Help with turf algae

I'm beginning to have issues with turf alge on my rock. I'm pretty sure it's due to my T5 bulbs needing to be replaced. They are about 9 months old or so. But, I'm waiting to just upgrade to a LED "Chinese Box" in a month or two. So, until then I'm going o hit up the LFS for some clean up crew beefing up. What do you guys think as far as the turf algae? Thanks always ;D

 

Algae problems are usually caused by aquarium water with excess nutrients like phosphate, nitrates etc. You can try and siphon out what you can to remove the algae in the short term. In the long term you may have to examine how you care for your tank. There are some commercial dry foods also contain excess nutrients and other undesirable things like nitrates, phosphates etc so I strain/rinse my fresh/frozen foods before feeding my tank. You may want to consider feeding your fish less often. Also, changing your photo period, light bulbs, adding more flow, using RO/DI water and a high quality salt with little if any NO3, phosphates etc like Tropic Marin may help too. Adding a phosphate remover and increasing flow in your tank may help too.

 

Best thing I ever did for my own turf algae issue, was to buy a Mexican Turbo Snail. It totally wiped it ALL out. Both the red/green algae.

 

cleanup crews are great, however they are not necessarily the solution.
keep your water parameters in check 1st, ie phosphates.

and don't give your money to China, tell them to pound sand! :disappoin

 

If this is the dark green short wire turf algae, I had an issue finding any invert that would eat it.

My only solution was to take epoxy and place it over a region of the algae leave in place for a week or 2 and repeat.

 

Read some of the information on treating it with peroxide. I did this with one of my problematic rocks (it would be the one rock that really attracted it) and it works as advertised! Of course, you need to address the lighting and other elements to make it stay away in the long run but it is amazing as an eliminator of it and it's fairly quick.

 

I should say that if it's turfs, you can probably remove it by hand but to get rid of that lower layer that just stays and looks ugly, this works very well.