red gracilaria algae

jaymz

Member
I have a clump of red gracilaria algae in my frag tank with the idea with will soak up some nitrates and fight the hair algae trying to take over. Will this work to some extent or not. If not my angel crabs and snails in the other tank will have a nice snack.
thanks
 

reefkprz

Active Member
alll algaes use pretty much similar nutrients so yes having the gracillaria will compete with the hair algae, but it wont nesscisarily solve the problems causing the algaes.
 

jaymz

Member
Yeah im still trying to figure out were all the nutrients are coming from.. I am constantly showing 0 nitrates. This is a coral tank with just one lawnmower blenny and assorted crabs and snails. I dose with calcium when needed and do a half dose of kents microvert once per week with water changes. I know the waste and microvert are giving off some nitrates. But there is enough to obviously feed alot of hair algae, a keep a cleaner clam alive.
I recently did a 4 gallon(20 long) water change and stopped dosing microvert 2 weeks ago. So hopefully this will help.
 

flricordia

Active Member
cheato will work wonders if you can grow some in a refugium. I sometimes get hair algae and bubble on some of the zoanthid rocks I get from the LRS, but I don't bother with it. I always run a fuge with cheato on 24/7 lighting and never have any problems with unwanted algae. What does make its way into my tank soon disappears.
 

reefkprz

Active Member
warm bottle planktons are little more than pollution in a bottle IMO, lots of people use them but your paying for a lot of DEAD plankton who's nutrients are leaching into the water in the bottle, making them uncomsumable to little other than algae. really the best way to go is live planktons (I understand how hard they are to get ahold of for a lot of people) second best for zoo plankton would be frozen, second best for phtyo would be refrigerated, zooplankton in a bottle is just a total waste of money, its water with VERY little zoo.
here is an Idea for bottled zooplankton enthusiasts, buy a bottle pour the whole thing through a brine net (or coffe filter) and see how much actual zoo you get. your going to be very dissapointed.
 
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