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The Mithrax are working, eating up the Valonias...

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by
snorkeler
, 01-10-2011 at 07:17 PM (3185 Views)
Yes, they have been hungry and stuffing their bellies with Valonias, GHA and apparently some Coraline algae (I had some green Coraline, if that exists, which is disappearing).

Look at this rock, can you see that it has some sections clearly free of Valonias with white rock showing, right beside sections infested with it? They were not like that a few weeks ago... too bad I don't have an exact same picture to compare, but I'm sure this rock had more Valonias on it, and less with purple white sections.


Same thing here (the clear section is a little out of focus, but the whole "peninsula" was covered with Valonias or GHA):


And here (you can see the path the crab took through the Valonia field in this one):


I've seen them in action a few times now, in one of them removing a small chunk of Valonias and then gradually working on it until it was all eaten.

I don't have pictures, but, the rock with red bubble algae also has some clear sections now, so it seems at least one of them also finds red bubble algae yummy.

Good jobs fellas! Keep eating!

Snorkeler

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Updated 01-10-2011 at 07:19 PM by snorkeler (fixing image, too small a thumbnail)

Categories
‎ Algae

Comments

  1. Heathd's Avatar
    Yea, they have removed all the bubble algae in my tank after about 1.5-2 months
  2. Hat39406's Avatar
    Hey Snorkeler, glad to see the crabs are working! If that is the main route you want to take to rid of the algae, maybe more emeralds would get the job done faster. Then after you can sell or give a bunch away once the algae is under control. ;-)
  3. Alaska_Phil's Avatar
    Cool, I have a pair of mithrax crabs in my tank to keep some brown turf like agae in check. And I enjoy watching them, as do all the little kids that see the tank.

    Phil
  4. jonbear's Avatar
    Have you determined why they bloomed in your tank?
  5. melev's Avatar
    That's a lot of valonia! Hopefully they will devour it all, and not get fat and lazy due to the abundance. You might see if your LFS will take them back so you can trade them in for new hungry ones if the pace slows down.
  6. snorkeler's Avatar
    jonbear: I think they bloomed due to two factors, 1st excess nutrients which I'm addressing with less food and a reactor running PhosGuard, 2nd lack of manual removal when they first appeared. If I had removed them during water changes when there were a quarter or a fifth of what I have now I'd probably not have had such a bloom.

    melev: if they get lazy and slow down their eating I'll proceed to manual removal like I did in post http://www.reefaddicts.com/entry.php...-cleanup-video . I'm not doing that right now, just letting the 4 guys eat their full and see how much of a balance they'll create.

    To be honest I don't expect them to eat everything, but rather for a balance to be reached at some point. When that happens I'll start manual removal to bring it close to zero. Zero will be impossible because my artificial live rock is made of crushed coral and has too many impossible to reach spots where small bubbles can hide from removal.