A few questions on triggers and tank

[Xxervio]

I took a couple pictures with my cell phone so prolly not the best quality. First question is whats the best solution to get this growth down that is above my sand? the live rock in the tank has been growing very rapidly.

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/2457/20100719201418.jpg
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/3482/20100719201429.jpg

second question is i have some cheato in my sump and looks like little guys have made a new home. look like little insects is that good or bad??

i have a queen trigger that i believe has been getting attacked by my huma. he seems to have stopped the aggressive behavior and is leaving her alone. but she has some skin missing from the lower part of her jaw and also i think he got her right fin not to sure yet how far down he got. Will the skin and fin grow back? I have been feeding her garlic guard soaked PE mysis.

i have a 135gal tank, 20gal sump.

Thankz for the help/advice.

[AngelAddict]

What are your water parameters? Especially nitrates and phosphates? Also what kind of bulbs/color/Kelvin/age? Water flow? Those bugs in your cheato are copepods, very good.

[MaryG]

How long has the tank been running? Is this a new set up?

[Stuart60611]

The hair algae on your rocks looks to be the identicial species to what I am dealing with, namely debersia which is very common. Bottom line: If you have hair algae then you have nutrient issues and particularly nitrate and phosphate excess. As such, the only way to properly deal with the algae problem is to attack it from the perspective of its source, namely reduce nutrients. You can reduce nutrients in two ways: reduce nutirent input (i.e., reduce feeding and bioload) and reduce nutrient export (i.e., better skimming, more frequent water changes, chemical filtration (gfo/carbon), increasing water volume or amount of rock, and carbon dosing to name a few). You should attempt to combat this from both perspectives to seek an appropriate balance between nutrient input and export. Dosing vodka and the like, as well as the new craze of solid carbon dosing via pellets, has been a very good technique for many to vastly improve nutrient export. It requires an efficient skimmer and plenty of threads here to read and learn about it. Also, the use of GFO is often very helpful to export phosphates which accumulate primarily from the heavy feeding one has to do to keep large predators like triggers and the like. As far as reducing nutirent input, try to feed foods that are quickly consumed with as little mess and left over food as possible. Also, although it does not address the source of the nutrients, manual removal and natural algae pruning through tangs and/or foxfaces often helps quite a bit and gets you over the hump.

[Xxervio]

i have 3 tangs in the tank now, yellow, blue hippo and sailfin tangs. i will have to look into all this info :) would diamond gobys help with the sand issue?