Did I win the hair algae battle...

[thewarbrd]

...or is it regrouping??

I had a pretty good forest of hair algae on the overflow while I had my wet/dry sump. None of my CuC would touch it and I resisted getting a tang or sea hair because I didn't want to starve something after they tackled the crop... A bag of phosphate remover in the water flow wasnt doing any apparent good, and it was starting to spread to rocks and even one of my feather dusters tubes near the head and it would keep it from staying open :mad2:

So I switched to a DIY sump, threw a good couple of softball sized clumps of cheato in the fuge area with some live sand and 24x7 light and waited...

I started noticing the overflow 'forrest' turning grey after a couple of weeks and when I'd do water changes I'd siphon with a small tube and scrape the overflow to suck the stuff out of the tank as I pulled out the water for the change, and it wasn't growing back... victory?

Well now the overflow has been clean of anything green the last few days, but now I have white fuzz EVERYWHERE. It's like a sheet over the surface of the overflow, there's strands snagged on the live rock flapping around and taunting me. Is this the remnants of the hair and other finer algae dying off and blowing away or is it about to unleash a whole new wave on me and hasnt turned green yet??

 

[jayguerreso]

I have been battling this algae myself ever since i got a proper light to grow coral. I assume you are using Ro'd water and are doing your water changes in reasonable time. What helped me was just taking the bulk off by hand and scrubbing it with a toothbrush, then turning the rock out of the light and praying it died. I also started to do more frequent water changes that seemed to help. I have noticed it starting to come back on me, so this weekend I plan to shut my lights down for 3 days, I have been told thats the best way to kill the stuff. The corals and such will be fine because it simulates a cloudy day. Do you run a skimmer also?
*Frequent Water Changes
*Reduce feeding amounts
*Kill the lights for 3 days
*Make sure you have good flow
Thats my advice earned through the collective wisdom of people at LFStores and the ARC.

 

[thewarbrd]

Yeah, I've used ro/di from day 1, do 6gal every other week on a 75g. Never really had it on the rock other than a couple of small spots. Skimmer as well but it doesnt run all the time as I've got such a light bioload right now and the pump driving it pushes the temps up too far (The tank is 5 months old and has NEVER had a heater put in it and it's bever been below 79deg, even when ambient is 69.)

To me, it's gone, it's more of a 'what's the white stuff showing up now?' question...

 

[jayguerreso]

Scrub it? I've noticed it on the backwall of several tanks, could just be a beneficial algae, either way I think your in the clear. How exactly did you beat it?

 

[thewarbrd]

I can only guess that I knocked it back far enough scraping it during changes that the macro in the fuge managed to starve it off... time will tell I guess!