Gots me a green algae bloom on my substrate

[msduncan]

My substrate has turned green in spots. It's not hair algae... each individual little shell piece or substrate piece is colored green.

I know about reducing the light times. Is there any critter I could get that will graze on this stuff and speed the process of getting rid of it?

[nickterp]

Couple things for that:

-I added a bunch of small hermit crabs, they like to clean my substrate for me... and did so as soon as I added them ( I think in about 15 min it was white again)
-You could also check into some things that cause algae blooms.... one is high phosphate levels. If you're using conditioned tap water this can be very high (I tested my tap water it was), so you could use RO/DI water instead for water changes (right now I buy it from my LFS for 95 cents a gallon). There's a certain threshold of phosphates where algae blooms are almost gauranteed to occur.

Good luck!

[msduncan]

Well I have 5 micro hermits. Maybe they're lazy?

[nickterp]

Ha maybe. Or if your algae is producing too often they are just full ;).

[msduncan]

LOL. FAT and lazy!

Great!

Should I leave the substrate alone or maybe stir it a bit to cover up the ugly algae? I don't think I have a substrate mixing critter yet?