Bolden]

Btw thank you all for the help. I read and considered them all for my tank and heres what I did: 1 I took most of the rock out and the ones without coral on them I sprayed with hydrogen peroxide then soaked in ro for 10-15 minutes then I ordered carbon and gfo packets to remove phosphates (My carbon became depleted and the water wasn’t as clear) and I’m going to have my lfs order some more blue tuxedo urchins. I immediately ruled the pin cushion urchin because literally none or my rocks are glued down… After the manual removal the tank is looking great but I want to get the other stuff because I don’t want to contain the algae I want to get rid of it completely.

After I get rid of the algae I don’t want to re-introduce the algae into the system to don that what should I dip the corals in?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Btw thank you all for the help. I read and considered them all for my tank and heres what I did: 1 I took most of the rock out and the ones without coral on them I sprayed with hydrogen peroxide then soaked in ro for 10-15 minutes then I ordered carbon and gfo packets to remove phosphates (My carbon became depleted and the water wasn’t as clear) and I’m going to have my lfs order some more blue tuxedo urchins. I immediately ruled the pin cushion urchin because literally none or my rocks are glued down… After the manual removal the tank is looking great but I want to get the other stuff because I don’t want to contain the algae I want to get rid of it completely.

After I get rid of the algae I don’t want to re-introduce the algae into the system to don that what should I dip the corals in?

Its GHA but starting to get the consistency of Chaeto.

 

[Tired]

Keep a very close eye on your water parameters. Hydrogen peroxide and RODI will kill a lot of beneficial bacteria. You may also set yourself up for algae problems in the future, if you kill the rock barren and make space for more pest algae to rampage over.

It's impossible to keep algae out of your system. The best practice is to let an appropriate layer of beneficial algae build up, stock a good cleanup crew, and manually pull out long tufts of algae that your cleaners will have a hard time with.

 

[John Bolden]

Keep a very close eye on your water parameters. Hydrogen peroxide and RODI will kill a lot of beneficial bacteria. You may also set yourself up for algae problems in the future, if you kill the rock barren and make space for more pest algae to rampage over.

It's impossible to keep algae out of your system. The best practice is to let an appropriate layer of beneficial algae build up, stock a good cleanup crew, and manually pull out long tufts of algae that your cleaners will have a hard time with.

It was a lite spritz/ mist of hydrogen peroxide it was more to slow the growth than kill it. Every week I get all my levels tested but I test alk and calcium every other day. Will it kill the coral if I do a hydrogen peroxide dip. If I can dip that how much should I use?

 

[Tired]

You need to be checking your ammonia levels daily after you do heavily disruptive things to your rockwork, like soaking it in RODI. Peroxide dips can be used with corals (though I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head), but some corals react poorly. And you really can't get rid of all the algae spores by any reasonable means. Best to focus on lowering the amount and making the environment no longer conducive to it, i.e. tilting the balance in favor of the corals and making sure to have enough cleaners.

 

[JahStar]

I totally forgot to mention my pencil urchin, that one does eats my coralline algae

 

[homegrowncichlid]

If you want algae-eating fish, look at saltwater mollies. If you want algae gone, get snails.


Sorry, what? What kind of urchins do you have that they're eating fish?

I've tried mollies in the past, but found that yes, they did eat everything growing on the glass, however, I had to feed it much more food than a damsel eats, which was a reinforcing positive feed back loop, of growing more algae on the glass. The molly has an inefficient digestive system, like a goldfish.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

They seem slow moving but they aren’t, you could turn around and they can be in a completely different area.
Here’s the wrasse, he was healthy and thriving in the tank. But as I said, urchins are opportunistic hunters and not strictly herbivorous.

here in the north atlantic, the local urchins hunt and catch killifish at night when the are sleeping.

 

[i cant think]

here in the north atlantic, the local urchins hunt and catch killifish at night when the are sleeping.

Yeah, that’s what we ruled it down to was just natural instincts.

 

[Tired]

Different species of animals behave differently. Can't imagine how a tuxedo urchin would catch and eat a fish, for example. It's got basically no spines.