Not freaking out quite yet.....

[drew2582]

This is something that so typically happens in my corner of the world. Today I triumphantly marched to the LFS to pick up my bubble tip anemone that i have been eyeing for quite some time. This is my first deviation from my fowlr setup which is fine because my parameters have been spot on the whole time. I never worry about losing any inhabitant of my tank due to my parameters. Anywho, I obviously have no experience with BTA's but i planned on proper feeding and stable water conditions to guide me through this learning process.

well long story short.

The bta looks great. It has weirdly stationed itself underneath a shelf where only 1/3 of it is getting good light but im confident it will adjust itself as needed. hhhhhhhoweverrrrrrr the one time i introduce something into my tank that im not 100% sure i can sustain, i get what looks to be the beginning of some green hair algae. Right now there are just little bubbles on my rock and just the smallest bit of green slime on one section (like im talking about one tenth of your pinky fingernail ) I tested my nitrates and they were trace to undetectable. I haven't got to my phosphates but about a week ago they were undetectable i will test tomorrow when i go and get another test kit.

So my question i pose to anyone and everyone is how do you handle this delicate situation (with the probable instability of the newly introduced bta but the looming prob. i might have with green hair algae.) ??????? Partial water changes, additives ...???

thx
drew

 

[mysis]

Trust me take the rock and and scrub it with salt water, probably phosphates in the water so you should check for that, but definately kill what is there now otherwise it will over take. BTA don't need a whole lot of light and generally hide away from strong light, like MH. Other than that they are easy to keep and hopefully yours will divide like a persons i know and he now got 8.

 

[drew2582]

This just occured to me - Do you think the green hair algae could be from a few stalks of dying macroalgae i have in my tank that my tang picks at ? I just trimmed off some dead looking spots lastnight when i put the bta in the tank.

 

[mysis]

I doubt it, Hair algae normally come in on LR, even if there is none on it when you buy it, it could still be present, and it only takes fuel and light to start it growing, IMO, scrub all rocks that it turns up on in salt water, hopefully you can contain the problem and eventually stop it.