Weird algae growing?
- Thread starter SolarReefer
- Start date
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SnazzyUrchin792
Well-Known Member
Green hair algae. A nightmare to remove from the sandbed. It intertwines itself with sand, which makes it too heavy to siphon and will cause you to lose a lot of sand while removing manually.
SolarReefer
Community Member
Any recommendation on best plan of attack? I just got an emerald crab a couple snails and a couple hermits. A CUC will remove the GHA but not the nutrients. Should I just manually remove them do a series of water changes?
SnazzyUrchin792
Well-Known Member
Most standard CUC won’t touch it. I’ve heard Mexican turbo snails will eat it, but tuxedo urchins are the only thing that have worked for me. Or you can just go ahead and manually remove it anyway.
SolarReefer
Community Member
32 gallon tank, will be a year old in September. Haven’t tested in a few weeks but I know my nitrates and phosphates are high. Haven’t performed a water change because I was battling Dino’s for a while.
SolarReefer
Community Member
dang. Not a huge fan of urchins they just flip everything around in my tank. Probably just gonna attempt to manually remove during a water change
kevgib67
10K Club member
Well, that rules out tangs, I have a 32 as well the ocuc that does the most damage to hair algae is my tuxedo urchin, it leaves a large trail. I also manually remove/ kept it short for the urchin and dosed hydrogen peroxide for five days the last battle I had. There are way worse nuisance algae to have, don’t sweat it and just be consistent and soon you’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel.
kyleinpdx
Well-Known Member
@brandon429 good candidate for a rip clean dont you think?
I'd do some water changes, pull the rocks (either all together or one by one) and manually scrub off the algae in the bucket of old tank water, then i'd siphon out the majority of the sandbed and either rinse it in old tank water a few times to remove the detritus or simply replace the majority with new.
You're not going to snail and hermit crab your way out of this one.
I'd do some water changes, pull the rocks (either all together or one by one) and manually scrub off the algae in the bucket of old tank water, then i'd siphon out the majority of the sandbed and either rinse it in old tank water a few times to remove the detritus or simply replace the majority with new.
You're not going to snail and hermit crab your way out of this one.
What is your favorite source for learning ?
Reading Books or articles ?
Video ( YouTube )
LFS ?
Friends or Local reef clubs ?
Reading Books or articles ?
Video ( YouTube )
LFS ?
Friends or Local reef clubs ?
Icryhard
Active Member
Not sure what you have in your tank, but when I hit this stage I just turned everything down to 0 (po4 no3) and you can blackout for 3 days or so. I kept the po4 and no3 at 0 untill it started to die off on its own.
SolarReefer
Community Member
But it’s still in the system, won’t it just regrow once the lights are on? Or do you remove it once it begins dying off
SolarReefer
Community Member
I mean it’s only a minimal amount on the rock 85% of it is on the sandbed
