Hair Algae??

[Erik Stenberg]

So when I bought this zoa colony, the plate coral piece they are attached to had some hairy algae growing on the front, now it is getting taller and what seems to be bubbles attached to it. Can anyone confirm that this is Hair Algae and the best way to safely remove it, I added a lawnmower blenny a few weeks ago but he hasn't seemed to touch it he bites at the live rock Algae and the glass mostly. I'm fully stocked with fish so I can't add anything that way, harlequin shrimp? My snails and small hermit crab don't touch it either or my peppermint shrimp or cleaner want nothing to do with it as well. Manual removal? Any help appreciated. Thanks

 

[Uncle99]

Can't you just remove with a toothbrush?
Zoos are tough!

 

[Erik Stenberg]

I'm newer to corals I don't want to mess them up, I trimmed the longer pieces with scissors and almost nipped my cleaner shrimps whisker as he shot to the scissors in the tank, thoughts of a blue legged hermit in with my snails?

 

[Uncle99]

Personally, I have a ton of corals and I never use crabs of any kind. While blues are small, they all grow up and cause problems especially to snails.
Snails, yup, Astra and the like good, crabs bad with corals. Some will disagree. That's Ok, but once there's in, you will never gets them out. Crabs bad.
Along with some Astras, great water, regular water changes, and some manual cleanup will go along way. Little tiffs of green hair algae is normal.

 

[DaveK]

You should be able to use a tooth brush to remove the algae. Obviously you use it only on the visible rock, not the zoas.

It's sometimes very difficult to find something that will eat the algae your having a problem with. What ever you add will eat the algae it likes best first, when that's all gone, it eats the kind it likes second best and so on. Many will not eat hair algaes at all.

Even so, adding snails or hermits can help a lot.The big trick here is to add enough but not too many. Some recommend as much as 1 or 2 snails per gallon of water. I think this can be too high. I'd start with about a fourth of that and see how you make out. You can always add more later.

 

[Uncle99]

Watch those hermits, blues maybe, reds grow quite fast, need to replace their shells with bigger ones and will eat anything they can catch. Years ago when I included just 1, snuck up on my ocellaris at night and grabbed him by the tail. Proceeded to walk around the tank with it in his claws as a trophy. To me, snails and hermits don't mix well. Hermits eat snails. Little small "tuffs" of green hair Algae hear and there is completely normal and the sign of a good tank. Just keep it in check. Reef clean-up crews are good but once they clean up, I found them useless. Now I just use 1 Astra for every 5 gallons. Phosphates in water are a leading cause of algae.