Sea horse + algae =?

jake22

jake22

Member
I currently have a 20 gallon tank with 20 pounds of live rock and 20 pounds of sand. In the tank are 1 yellow watchman gobie, 2 false percs., 1 pistol shrimp, 2 serpent stars, 1 porcelan crab, and 2 sea horses. My problem is i have some hair algae growing on the rock, and when i add water for top offs and the water hits the rock tons of what looks like dust comes off.
In my other tank, i just use blueleg hermits as a clean up crew an i have never had a problem. I cant use bluelegs in the tank with the sea horse becuase they attack them. I have 10 turbo snails in the tank but they mostly only stay on the glass. My lfs recomended getting a sallylightfoot crab. Woud one of those be safe with my sea horses and watchman gobie? I cant order anything on line becuase the shipping is to expensive.
 
holacanthus

holacanthus

Member
I wouldn't really worry about it to much, probably just detrius that gets caught if you have some pod they might be eating some of it, as some species of pods are detrivores! How are the seahorses faring food wise are they eating and healthy, how long have you had them?
 
musipilot

musipilot

Member
You might want to get some ghost shrimp. These little guys are cool to watch, compatible with seahorses, and love to eat hair algae. Great addition to a horse tank. Oh, and unlike EVERYTHING in this hobby, they're CHEAP!
 
holacanthus

holacanthus

Member
Musi Ghost Shrimp are fw shrimp! They can tolerate SW for a while but the will not survie for any period of time over say a day or 2!
 
musipilot

musipilot

Member
Hola -- there are species of ghost shrimp that live in full saltwater. We keep them in a refugium to feed the offspring to our seahorse, and we have had them at 1.023 salinity for over a year. When we order them, we specify fresh or saltwater species, and they're both readily available. We have 4 or 5 large ones living in our reef tank (1.023) and they have been in there for over 6 months, and growing like weeds!
 
holacanthus

holacanthus

Member
Ahhhhhhhhhh, see the sw ghost shrimp you are referimg to are not actually ghost shrimp!SW "ghost" shrimp actually belong to the same Gennus as Mysis Shrimps. The Fw ghost shrimp sold in most petshops are the only shrimp refered to as "Ghost" Shrimp in Science!
 
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