Red Turf Algae help

[brutus187]

i've got a pencil urchin, but i banished him to my sump lol. he was being a pain and knocking over all of my rock work. i'll throw him back in (directly on a spot of turf) and see if i can get him to target feed.

[Aquattro]

I've used the mexican turbos successfully for this stuff, saw some at J&L yesterday.

[Doug]

Keep in mind, that if any snails are going to eat the algae, it usually requires hand trimming first, so its short. Snails seldom eat long algae, at least IME.

[Aquattro]

Gotta disagree with you Doug. I just had a dozen astreas gobble down some algae that was approaching 2 inches in length. Hand trimming is still a good idea to remove it though, since any algae that goes in a snail also comes out of the snail

[brutus187]

any idea on how to tell if the turbos i bought are mexican? The only place that had turbos in at the time was a LFS in my town...and they didn't even know "mexican" turbo snails existed...they though all were the same.

[Aquattro]

Ask them something in Spanish??

[Aquattro]

oh, did I type that?? Sorry I would imagine if they eat the algae, they are. If not, then not. I can give a better answer when I get home, I bought a few of each yesterday, I'll describe them later if nobody else beats me to it