# unidentified hitchhiker and cleaning crew help with alge?



## Heymybigfish (Jul 30, 2007)

ok my 55 gal reef tank has been set up for about 5 monthes now, about 6 this month. its thriving.....it includes a bunch of coral and 3 fish (pearly jaw and 2 clowns) since itrs a peacful reef.


my sand bed, before i had any fish and coral, was pure white, and neat looking...now, its just like dirty sand with some old red alge under the surface and green hair algee all over...well not all over, but enough to be anonyed.

my cleaning crew consists of

2 mexi turbos
5 black turbo
15 cerith
10 nassarius
20 hermits (red and blue)
1 peppermint shrimp
1 orange linkia star

WHY IS MY TANK NOT CLEAN? shold i buy more,. ill do whatever i need to...but damn, i just want it more clean looking....

p.s. if i take a straight razor, and scrape the hard alge off the side of the glass, is that ok?



INTRUDER OR NEW GUEST?

its definitly a starfish, about 99 % sure at this point, and i have only seen him a few times....and then he is fully streched out (with all 5 arms)....end to end is no begger than a Quarter (litterly like 25cents)....its a pale sandy color, like brown BUT has rediclously long arms...like it looks like its 5 arms and no body. each long arm has these little hairs on them.....


thanks, i cannot take pictures because my camera only takes blurry pics, lol


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## flamingo (Nov 5, 2005)

Mini-brittle stars, etc?

Just because you have a "clean-up crew" doesn't mean your tank is necessarily going to be perfect. In reality, they do literally nothing compared to the work you put, yourself, into the tanks maintenance.
What are the levels? Feeding? Lighting? How often do you change the water?
Do you know the phosphate levels? A little more would help out, since it "seems" like you might have a case of higher phosphates, from what you've provided.


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## leveldrummer (May 27, 2005)

Heymybigfish said:


> ok my 55 gal reef tank has been set up for about 5 monthes now, about 6 this month. its thriving.....it includes a bunch of coral and 3 fish (pearly jaw and 2 clowns) since itrs a peacful reef.
> 
> 
> my sand bed, before i had any fish and coral, was pure white, and neat looking...now, its just like dirty sand with some old red alge under the surface and green hair algee all over...well not all over, but enough to be anonyed.
> ...



yes you can scrape the sides of the tank with no problem, its actually good to do so, otherwise coraline will start taking over.

as for the sand, you should try to vacuum it as you do your water changes, that should help, a little extra flow would probably help too, if all those fail, cut back on feedings, you can also get some sifter animals to help, but that only patches the problem, it doesnt solve it. turning your skimmer up so it pulls out more crud can also have a huge affect, but dont expect it to go away over night, it will take awhile to get things clean again.

as for the "intruder" sounds like a dwarf brittle star, they are harmless and beneficial hitch hikers. no worries.


for pictures, try turning off the flash, using a tripod and the timer mode on the camera, back up enough so it will focus. its really hard to get a super close up shot.


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## Heymybigfish (Jul 30, 2007)

ok...a mini brittle...ok.....it wont eat my coral right? as long as it dont, i dont care.....i like little critters


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

What are your parameters?

You may get results from your additions, but you aren't fixing the underlying problem. Increased flow will help with cyanobacteria.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

At 5 months your tank is still very young, and young tanks have growing pains like this. The stuff eventually stops coming back after you remove it, but not until the tank has stabilized to the point where other things are consuming all the nutrients that the annoying algae use for their growth.


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## vvolfe1 (Oct 9, 2006)

What are you using for water? RoDi? tap water with additives? or store bought Rodi? Another thing could be lights helping the hair algea along. The one thing I found that works good as far as cleanup crews is a sea hare. Your peppermint will eat the dwarf sea hares though but there are larger ones. There are some good theads on one of the forums on raising mag levels up and getting rid of hair algea too.


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