Originally Posted by
hagfish
You're still getting nitrates and/or phosphates. The algae needs one or both to grow (plus the light). But any time you have hair algae growing there is really little need to bother testing for nitrates or phosphates because the existence of the algae tells you they are there. Now, you might test for them and get no reading at all. Ignore that though because that just means the algae is consuming these things faster than you can test for them.
And I do not recommend an algae blenny unless it's something you really want. It's too small a tank to get fish just because they are good workers. Plus, I bought one for an 80 gallon with GHA and it did eat it all, but wouldn't eat anything else. It wouldn't even eat nori. It did eat romaine lettuce a few times. But it stopped after a while.
Bottom line is you have to get the nutrients down. What kind of filtration and clean up crew do you have?
Thanks very much for all the information. Yeah the tank was clean when I put the corals in but I guess I jumped the gun a bit on that one
Is hair algae going to damage any of the creatures in my tank aside from making everything look ugly? I understand hair algae means higher than diserable nitrates and that the nitrates themselves could harm my coral/inverts, but will the hair algae itself do any damage?
Would it be best to remove the hair algae by removing rock and scrubbing it off or should I just do a good water change and let it go away on it's own?
I have the "stock" filtration that comes with the deluxe 12gal Aquapod. I also 5 hermit crabs, 5 snails and a blood shrimp. I have 18lbs of live rock.