Hair algae.... Best way to eliminate it.

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bkostuch

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Okay so without further hesitation here are my parameters.

Temp 79-80
Salinity 1.024
Ph 8.16
Po4 0.00
Calcium 420
Mag 1310
Alk 8.4
Nitrate 0
Light cycle 9am to noon ramp up
Noon to 4 70%
4 to 9ish ramp down

I have a foxface that doesn't even want anything to do with the HA, 3 turbos, handful of red leg hermits. I am running carbon and gfo reactors, sump has chaeto but it's not growing at all, loaded with sponges. The HA is only on rocks and not substrate or fixtures.

While I am going to scrub them I just want to help control / eliminate it from coming back. What livestock the is coral friendly can help with this?

I honestly don't know what is feeding the growth...


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I have 3 large ones, they are useless except sucking the back glass :p


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bkostuch;1059382 wrote: I have 3 large ones, they are useless except sucking the back glass :p


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Strange. I got 2 and gave one away as I was afraid they would starve after about a week. I used to think they were called margarita snails. Maybe it's a name issue. I will try to find a picture.
 
Mexican turbo snail
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Yeah mine are big fatties and don't touch the HA :(


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Sea hare, hands down the best turf mower out there. The only problem is keeping them fed after algae is gone.
 
grouper therapy;1059404 wrote: Sea hare, hands down the best turf mower out there. The only problem is keeping them fed after algae is gone.
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+1 had a sea hare that was a monster vs algae but it did later meet its demise for some unknown reason, maybe it didn't have enough food source afterwards?
 
Possibly consider shortening your light cycle, even if only by two hours. As for your clean up crew, definitely up the man-power. Look into adding some more hermit crabs, turbos, trochus and astrea snails for algae control. Nassarius snails are good, too, for keeping sand turned over and scavaging leftover/uneaten food. I have at least 30 algae snails (mostly trochus), 15-20 nassarius and 50 hermits in my 60g tank, along with a couple of sally lightfoots. I don't have algae.

If your nitrates and phosphates are that low, then there really is not much for your chaeto to "feed" and grow off of.

-Liz
 
Can you take a pic of the hair algae? most critters find regular hair algae to be delicious. There are some types of weeds like bryopsis that looks a lot like regular hair algae but the grazers don't like to eat it. always good to check for that... Treatment would be magnesium dosing.
 
FutureInterest;1059413 wrote: Can you take a pic of the hair algae? most critters find regular hair algae to be delicious. There are some types of weeds like bryopsis that looks a lot like regular hair algae but the grazers don't like to eat it. always good to check for that... Treatment would be magnesium dosing.
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Yup!

Pic's please!
 
After crowing about how well my tanks did during my last one-week vacation, the following week, the 60 gallon cube's rocks were taken over by hair algae. I am thinking my pet sitter topped off straight outta the sink and she messed with the lights because they had been taken off the 8 hour program I had them on.

I really think it is hair algae. I had recently added a newer, bigger sump with a fuge (and the macro is growing nicely) and changed my outflow to include an external durso. I did reduce the flow (probably) with the new setup, but believe me, the algae waves nicely in the flow so I don't think that's it.

I've reduced my lighting, done water changes, will be running GFO in a reactor, have turbos and other snails (although I'll be buying more at the meeting). I've heard it takes some time. It's a frustrating problem to have for sure. I'm scrubbing each rock as I can get to it and those are staying beautifully clean.

Will keep up with this thread - love this forum for its continued help.
 
Is this a recent problem? I seem to remember you buying an auto feeder recently.
 
I agree with cutting back the light cycle to 8-10 hours.

You aren't seeing phosphate or nitrate because the algae are binding it up, and keeping it from feeding the desirable macro - the Chaetomorpha.

Most algae eating snails and such won't touch it if it's too long. Scrub the algae out, then beef up your clean up crew and they will help keep it from getting long again, but the cause still needs to be addressed, which is usually over-feeding.

Do a water change, keep a bucket of the waste water, remove each rock one by one and scrub it outside of the tank and give it a good rinse in the bucket of tank water. Try to avoid having algae float around loose in the tank - scoop it out with a net if some does get loose, or it will re-settle someplace else.

When you rinse the rock in the bucket of tank water, give it a good swirly to dislodge and rinse off detritus that has settled into the rock, that's also what feeds the algae.

You may need to do this several times over the next few weeks until you get the upper hand, and adjusting your feeding/nutrient load will help prevent a recurrence.

It's a major pain, but it's really the best way I've found to get rid of it. Otherwise you'll be chasing the problem indefinitely.

Jenn
 
I have had the same issue but have it under control now by upping my water changes, weekly about 10%, got the BRS dual reactors with GFO and Carbon. I had the little fishies before for GFO but it cracked and I went without for a bit, change GFO more often, rearrange powerheads to blow stuff off the rocks better, pulled it out while doing the water change using fingers and airline tubing to suck it up after pulling, and watch nutrient load from feeding. The other success that I had was pulling the rock out of the tank, rinsing it with peroxide and then with tank water, and put back. That rock that I did this for has never gotten HA since and it didn't affect the zoas and polys that were on that rock. Be careful with some coral though others can be more sensitive to it.
 
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