[jackson6745]

Paul the red turf looks like short hairs

[joetbs]

That red algae is a pain. Didn't Mike add like 50 Mexicans to combat it?

I have no algae problems. Just one spot with a tiny bit of brillo-ey hair, and a wild coral that grows Maiden's Hair that a. looks cool and b. is easy to pull right off when it gets a little longer. My cleanup crew consists of 2 hermits, 10 snails, and a tuxedo urchin(he's just there to spread the coralline & for looks). IMO people are putting way too many snails & hermits. I haven't had to clean my front glass in over 2 weeks. I run a tablespoon of purigen in my Deltec, and do 5 gallon WCs every week, after I baste the crap off the rocks.

Also, it's probably a good idea to quarantine any animals for 2 weeks before putting them in. This is why people have problems with Bryopsis in an Indo-Pacific display. Think of all the astreas/ceriths you add, and the trace amount of spores in their crap. They don't eat the bryopsis directly either, so already there's an uphill battle in the long run, even with clean water.

joe

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Wow, how did he get 50 Mexicans in a tank? ;-)

Seriously, as was mentioned- algae is naturally occuring, we just need control mechinisms in place:

1. Herbivores that trim it. (Hermit crabs)
2. Herbivores that eat it. (Snails, tangs)
3. Good bacteria. (Live sand, live rock)
4. One reason to avoid wrasses of all kinds- they decimate your pod popukation! Pods are an important part of your enclosed ecosystem.
5. Nutrient export- Skimming, carbon and water changes
6. Manual removal (Scrap, scrub and vacuum any patches as you see them.)
7. Water circulation to keep things clean, give ditritus a run for it's money. If it cant settle, it cant become fertalizer. Need to have a filter sock and keep it clean!
8. Good calcium and alkalinity, low phosphate high magnesium. Keep the coraline growing, it competes for space with algae and has it's own bio-warfare going to make it very hard for algae to overgrow it.

Anyway, time to go back to bed soon. (Every 6 hours I have to take these damned pills, and I cant lay down for 30 minutes when I take them!!!)

-Alfred

[spykes]

right now im having a bubble algae problem in my tank, there are tons of little ones and they thrive under low nutrients as well. Perice said a rabbitfish would take care of it, i heard sailfin, and naso tang eats them as well.

Right now for my diatomic algae problem, it's handled by 5 giant mexican snail. and 10 nirate snails. The main algae grazers in my tank has to be stomatellas. They do a lousy job, but the great part is they breed like wildfire in a reeftank. there are so many of them and they only come out at night. That is my night clean up crew.

coraline constantly replaces the diatomic algae, and hopefully my rocks will be all purple in a year.

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Diatoms are always present, but if it is real bad you need to check your RO unit and may have to add a DI unit... That would take care of 80% of a serious diatom problem.

As for bubble algae, the only surefire way to get rid of them is to manually pick them from each rock, one rock at a time and rinse the rock off with fresh water or even salt water in a bucket before putting it back in the tank.

Once all visible bubbles are gone, emerald crabs and hermits can help in controlling them. DONT let them pop in the tank, that is how they reproduce.

I never heard of sailfins or naso tangs eating them. I had bubble algae in my 55 10 years ago and the sailfin never gave them a second look. Cant say anything for rabbit fish... I would imagine that if you got rid of all of the bubbles they would help control it via their grazing.

-Alfred

[Chiefmcfuz]

Spykes add a few emerald crabs, the Bubbles will be gone!

[alrha]

Quote: Originally Posted by spykes right now im having a bubble algae problem in my tank, there are tons of little ones and they thrive under low nutrients as well. Perice said a rabbitfish would take care of it, i heard sailfin, and naso tang eats them as well.

i had a bubble on a rock i got from someone on this board. I only saw it after i put the rock in, and it was in an impossible to reach place. Now he has friends around him and they are growing larger. My Red-Sea-Sailfin doesnt consider it food. Looks like i'll need a few emeralds...

[spykes]

the problem with the sailfins are they arent 100 percent, sting has a sailfin that wiped out his bubble algae, as well as a thread on rc that shows sailfins do eat bubble algae off the rock under SPS keeper.

problem with emerald crabs are they get huge and at perice's house he told me his elmerald crab crushs his SPS into powder and i feel there might be a great risk adding those guys into my tank.

	SPS Small Polyped Scleractinians - Sometimes known as Small Polyped Stony corals. These are hard corals that have extremely small polyps. They are typically on the difficult side and require Metal Halide lighting or dense Power Compact or T5 arrays. These corals are prized for their rareness and ability to be easily fragged into multiple colonies.

[cali_reef]

Careful with the emeralds...

I bought 5 two years ago, two of them have a body larger than the size of a quarter now. They like to perch on top of two SPS colonies and crush the tips with their claws and eating it.

	SPS Small Polyped Scleractinians - Sometimes known as Small Polyped Stony corals. These are hard corals that have extremely small polyps. They are typically on the difficult side and require Metal Halide lighting or dense Power Compact or T5 arrays. These corals are prized for their rareness and ability to be easily fragged into multiple colonies.

[Reefer420]

I just bought this to help with manual algae removal...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Reef-Aquarium-Al...QQcmdZViewItem

I have a problem with hair algae in one section of my tank- and that section only! It is annoying - what would be the best species of snail to deal with it? Mex turbos? My snails tend to stay on my glass and for whatever reason ignore the tasty algae 6 in. away!

I dont really mind other macro algae as I like the natural look- so bubble algae, red macro, etc. is fine with me...