Should I clean my refugium?

[Stoneyman]

I need a Little help friends. I have a 180 mix reef. Been battling thru issue after issue. Its worthy to note i have won every battle but never without casualties . The latest issue is a red hairy algae infestation. It was so thick and widespread i had to remove a good portion of the liverock. With a hefty cleanup crew, lighter feeding, bigger water changes, finally got it erradicated.

BUT....my refugium looks like heck. The chaeto has been over taken by the red hair algae along with all kinds of ofher nasty looking algae. My question is what should i be doing here. I suppose this is the point of a refugium--allow algae to grow while keeping display tank clear. Or is that an algae scrubber? Not sure if i should clean out the fuge by hand and manually remove the unsightly algae or just leave it be.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Yea, the sump is where you want the unsightly algae growing, but not hair algae, it stands a chance of ending up in your DT. i'd pull it out manually, the best you can. Or tear it down, and clean it out, keeping the chaeto to throw back in.

 

[tyler1503]

I'd take the entire chaeto ball out and remove as much of the nuisance algae as possible. Perhaps even just tear a small clump of chaeto off without any nuisance algae attached and put it back in and chuck the rest.