Leafy Green Algea? after Clean Up Crew

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SuperWade2

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
Messages
83
Location
Santa Cruz, CA
I just added my clean up crew last night into my 46 Gal and they have started on the reddish\brown algea that I had on a bunch of my glass and quite a bit of my LR, but today I noticed in its place on the glass a sort of "leafy" small green stuff replacing the redstuff...

I know I have good water flow (2 MaxiJet 1200's, an Emperor 280 bio-filter, and a Remora Pro with Mag3) and I can see the stuff waving back and forth on the glass as the powerheads move the water.

The Cleanup Crew doesn't seem to be hitting much of the green stuff, at least not yet...Do I just need to give the little suckers more time, or is there something wrong. I use RO/DI Water, and had done a 25% water change a couple days before the Cleaning crew arrived (fairly newly cycled tank)

Oh Yah, the Crew consisted of some Scarlet and Blue Hermits, some Turbo Snails, some Nass. snails, a couple queen conch, and a couple emerald crabs (which I've only seen 1 since I added to the tank, and he's reddish and not dark green like the other smaller one).

Also, it doesn't seem they are attacking much of the "junk" in/on the sand, mostly on the rocks and glass... what type of cleaner is good for cleaning up the sand?

Thanks in Advance
SW2

P.S. I have a Coralife Lunar Aqualight on about a 10hour schedule of 1 Hr Actinic, 8 Hrs Actinic and Daylight, and 1 hour of Actinic... maybe this schdule it a little too long for a newly cycled tank???
 
You do need to partake in the algae cleaning too. Being it is a closed system with limited livestock, your participation is crucial. A newly cycled tank will also go through it's stages of different algae blooms. Eventually the criters will eat that, but how bout adding a rock blenny...aka algae blenny/lawnmower blenny. They'll eat that stuff off the glass. Kind of cute to see track marks of fishy lips across the glass...LOL. Reef safe starfish are good workers and if you don't care for coralline algae, then a sea urchin would make for an interesting addition. Great algae eaters, but most people like the coralline algae growth so opt not to have them. A sand sifting goby later may help with the stuff in the the sand bed. They'll at least break it up. Sand sifting stars will help break that stuff up too. Things that dig in the substrate. The best critter to clean sand are cucumbers. There are two types. One is a filter feeder. They have frillies to catch food particles. The other actually eat the sand and poop out clean sand. They lack the frillies. Those are the ones to get for sandbed maintenance, but get a small one. They can get to be pretty large and burly creatures, but do an excellent job at miantaining the sandbed.

Your lighting hours are fine.
 
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