Red Turf Algae help
 

Does anyone have any idea on how to get rid of this stuff. It started off in a small patch and has now moved around the tank.

water peramiters

PH: 8.4
Nitrate: 10 (can't seem to get it lower)
Nitrite: 0
Ammo: 0
Phosphates: 0
Calcium: 460
Alk: 7 (i am bringing this up slowly)

is it whispy kinda like cotton candy? if so the only thing I found that will work is the turbo snails from the mexican area.

Steve

i guess you could say it's kind of like cotton candy. I picked up a few turbo snails and they don't even want to touch it! how do you know if they are the mexican kind?

I got turbos and they don't touch the stuff. I usually end up plucking the stuff off (carefully) when it gets larger. If it gets on your acros it will be hard to remove.

Pencil Urchin
 

I've also got the stuff and its a nightmare! So far the only things I've seen eat the stuff are sally light foot crabs and pencil urchins.

Bye, Keana

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.

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

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.

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 :)

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.