Newbie Question - Green Plants on Rocks

[nomad1967]

Hi Everyone...

Need your advice on something. I have a 35G Red Sea Max aquarium...it's 7 weeks old. I have 2 clown fish, 7 blue hermit crabs, 5 turbo snails, some star polyps and blue/green mushrooms. I also have about 20lbs of live rock (that was cured for 5 weeks.

Over the past few weeks I have this cluster of long green plants developing on the rocks. One rock in particular has a lot of it...it almost completely covers it. I have attached pictures of the plants. Is this a natural occurance? Should I just leave it?

I check my water levels every week and do a 20% water change every 2 weeks. No problems at all with this part.

Let me know if you need more information.

Thanks again for your help

Edward

[Eyford01]

looks to me like hair algae

[Ian]

go slow 7 weeks is very new for salt water. best advice about green hair algae is find a post by Myka and check out her sig for all the info you should need....at least for a few weeks that is.
Welcome and Good luck from one newb to another
Ian

[mark]

suggest getting that algae out asap before is spreads

[simplycoral]

Not sure about the Green Algae as the pictures are a little blurry.

Looks like a mixture of different types :neutral: i am sure i can see "Bryopsis". Try and Google it and check out images.

The Red Algae in Picture 2 is a pain in the A#:SE :neutral: Cotton Turf Alage or Cotton Wool Algae http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-12/nftt/index.php If it hasn't spread i would remove it..

S.

[bvlester]

Yup it's green hair algea you will have to manuly remove as much as posible. Are your hermit crabs a good size I have a few different sizes of herhimt crabs the red leged ones seem to eat more algea than the blue leged ones I don't know why but they do a good job. I also got rock from different places so I would get a few different critters on it. One rock in particular had a bunch of mini brisle starfish on it they do a good job of eating algea also. I have bristel stars in almost all of my rocks now. turn your lights off for a couple of days and when you start useing them again start with
1-2 hour time period perfurably itinics only
2 -2hour time periods with 2-3 hours inbetween first period with itinics only second with white light only.
3- 2 hour periods with 2 hours in between first period with itinics only second with white light only and the last 2 hrs with itinics only.
After a couple of weeks then you can change the lighting a bit 3-2-3 hour periods with hours in between first 2hour period with itinics for 1hour then white light only second with white light only for first hour and the add itinic and the last 2 hrs with white light only and the last hour itinics only

you are still trying to similate the natural light shifts but shortining the time of light exposure. I found this worked for me I have kept me lighting down a bit and there seems to have been no negitive aspects so far. I now leave the itinics on longer in the evening, the corals seem to love it itinics are closer to their natural light spectrum 6500 luminums/h as that is what is it a the equartor. why we use 10k and 12k I don't realy know except to get more penitration. Everyone forgets alot of these corals come for depths alot deeper than our tanks. So to get the penitration use a few more bulbs and use 6.5k daylight bulds and run an itinic which will help drive the light deeper in the tank algea will grow better also. Just a thought.

Bill

[nomad1967]

Thank you everyone for all your advice! Really appreciated. I'll start by removing all the hair algae by hand. My water change is scheduled this week, so I'll remove the algae beofre the change. I'll also look to alter the mighting and shorten the intervals.

I'll report back and let you know how things are going.

Thanks again

Edward

[gobytron]

do yourself huge favour and read up on this before you start messing with it.
hair algae can take over your entire tank if you are not careful about how you manually remove it.

When you pull the main clump off of a rock, you send spores out all over the place that can become a new prolific growth.


from the sounds of your water changes, I would say that you're problem might be related to poor flow around your rocks, leaving sand and all the fun stuff in it (like phosphates) accumulate on your rocks which makes for a cafeteria line up for your problem algaes...

If your flow is good and not allowing this to happen

You might try adding a chemipure elite (the larger size) and turning the lights out completely for for a few days too see if that does the trick.

Your mushrooms and gsp won't mind at all.