Hair Algae

On December 26th, we noticed a greenish-brown band of dirt or something about midway up the face of our tank. When we looked at it more closely, we noticed that it was actually algae. And probably hair algae. I thought that I had read that this was due to the amount of phosphates or nutrients floating about in the tank. It is also dependent on the amount of time I was keeping the lights on. I quickly went out to River City Aquatics for a consult about the algae. They weren't overly concerned saying that it is a fairly normal cycle to see in new tanks. They recommended I get more hermit crabs to gobble up the algae as well as a glass cleaner to mechanically scrub the algae off the glass. I came home with a Mag-Float magnetic glass cleaner as well as 10 new crabs! The Mag-Float was fabulous! I popped it into place and proceeded to drag the magnet across the glass to clean off the algae. Within about 10 minutes, the glass was clear again. After a quick 20 minute temperature acclimation, the crabs were released into the tank and immediately got down to business.