Unhappy Corals

[RMC]

Originally Posted by mikellini

Hair algae can bother corals, both by touching them and by releasing chemicals into the water. My first thought was that your water is too clean. I would get the hair algae under control first and then decide what to do next. Using a phosphate binder and snails, along with manual removal, usually works quite well. If it's particularly resistant, try starting with a couple of days of lights out.

The chaeto will not out-compete hair algae for nutrients, so I'd remove that off the bat. Then run separate carbon and GFO or Phosguard, using the full recommended amount for your water volume. Add 2-3 turbo snails, continually place them on the hair algae so they keep eating it, and manually remove what you can. Continue to feed your tank/fish well to ensure trace amounts of phosphate and nitrate are available for corals. Once the hair algae is gone, test for nitrates and shoot for somewhere around 2-4ppm. Easiest way to achieve this is to feed more. Hope this helps.

I'm going to start the phosguard treatment tomorrow. Currently using Carbon. Is there any detriment to running the chaeto? I'd rather keep it in.
I'm in the habit of QTing everything (had a ich outbreak when I first started). The snails won't make it into my DT for 6 weeks. What can I feed them in the Qt during this period?

Thanks for the suggestions!

[mikellini]

I wouldn't bother with qt for turbo snails... If you're really paranoid, rinse them in new salt water. They can be sensitive to parameter changes tho.

If you're doing it right, the chaeto will wither and die with the hair algae, and just end up exhausting your phosguard faster. If you want to keep it, put it in your qt until the hair algae is gone, then return it and increase your phosphates a little by running less phosguard and changing it out less frequently.