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Corals and hair algae


MrKrispy

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Hi All,

 

Quicky I hope:

 

My cleaning crew is trying to work their way thru my hair algae, of course they are taking their sweet time. I got a TINY purple button polyp frag ($3.99 at Aquatic Warehouse) and it seems to be doing well. Can I add a larger piece of coral while I still have a decent amount of hair algae on the rocks (sand and glass are pretty good now) ?

 

Oh, also, in my 10g with a 96W CF will button polyps do okay mid-tank, or should I move them lower? a lot of the surface of my live rock is slightly vertical, there aren't a lot of horizontal places for new rocks. I read that the button polyps prefer lower light areas... maybe I read wrong...

 

 

Thanks!

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Considering hair algae completely took over my first reef tank, IMO I'd wait until you get rid of the hair before you spend more $$ on corals. You hair algae will continue to grow until you locate & eliminate it's food source.

 

Don't mean to get you down - but I speak from experience. Hair algae is difficult to extinguish once you have it. There are many articles here & in other forums on hair algae & how to control it. It all starts with using the pure water - RO/DI.

 

Good luck!

Ross

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I use 18Mohm purified water, cleaner than RO/DI. The source of the algae bloom has to be from the live rock die off. I posted something last month asking about removing some decaying plants and stuff (or using a crab) but I didn't get a response. So I left most of the stuff on the rock which of course broke down in to crud that algae loves. Oh well.

 

Hopefully once I get the macro-algae going in my fuge the hair algae will die off. I didn't really want to wait 2 more months to add coral though! heh.

 

Also, I have a poly-filter in my HOB, hoping that helps keep the algae down.

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I have 2 ceriths that are doing a lot of work, and a nerite that covers lots of ground. My scarlet hermits don't seem to be doing much, and my trochus is dying or dead I think. Darn. I need to get my fuge setup and get some non-hair macro algae going....

 

Oh, for anyone reading, I have checked my phosphates (using a stupid Red Sea test I admit) and they are between zero and 0.1ppm.

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