algae question

[SAreefer]

Hi

why does noone want any algae in their tank exept caroline. Why is the brown and green algae bad????(except for appearance, but in a sump this should not matter)

as i understand it algae lives of nitrates and if so they should take some of it out of the water, right????

Any help here?

 

[SnowManSnow]

yea you are right the algae will export nutrients from your water. lots of people run refugiums with controlled populations of algae in it. they are bad for your main tank because they can quickly overgrow your corals and so forth. That being said many also have macro algae growing in their display, but it it generally a slow growing algae that is managable. The entire algae thing is a big balancing act... too much nutrients "trash" in your water and the algae will have an explosive bloom and foul your tank... too little and the algae starves out. Most opt for the latter of the 2 options.

b

 

[AstroCreep]

i cant seem to keep my caulerpa alive in my sump, i try to pick out the dead as much as i can .... could the die off of dead macro algae cause algae to bloom? or grow more in the display tank?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Astro

-I'm a newbie so take that into account when weighing this post-

I have 4 different types of caulerpa growing in my sump (fuge) and they are now growing really fast. What I did at the time they started to get going was to increase my sump photo period to 24/7 and (surprisingly) tossed a heap of local hermit crabs in with them. I dont know if it is unique to this species, but the hermits have done little to the macro algae, but have completely removed all reacheable traces of hair, green and diatom algea from the fuge. I think that with less 'micro' algea competing for the available nutrients the macros are really doing well. It could also be that the hermits have been picking at the caulerpa and that has induced a natural 'survival instinct' growth spurt from them although I have only ever seen them munch on the micro stuff. The light thing really works well- before the hermits got in there it had already accelerated the growth substantially.

Anyway- using hermits to encourage algae growth- ???? Go figure :roll:
Seems to work for me!

 

[AstroCreep]

thanks for the info regal, but what types of macro are you using in your sump...you mentioned you have 4 different types of caulerpa, and are all of them doing just as well as the others?


thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Astro

Dont know the names- will look them up on the web a bit later and reply more fully then.