Do I need to remove the brown slime algae from a Turf Scrubber to get Long Hair Algae to Attach? 3+ weeks running and no hair algae.

[DrewFish]

I have been running my scrubber for a solid 3+ weeks now 24/7 and I have a healthy coat of the brown algae that you get on the tank glass. The bottom of the scrubber is even starting to get covered in coralline algae. But there is no turf/hair algae that I have seen yet. UV is off most of the time.

Do i need to rinse the brown algae off to get the hair to start growing? Anything to do to jump start the process?

My nitrates are around 24.

 

[Dbichler]

Yes you need to get the other stuff off. Some tanks have a hard time growing certain algae’s. You may need to seed the screen from someone else’s algae in order to get the good algae for growing.