How do you get rid of bad alge?

[DeletedAccount]

Goodness, Dean. Do you remember EVERYTHING you read?

[Sherri]

Dean...this sounds like the step by step stage my reef has gone thru. Ask Troy Valentine...my whole tank is a refugium! And my green mandrin has a pot belly. :-D I've put no chemicals to eliminate. I started with tap water to initially "fill" the tank...got some brown alage...went away. Sometimes, I just grab a handful of the hair algae off the back glass if it gets too much. I have purple coraline all over my rocks and glass. I constantly scrape it off my glass - from what I understand...this "feeds" my LR. My LR has really colored up. I have a patch that I keep controlled of razor caulerpa, a few other plants that I haven't identified; I get a small patch of the red rusty colored algae on my sand everyonce in a while & then its gone. I see a cycle going on & if one certain thing "gets out of control", I'll sound the alarm. olice: It just looks like a "healthy" tank.

I haven't been in this that long...but that's what I've experienced with my reef development.

Sherri :rotf:

[kakfish]

Wow! Dean what a memory! I wish mine was that good. Short term is all i have left.
It is kinda like algae wars, in the early stages of these systems. I've seen many tanks laid to rest because of inferior algaes gone out of control. The hobbiest either gets bad information, on how to solve the problem, or never cracks a book. The battle can be won and it sounds like you may have been there. Good info.

Ken Kohler

[RedDragon]

all that bad algae is gone due to the blue leg hermit crabs, and the snails left in my tank, I did not add any thing so that made it easy and simple

[newtosa]

Way to go man. The hermits and snails will clean up lots of things for you. They don't eat all types of algae, but they do help with most things that you don't like in your tank.

[matt]

Red Dragon;
Sounds like a cyano outbreak. It's definitely associated with areas of low flow that allow the algae/bacteria to accumulate. Actually, usually blue legged hermits and typical snails (astrea/turbo) usually don't eat the stuff. I've heard fighting conch will eat it. You can also try a diadema (long spined) urchin. Shimek says these are the best 2 herbivores available for reef tanks. Hermits are scavengers that will eat whatever they can catch. Definitely avoid the pencil urchin. I saw a diadema urchin at fintique today; try that.

[newtosa]

RD -

I have some low-flow area (some things are beginning to outgrow my tank), and there's been a patch of cyanobacteria slowly growing over the past month. My diadema urchin didn't touch it. It is still a very good animal to have, as Matt says. It just didn't work on cyano for me. Haven't tried any conchs, but I'd like to.

Anyway, just remember you need to feed the urchin if there's not enough for him to find in your tank. I like them because it's more diversity, and as Matt points out they are selective herbivores, rather than vultures.

On cyanobacteria specifically, I have to say I don't know how to beat it. It rears its head once every few years, and I end up having to vacuum it up.

Let us know if you learn anything.

Dean

[RedDragon]

thanks on the info guys I think It mit have been due to low flow cuz I never used my powerheads too powerfull for the 37g throws sand and all,all over the place but now I have had it going I still have some on hte glass but all the this cyano than is gone off all rocks and sand only little on hte back of the glass,I will look into getting one of these urchins, they sound cool and sound like they do a good job, but I don't know if I wil be keeping this 37g much longer I am upgrading and really wont have any use for it after I am done with the cycling of the new tank, but I think I will get one of these urchins just to have in case, again thanks for the info guys :-D