Algae Problem

[noodavid]

I have a established tank, cycled with live rock for about a month and I've had live stock for about 4 months. Lately I have been getting a lot of algae growth from my live rock, I believe it is green hair algae. I have a good amount of snails and crabs but they don't seem to eat any algae on the rocks. I was told by some friends that tangs can take care of this problem, is this true? If not, what is a easy way to eliminate this algae growth? Thanks for your help.

 

[finchfishs]

What size tank do you have? I used to have a ton of alge on my rocks and glass...but i bought a gold rim tang and boy did he love eating it. All the alge on the rocks was gone in about 3 weeks. If you have a big enough tank for a tang, i would suggest it they are very fun. If you dont...well then i dont know haha.

 

[aquapro_1]

When curing lr, turn off your lights!!! You encouraged algea to go & sounds like your doing an excellent job going it. You'll see a difference....

 

[noodavid]

My tank is 50 gal. tall with a 10 gal. sump/refugium. I didn't have much of an algae problem the first few months but now it's getting out of hand. Is a yellow tang reef safe?

 

[murph]

Most will say that the tank is to small for a tang.
I often see small yellow tangs at my LFS, maybe the size of a silver dollar. This could work for awhile and yellow tangs will go to town on hair algae. It will be gone in a matter of days.
Just don't get to attached to the tang as he will out grow that tank and have to be traded in.
I put one in my 75g standard dimension tank and it was only a matter of a week before I had to supplement his diet with algae sheets. They eat a lot of hair algae. Certainly faster than it can grow unless there are other problems with the tank that are accelerating algae growth.

 

[legendary]

It seems your tank ready for cleaners, since you have a fifty gallon tank you will need 50 of them a assortment of them, including a sea cucumber the alge will take care of it self .what you have is normalsince it is still kinda new for what you have in the tank. i would ask how much live rock do you have? make sure you have a good protien skimmer and are you using any other filters

 

[murph]

Yes a yellow tang is reef safe.
A larger clean up crew may indeed do the job. And with the dimensions of your tank anything but the smallest yellow tang will need to be traded in eventually. However even the smallest yellow tang will make short work of your problem if it is indeed hair algae.
Mine is proving to be quite hardy despite having to live at ***** for God knows how long and keeps the tank literally spotless. A wonderful fish and much more interesting than a mega size cleanup crew. I have even been able to relegate a portion of my DT clean up crew to the sump and fuge since adding the tang
I have read that stray voltage is particularly hard on tangs so you may want to give that a test before/if you add one.
They are usually not fed properly in the LFS holding tanks and with in a couple hours of adding one you will almost be able to see the joy in the animal when it discovers the hair algae in your tank.

 

[jmick]

A tang or lawnmower blenny may eat some of the hair algae or they may not touch it—it’s been my experience that once hair algae reaches a certain length nothing will eat it. You really need to treat the source of the problem, which are excessive nutrients in your tank in order to take care of it. I’d recommend using RO/DI water, aggressive skimming, cut back on feeding and put some nice Macro algae (such as Chaeto) in your fuge, which will compete against the nuisance algae for nutrients.
Treat the source of the problem or you will continue to have issues with hair algae.

 

[stingrayjs]

Yes my lawn mower blenny, takes care of just about al the algi that grows in the tank. He is so good at keeping it in check, I need to feen him strips from time to time. Also you might want to check your phosfates if you havn't already, that could be a reason why your getting so much algi all of a sudden.