Emerald Crabs

[summat fishy]

hi guys, my 7 gallon nano is suffering from the dreaded green hair algae, ive ordered an emerald crab but have my doubts even they wont touch the stuff, anyone had any experiance with them?

thanks in advance summat fishy

 

[SkiFletch]

IME, emeralds aren't really big hair algae eaters unfortunately

 

[chrissaysyes]

Agreed...I havnt had much luck with anything eating it...maybe blue legged hermits...nassarius will keep your sand clear of the stuff. In my experience emeralds just go in the tank, scuttle under a rock, and are never seen again.

 

[BigC]

I have heard that if you crop the hair algae short enough and add Trocus snails then that will help.
But really you need to examine why your gettinng the algae and eliminate or reduce the root cause.
Regards
BigC

 

[chrissaysyes]

Well in my experience, if you crop the algae at all, it will make a pretty significant dent in it's growth.

 

[summat fishy]

so what do you guys recommend to rid of this green burden then? any ideas? ive only got a 7 gallon so sea hares are out the question! any help would be appreciated!

 

[chrissaysyes]

Well as has been said so many times before on this forum, the only way to get rid of it is to starve it. Excess lighting and excess nutrients are what it feeds on. Keep your phosphates as low as possible and keep excess food out of the tank. Also make sure your light cycles are not too long. Problem solved. Pruning and plucking the stuff out of there during this process helps tremendously. In a 7 gallon tank this shouldnt be too difficult. I clean my 1 gallon pico of any algae with a chop stick every week or so.

 

[IIITYIII]

ive had emerald crabs eat bubble algae, but havent had luck with hair.

 

[bg7003]

When i had hair algae in my 20 gallon, i got a whole bunch of blue legged hermit crabs. They were constantly picking at it. Along with that, i added phosphate and nitrate sponges to my filters and did a water change every couple days. That lowered my phosphates and nitrates significantly. Then on top of that, they have reef safe algecide that won't hurt anything in the tank. So i dosed it once with that. I also turned off the lights for a couple days then turned em on for an hour and worked my way up to what i had noramly. So try that, worked for me.