My 5G fluval tank progress.

[mcarroll]

The tank is very small and still very new, and was slammed with bio-load straight out of the gate.

 

All things considered, the tank looks great.  

 

Try to remember the ugly stage is something all tanks go through, more or less, and is only a sign of your reef coming to life,

 

It so happens you didn't choose the smoothest way to do that, so this is the flavor of "uglies" you get.    Be glad it's not dino's – that's the most popular flavor!  

 

Cyano is merely unsightly in 99.999% of cases so you shouldn't really have anything to worry about....corals grow near it and seem to be completely comfortable, and it doesn't bother fish.  

 

Just be persistent AND patient in your efforts....like a snail.  🙂  It wouldn't hurt to use this timeframe to read a bunch of reef books too!!  

 

A reef is always a work in process....and Nothing Good Happens Fast In A Reef Tank.

Edited December 16, 2021 by mcarroll
LOL this was supposed to be in your cyano thread

[Critteraholic]

Do you have any snails yet? When I had cyano in a pico tank, I moved one of my trochus snails to the pico and it cleaned it all up. Trochus - best snail ever!

[1st reef]

No snails. Afraid the hermits or pistol shrimp will kill it. 

[Jakesaw]

29 minutes ago, 1st reef said:

No snails. Afraid the hermits or pistol shrimp will kill it. 

Certain hermits are harmless unless you have a loose frag in the sand or not glued to your rock.  The hermits sometimes flip my frag plugs in sand, but motivated fish can do that too.

 

I've been transitioning to Frag plug holders in my sandbed that seem to work well.

 

Can fit 2 - 4 of These Frag Plugs into my 10 gallon - Thanks @devilDuck

 

 

[1st reef]

No issues with frags. All glued. I don't have snails cause I think my blue legged hermits will kill it or my tiger pistol shrimp will. 

[mcarroll]

6 hours ago, 1st reef said:

No issues with frags. All glued. I don't have snails cause I think my blue legged hermits will kill it or my tiger pistol shrimp will. 

Consider that hermits are scavengers – it's possible they may eat algae.  

 

Snails (eg Astrea, Turbo, Trochus) are dedicated algae eaters.  They won't eat anything else.

 

Do what you think is necessary, but I would trade the LFS you hermits for a similar number of snails and call it even.  Your algae will will be the better for it. 😉 

[Jakesaw]

4 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Consider that hermits are scavengers – it's possible they may eat algae.  

 

 

Red Scarletts eat algae.  I've seen em crawling my tank walls to get to some.   And while GHA grows on my tank walls I have none on my rock.  Maybe it's biodiversity on rocks, maybe it's Crabs keepin em clean.  Who knows.

[mcarroll]

4 minutes ago, Jakesaw said:

Red Scarletts eat algae.  I've seen em crawling my tank walls to get to some.   And while GHA grows on my tank walls I have none on my rock.  Maybe it's biodiversity on rocks, maybe it's Crabs keepin em clean.  Who knows.

They can eat algae, it's just not their thing like it is for snails.  If they are working on your algae – good!   It's just not something that can be counted on most of the time.   (Scarletts are much more expensive and much less common that typical "algae eater" hermits or snails too, for what that's worth.)

 

The only times I've personally seen hermits make a dent in an algae bloom is when they are deployed in "herds" of 10, 20 or more, depending on the tank size.  (Not that I'm recommending that to anyone....I'm not. 😉)