Hair and Bubble algae removal

[Guest]

1. I am getting bad green hair algae on some pieces of LR and all over the glass. Tank is under 3 months old so I expected some.

2. Also red bubble algae on LR.

I tested for phosphates and they were present. I purchased an RO/DI unit and doing my first 5 gal. PWC tonight with the water+all future topoffs.

I also cut my feedings of mysis to once every other day

Question: Can I pull this hair or bubble algae out, or should I leave it and it will go away with the RO/DI and PWC's??

Also, I have a small bunch of chaeto in the corner of my tank. I figured since I didn't have a sump I could leave it for nutrient removal and trim it. Is this OK?

 

[Hara]

Yank the hair algae out by all means. Be careful wth the manual removal of the bubble algae. If you burst the spheres, it reseeds your tank. I would take the piece of rock out and remove them carefully.

I would leave the chaeto in the tank. You might want to look at this for ideas.
http://www.fantasyreef.com/showthread.php?t=478

 

[roka64]

I agree, if you try to remove the hair algae and break it off, it will spread. Some use an unused toothbrush and siphon to remove the hair. As for the red bubble algae, I believe it is beneficial as opposed to green bubble algae. I have the red in my tank and don't bother with it. It has no spread. Can you get pics for a better ID?

 

[melosu58]

Now that is 10 good things to do. Great link MRS Hara

 

[Guest]

algae

Thanks for the link hara. It is funny because I never read those steps and have already done most of them. I am buying 10-12 more Cerith and Nassarius tomorrow. I added them slowly so they would not starve.

About the lights, I cut back from 12-10 hours per day. Will my corals be ok if I cut it in half for a week?

So just to be clear, the red bubble algae is what I have to be careful with pulling it out?

And, it appears the chaeto in the tank is fine. I had a big piece of calpura growing and I pulled it out. A day or two after I pulled it out this happened. Is there any correlation? Now I have a few calpura stubs growing and I am hesitant to pull it out yet.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Hara]

Usually pruning caulerpa will keep it from going sexual, not creating the issues. It may have gone crazy and you not noticed though. Let's revisit the red bubble stuff....I misunderstood your post and thought you were referring to valonia, which is a green bubble nuisance algae. Your corals will be more than fine if you cut back on your lighting. That is a pretty long time to have the full lights on. As an example, ALL my tanks were without light for a week after Hurricane Rita, the pumps stayed on and circulation was kept up. They looked just dandy when the lights came back on.

 

[roka64]

The red can pop and spread, that way. I left mine alone and it is not spreading or causing any problems. We would need a pic to see what kind of algae. The hiar algae will spread too, if broken off. I find this site very helpful, for some algaes:
http://www.marinelifephotography.com/marine/seaweeds/seaweeds.htm