Green Algae

[psu1f]

I started my first reef tank about a month ago. It is 175 gal with about 280 lbs for live rock. The rock closer to the top of the tank is covered heavily in long green algae. Some other rock has short thick green algae. I put 60 hermit crabs in last week(30 blue,20 red,10 scralet leg crabs). I don't think they will eat the real long algae. Should I get more crabs. Or is there something else I can do? Cal 380, Nitrate near 0 Temp 78. Thanks in advance

 

[Krish]

Welcome to RF!!! The type of algae you are experiencing sounds like your typical hair algae that will grow when there is an excess of nutrients in the tank (nitrates, phosphates etc) The fact that you are reading nearly 0 nitrates can be because of either your test kit may be off or the nitrates are bound up in the algae which is what it does in order for it to grow. Some people will add crabs to help eat the algae but you have to remember crabs produce waste as well so a better option would be to try and manually remove any algae you can to export the bound up nitrates and phosphates from your system and see if it grows back. Chances are it may, but each time, given you are using ro/di water, a good salt, not over feeding or allowing waste to accumilate in the tank and rott, the alage should start to subside. The tank is still young though and this is normal to have algae outbreaks. Just give it time and with tank maturity, it should all go away