Snails & other Inverts.

Ok guys need a little help here.
My tank is seriously green. Green all over the sides of the tanks. Bubble and what I think is hair maybe turf algae on the the rocks.
My question is what kind of snails or other critters will take care of the algae on the tank walls? What will take care of the bubble and hair?
My setup is a 55 gallon aquarium with a Turbolflotor Multi SL protein skimmer, 4x54 watt T5 fixture, heater, 40 lbs LR and 30 lbs dry rock, 40 lbs LS.
My only fish is a blue and pink watchman goby.
Right now this is my CUC.
30-40 Dwarf Cerith snails
3 Nass. Vibex snails
2 dwarf blue legged hermit crabs
3 margaita snails
1 ruby mithrax crab

what else would be beneficial for my tank?
It need to be reef safe as I plan on adding corals soon.

 

if its on the glass, a mag float is what you need. the snails wont clean it totally. bubble algae, an emerald crab will eat it hopefully. or else pick it off yourself without busting the bubbles

 

You need to ID and eliminate the source of nutrients for the algae.

Cut back on lights. Use RO/DI instead of tap. Feed less at a time and less often are some suggestions.


Beyond that, you need to remove nutrients. Run a refugium w/macro's, do a water change, etc.


Hand remove what you can (do not pop those bubbles) and contact John, describe your problem as you have here and listen to his snail suggestions. http://www.reefcleaners.org

 

I do not have a refugium and do not plan on getting one. I so have chaeto and ulva in my DT to help with some of the nitrates. My lights are on from 10-9:30, is this too long?
I alternate feeding my Goby frozen bloodworms and Formula One pellets every other day.

I got my macro algae and some of CUC from John.

I do use a mag float but I hate scraping all the pods off my glass as I do want to keep them around.

 

When my rocks got too covered with algae I scrubbed them off in a bucket full of saltwater. That, in conjunction with some of the other suggestions, may be helpful to you. The other thing I would recommend is a phosban reactor. They are quite inexpensive (can pick one up for about $50), and can be hung on the back of a tank or in a sump. The media will suck up your phosphates and starve your algae.

 

I have my rocks epoxied together because I didnt want them falling. I could remove them but id rather not.
I am going to try keeping my lights off for a couple of days and see if that helps.
thanks

 

+1 on removing nutrients, ultimately that's the only solution to the problem, everything else is just treating the symptoms.

Trochus and turbo snails will eat some types of algae that ceriths won't touch, but they eat a lot of it so you don't need a lot of them. Like said before they won't clean it entirely you're going to have to clean the glass eventually, don't worry about the pods, you probably aren't killing most of them anyway, they are so small, and there are so many in your tank probably that a few missing isn't going to do much damage to their population.
You can also look into getting a phosphate reactor as well, should help with some algae.

 

I also had a serious hair algae problem when I first got my tank - a Sea Hare will devour the algae (Hair only, they don't eat bubbble) and can be purchased for around 15-20. However, because they feed primarily on hair algae, once its all gone and the phosphates are under control, you will need to 'loan' him to a friend with hair algae or return him to the LFS, otherwise they will starve. They are reef safe, just a bit clumsy sometimes.

 

As far as the bubble algae, you can try to manually remove it. I removed mine at water change time with the siphon going to get any bubbles that got loose, etc. Also, you might want to check your powerheads. I actually had a patch of bubble algae growing inside my powerhead that was probably causing it to reproduce like crazy. I also got two emerald crabs - one at the bubble algae and the other never touched it.