Mollies & Hair Algae in SW Reef

[bucket brigade]

UPDATE.

There are 2 mollies left. 1 male, 1 female. they has bcome less shy and found them swimming together towards the bottom of the tank when I came home 2nite.

They are still very shy when i approach the tank....

Not sure if they are eating GHA yet as I also have a lawnmower in the tank as well, but someone is eating something.

[aquawolf]

Thanks for the update. It is good to know that something is eating it, but would be nice to actually catch the mollies in action to see if it is them or not. Perhaps you need to set up a baby sitter cam.

[gouch]

ive been lurking on this thread for a while and im glad to hear its gettin gobbled up by somthing....................although pics of the baseball bat thing would have been cool to oh well maybe youll get some
red slime or aiptasia's like me

[6ftAsian]

Just a quick question for my own curiosity... How big are your fish?? I hear you say you feed a cube of mysis shrimp... Do your fish eat ALL of it?? I was told a fish stomach is the size of it's eyeball... I have two black clown fish and a blue damsel... I feed my fish maybe a fifth of a cube every 2-3 days... I used to feed everyday... and I used to have to scrape my glass everyday as well... Someone at my LFS said not to feed everyday and now I only get a small amount of algea on my glass... I was just wondering if you have big fish... or if I should be feeding more...

[gouch]

I may be flying out of formation here but........what if you used some clams to help clean up the watercolum. i know they constantly utilize the nutrients available, nitrates and all(thats what i read anyway)........i know you already removed your sandbed but you could put a couple of bowls with some fresh LS for them to live in.

please let me know if im totally off here.

[aquawolf]

Feeding the fish too more food than they can eat within a few minutes can lead to all kinds of problems with high levels of nitrate and phosphate. These in turn lead to nasty algae problems.

Clams can clean the water column some, but they also have very specific requirements. Most of the time this means good lighting, as well as the proper place to foot within the tank. Some species prefer to foot in the rocks while others like sand. Then there are the cleaner clams that people buy live from the grocery store and I believe they bury themselves in the sand.

[cutietwo]

With the current question they swim fine in current. In fact they did so fine at the beginning of my saltwater tank they were having babies left and right.