Mid Cycle hair algea

[vermonter310]

My tanks been cycling for about two weeks, I started with two cocktail shrimp and have since added 25# of live rock. It's been in about a week. Yesterday the life on the rock seemed to explode! New live things everywhere on the rock and with it I noticed the green hair algae. there are a couple of crabs that came on the rock and they seem to be enjoying it. Although I don't believe they'll keep up. The question I guess is, is there something I could/should add now to keep it under control?

thanks

Mike

 

[reefrunner69]

Has your cycle completed? If not, I would hesitate to add anything. I would not run any lights or only actinics at this point in the cycle, this will help keep the unwanted algae from taking over.

 

[Brisc0]

Once your chemistry is inline and the cycle has finished add a sally lightfoot crab. It will decimate all hair algae within a couple days.

 

[jackdp]

Once your chemistry is inline and the cycle has finished add a sally lightfoot crab. It will decimate all hair algae within a couple days.

Not necessarily true...sally lightfoots will eat hair algae but most often only clumps that are very small and just growing. IMO they won't touch the larger clumps. Sally lightfoots will also eat coralline algae (not really a bad thing) and they when the get larger they will go after small fish and are not easy to catch in a LR tank.