Emerald crabs and Macro algae

[RESONANCE]

Yeah, I've got such a stupid question, but I have to ask anyways. So I've a bubble algae problem in my 40 breeder. I've got some macros that I really like. If I put in an army of emerald crabs, what are the chances my macro algae will survive? Will emeralds prefer to eat bubble algae or other types of macro algae first?

 

Thanks in advanced!

[irondragon013]

My Emeralds eat any macro in the tank. I feed them Cheato if I need to trim down the bunch that I keep in my filter.

[RESONANCE]

Crap. Sounds like I'm going to have to risk it.

[reefer38]

emerald crabs will eat almost any macro algea but i think they are less likely to eat calcareous algae. i have a mermaids fan and some halimeda in my tank that are fine with my emerald but i only have one of them

[alfiefive]

my emerald avoids any chaeto in my tank and targets coraline on my LR. he does "clean" the chaeto but won't actually it eat.

 

i think each has its own dietary preference depending on how it was cultured/what is available in the tank.

[johnmaloney]

emeralds love algae...especially codium, ulva, caulerpa spp, scroll, many species of dictyota...what macros are you trying to save?

 

i think more herbivores will eat chaetomorpha linum as opposed to chaetomorpha crassa, i wonder which you have irondragon....it is hard to tell sometimes unless you have them both in front of you, then the species are completely different from each other, in a picture they look identical.

[alfiefive]

emeralds love algae...especially codium, ulva, caulerpa spp, scroll, many species of dictyota...what macros are you trying to save?

 

i think more herbivores will eat chaetomorpha linum as opposed to chaetomorpha crassa, i wonder which you have irondragon....it is hard to tell sometimes unless you have them both in front of you, then the species are completely different from each other, in a picture they look identical.

 

out of curiosity, do you recall what species of chaeto you sell at reefcleaners? i noticed the chaeto i purchased from you was very different than the chaeto i purchased from my LFS and maybe i can understand the varieties better.

[RESONANCE]

Hey John,

 

I'd like to save them all... but the ones I want to keep most are dragon's breath, sargassium (from your store), firefern (yours again) and halodule uninervis (sea grass)... IIRC...and my photosynthetic gorgonians...

 

I'm wondering if I attach a UV and put an army of emeralds in my 40B, and they clean up most if not all the bubble algea... will that be the last I see of the bubble algea?? Or is that hoping for too much?

 

 

 

emeralds love algae...especially codium, ulva, caulerpa spp, scroll, many species of dictyota...what macros are you trying to save?

[steviejitsu]

I think I have 2 species of chaeto. One is stringy. The other is curly and fatter and clumps together.

 

I got the clump from John and I got the stringy from a local reefer.

[johnmaloney]

out of curiosity, do you recall what species of chaeto you sell at reefcleaners? i noticed the chaeto i purchased from you was very different than the chaeto i purchased from my LFS and maybe i can understand the varieties better.

 

 

we sell 3 different variations of "chaeto", c. crass, c. linum and a different variation of c. linum that I don't think has a name (most variations dont unless they are distinctive). It would depend on which week you got it, we have linum now.

 

the stringy is the c linum, the crunchy is the c. crassa.