Did I just introduce hair algae into new tank?

[soyelmocano]

Setup new tank and moved rock and a couple of clowns, one damsel, one small star, one serpent star, a few snails, and a couple of crabs from old 55 to new 150.
Want to do a lot of macros and only a few critters. Received first order with some turtle grass, some snails, and some red gracilaria attached to a shell. The red gracilaria looks a little fuzzy.

https://i.imgur.com/lyJYfoK.jpg

Did I just mess up?

 

[bertoni]

That might be a bit of some alga, but it's fairly unlikely to be the unique source of pests. Hair algae seems to arrive in a lot of tanks in a lot of ways.

 

[sde1500]

It's impossible not to have hair algae at some point in a tanks life. It finds a way no matter what.

 

[VoltzNSalt]

It's impossible not to have hair algae at some point in a tanks life. It finds a way no matter what.

Amen to that...

 

[soyelmocano]

Thank you for the replies. I was hoping to keep it out as long as possible. This morning, it seemed as though something bad eaten most of the green from the shell. Hopefully, whatever it was did a good, neat job and didn't just release it.
Got more macros in today. Will put those in late tonight. Maybe will be too much competition for hair.

Thanks again for the replies.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

I think you are on the right track, adding macros to compete with the micros. I did the same. I still got hair algae, but not for long. I think it is a form of succession.

Snails are your friends! I like Cerith snails because they reproduce to match their food supply. And the smaller ones are very good for keeping your macros clean.

I've yet to hear of ANYONE avoiding algaetown, but with macros, you shouldn't be there long. Manually remove the long stuff and the snails will do the rest. I don't recommend mixing them with hermits. They will kill the snails and they aren't very effective at algae control. Mollies are excellent algae eaters too. Just don't feed them, and they will chow down on algae.

Sounds like a cool tank! Gonna start a thread?

 

[soyelmocano]

I might start a thread at some point. Have some more algae, seagrass, and cleaner critters coming over the next few days. Might post a pic afterwards.
After adding in a few different frags a few days ago, either the two hermits or the bristle worms thought it was feast night. Came in the next day to a couple of the frag plugs bare.

Bristle worms are all over the nodes of the turtle grass. Hopefully, they are just cleaning up the pieces of old, dead tufts.

 

[soyelmocano]

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/wPTyH

For bristle worms fans.