Algea in new tank. Take action?

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Kial

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The question is why isn’t the clean up crew eating the algae? Are they sick and dying, is the algae growing faster than the CUC can harvest it or do they find the algae not palatable, possibly because cyanobacteria is growing on the algae? What do you think?
I have no idea. The turbos I got online, were absolutely tiny! Can only see a couple around on the rocks.

My trochus seem to prefer being on the glass, I do occasionally move them onto the rocks but not really making a dent in the hair algea.

Like it's not extreme right now, I can only really notice it when the lights are off in the morning. I'm sort of just trying to get it under control BEFORE it gets to the point of wanting to shut the tank down
 
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I found a lot of my snails would just munch on low level slime type algae a lot. I had to hand place my turbos and urchins into the thick patches of my GHA and force them to eat their way out. I would do this daily.
I'm tempted to try an urchin to be honest. It's not like I have many corals to worry about getting knocked over qt this stage either
 

Lavey29

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I'm tempted to try an urchin to be honest. It's not like I have many corals to worry about getting knocked over qt this stage either
I have 3 in my tank. They are GHA eating machines and don't bother my coral frags. They just grab an empty snail shell or 2.
 

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I'm tempted to try an urchin to be honest. It's not like I have many corals to worry about getting knocked over qt this stage either
I have a pincushion in my nano, and he goes for the coralline, but ignores GHA.

Won't harm though, and they're interesting to watch - the more working animals the better
 
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I have 3 in my tank. They are GHA eating machines and don't bother my coral frags. They just grab an empty snail shell or 2.
Cool I think I'll grab one soon. There's a short spine urchin at an lfs near me.

Acclimating just the same as any invert I'm guessing? Or are these pretty sensitive
 

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Cool I think I'll grab one soon. There's a short spine urchin at an lfs near me.

Acclimating just the same as any invert I'm guessing? Or are these pretty sensitive
I treat them the same as a coral as the couple I've had hitchiked in on coral.

I pour the bag water into a 1 litre jug with the animal, pour half away and replace with tank water, wait 20 mins, then do the same again twice more (replace half with new tank water twice)

FInally take out of the jug and into another jug with just plain tank water to rinse off any shop water left before placing in the tank.

Dont forget to turn off the ATO before you start, and refill the missing 2 litres fresh seawater back into the tank before turning the ATO back on.

edit: Oh yeah, NO coral dip on an urchin :)
 

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Cool I think I'll grab one soon. There's a short spine urchin at an lfs near me.

Acclimating just the same as any invert I'm guessing? Or are these pretty sensitive
I have the blue tuxedo urchins. Honestly. I just dump my stuff in the tank and let it do its thing.
 
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So the hair algea definitely doesn't seem as bad now. Have been scrubbing the rocks in the worst parts and changing out the filter socks.

I did reduce my light schedule but my zoas got ticked so changed it back to the original. But the zoas are still ticked hoping they come back as they were growing new polyps.
 

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I've added some more snails and hermits last week. I've not got trochus, nassarius,strombs and turbos.

Protein skimmer is running and nitrates and phosphate is where I want it, but I'm guessing it's actually higher than it should be due to the algea
it could very well be the lighting also :)) some hermits are more inclined toward algae than others. since you are already running a protein skimmer, if your nitrates are in the double digits, try carbon dosing with vodka. i run the triton method (i don’t do water changes anymore)- dosed vodka twice like 5 months ago and my nitrates had been in the single digits since. be very careful not to overdose tho. bottoming out your nitrates is asking for dino’s
 

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So the hair algea definitely doesn't seem as bad now. Have been scrubbing the rocks in the worst parts and changing out the filter socks.

I did reduce my light schedule but my zoas got ticked so changed it back to the original. But the zoas are still ticked hoping they come back as they were growing new polyps.
Keep up with the elbow grease.

Trust me, this is just a new tank phase and in a few months it'll all start to settle down.

The first 12 months of a new tank are quite challenging, and lots of people toss in the towel.
 
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Bit of an update on my algea issues....

Been away working all week and have just got home. The green hair algea is definitely taking over and tank looka terrible

I'm going to keep the lights off for next few days and try and remove as much of the gha as possible.
 
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