Peanut - All of your ideas seem very good. One question for you though. Do you see a benefit of using a turkey baster to suck up some of the hair algae as oppossed to scrubbing? The reason I ask is because I'm curious if scrubbing them would also cause you to lose some valuable critters or bacteria that may be on the rocks that could maybe be salvaged if the turkey baster was used. I have used both methods and the scrubbing one definitely gets rid of more and is easier but I was just curious if you have any thoughts on this?
sucess w/ turbo snail on the fight for hair algae?
I think im just going to skip getting the nudibranchs, because every single person replied with saying they died. So im think i will try some turbos instead. Have you guys had a least some success with these guys, like a noticable amount of hair algae that is gone after you have placed them in there? Any other suggestions on critters, or techniques? Thanks everyone for the replies on the nudi's you saved me the trouble of dropping some money down the drain.
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gsxspeed98 I agree that you may lose some valuable critters by scrubbing with a brush, however, my problem was so nasty that I did'nt have much choice everything was covered big time. I would agree a turkey baster would help just make sure that everything you blow off gets removed from the tank other wise it's still in the tank, and will continue to grow. Algae feeds on phospates, these come from a couple of areas, one tap water and two decomposing food particles. If you remove the food source form the tank (phophates) then the algae has nothing to feed on. If sean has a problem like mine was you might as well give it a try and then get a few more pices of lr to reseed the stuff you scrubbed. Fortunetly for me we only had to scrubb the rock this way one time. A more drastic measure would be to scrubb the rocks and remove all substrate in the tank until the algae problem is gone. I found that the rowa phos has helped because it removes the food source from the tank, it will lower Phosphates. See ya on the bottom
Here is the leather jacket/Tassled filefish http//www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?ID=7975
I do have a snail in the tank now that come over from my 90 and he is still alive. He was in a tank with inverts Tuxedo, pencil) before. And I understand he is not reef safe but he has not touched a thing Yet. I also had him in with sponges before (8 months) and he never touched them!!! LOL
Maybe I will pull a few more snails out of the 90 and see how he does.
This is a 300 Gal. so I did not want snails because they fall off and it's hard to reach them. I do have hermits in the tank though.
Kaye
I do have a snail in the tank now that come over from my 90 and he is still alive. He was in a tank with inverts Tuxedo, pencil) before. And I understand he is not reef safe but he has not touched a thing Yet. I also had him in with sponges before (8 months) and he never touched them!!! LOL
Maybe I will pull a few more snails out of the 90 and see how he does.
This is a 300 Gal. so I did not want snails because they fall off and it's hard to reach them. I do have hermits in the tank though.
Kaye
the tasseled are known to be not safe with inverts, but you can try your luck.
As for the hair algae, theres no way turkey baster will get more done. Especially since its glued to the rock. Today i took 6 or 7 big pieces, that were at the top of my aquascaping, scrubing all the hair algae off of them, that works out pretty good. But it will just grow back unless you have something to control it, im hoping snails will be my solution. Another thing i do is why i syphon out my water. I drag the end up the syphon along the wall of the tank, and that cleans it up w/o leaving that much debrie floating. But within a week it will be right back to about 3 inches long. Before when i used to try scraping it off all the pieces would float around in my tank, then attach to a rock, and start growing on there, and thats what started it growing on my rock. I really cant get to much rock unless its loose and near the top, because i have so much, 250lbs approx.
As for the hair algae, theres no way turkey baster will get more done. Especially since its glued to the rock. Today i took 6 or 7 big pieces, that were at the top of my aquascaping, scrubing all the hair algae off of them, that works out pretty good. But it will just grow back unless you have something to control it, im hoping snails will be my solution. Another thing i do is why i syphon out my water. I drag the end up the syphon along the wall of the tank, and that cleans it up w/o leaving that much debrie floating. But within a week it will be right back to about 3 inches long. Before when i used to try scraping it off all the pieces would float around in my tank, then attach to a rock, and start growing on there, and thats what started it growing on my rock. I really cant get to much rock unless its loose and near the top, because i have so much, 250lbs approx.
One other alternative would be to look at the www.Garf.com site they may be able to offer a solution with there algae control program. However it may be pricey depending on the size of your tank. They reccommend various types of snails along with hermits to attack and eat the algae in the tank. They also want you to buy there new garf grunge to add to the substrate. Just a thought, or call out to pruess and talk to steve about rowa phos. let us know what direction you take and how it comes along. My tank has been algae free from hair algae for about two months now. See ya on the bottom Peanut
Try this. Get a garden hose, a turkey baster, and a fish net. Start a syphon with the hose that goes into your sump. Put the net under it, so that all the water you draw from the tank goes into your sump through the net. Then use the turkey baster attached to the top end of the hose to remove large particles. All your doing is bypassing your overflows, everything keeps running.
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