Hair Algea - Help

[grouper]

Due to traveling for the job, I have not been able to keep up with the tank except for water changes. Now that my traveling has slowed down I need to get this hair algae out of my tank.
I have a 100G tank that has hair algae every where. Any good recommendation on how to get rid of it FAST....:yay:

 

[joseayes]

If you try something fast you might end up making it worse, what I would suggest is remove manually all of the algae, brushing rocks, cleanup the glass, and passive and progressive water changes, you might affect the good bacteria and (if there's some still) affect the chemistry if you do big water changes, maintain and keep track of your parameters.
One other things you have to check, if your are using bulbs, instead of led's, probably they need to be replaced ( photoperiod? Or the same...light exposure time? ) one last and not least, overfeeding? Might be to much waste and small cleanup crew(if existing)

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[grouper]

joseayes;963239 wrote: If you try something fast you might end up making it worse, what I would suggest is remove manually all of the algae, brushing rocks, cleanup the glass, and passive and progressive water changes, you might affect the good bacteria and (if there's some still) affect the chemistry if you do big water changes, maintain and keep track of your parameters.
One other things you have to check, if your are using bulbs, instead of led's, probably they need to be replaced ( photoperiod? Or the same...light exposure time? ) one last and not least, overfeeding? Might be to much waste and small cleanup crew(if existing)

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Thanks for the note. I will need to get a cleanup crew. I have some blue leg crabs but I need more.
Bulbs are good. Purchased them about 2 month ago. I definitely do over feed. What kind of brush are you talking about for cleaning the rocks?

 

[mcphock]

You have algae because you have excessive nutrients [obviously]. Look into vodka dosing. It is something that must be done slowly</em>, over a period of weeks, but it is much more cost effective than repeated water changes. Depending on your tank size, it'll run you about $12 a year to do. At least that's what it is for my 120 gallon.

I wouldn't sweat the "good bacteria", as mentioned above. Nothing you've said indicates that your tank would be cycling again and relatively little bacteria lives in the water column.

 

[joseayes]

I knew I wasn't so accurate in my opinion.
As long as I believe and have seen in threads, not personally, from people using the vodka method to have an organic carbon source, I wouldn't recommend for a person who travel and expend weeks away from its tank, I believe its very important to be checking tank every day to keep maintenance and take quick action on the tank if something goes wrong with this method.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/">http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/</a>

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[mcphock]

Vodka can be set to dose automatically by a doser. But you're right... it does require more oversight. Less once you get it dialed in however. My 4ml dose has been unchanged for a year, so I can confidently add it without observing the results.

If he's going to be gone for weeks though, it's going to be hard to manage the nutrients anyway.

 

[glxtrix]

I didn't have the best exp with vodka dosing....all my corals started to suffer, lost all color in my sps. I never really made it too high in ml dosing either...I started reaaaaaaly slow. Regardless, when doing water changes, siphon out as much as you can. I found gfo to work best for me. Just change it out weekly. If you have rocks that are more accessible and don't have coral on them, you could pull them and do a peroxide dip. Search that on here for proper methods.

 

[lsu_fishfan]

I riddled my tank of hair algae in a few weeks using nualgae. That stuff really works.

 

[cment]

reduce feedings to every other day, up your water changes to at least 20% weekly, add some GFO. Basically try and starve the hair algae by decreasing your nutrient levels. Add a few turbo snails and you will notice a nice reduction in the problem. Also try raising your Mg to 1500-1600 slowly (no more than 100ppm daily) with Tech M. For some reason this can help keep hair algae and the like reduced and possibly help eliminate it. Hope this helps, good luck

 

[outdrsyguy1]

tagging along, though my nutrients measure 0 P04 (elos) and 0 NO3 (red sea pro). They did spike 3 months ago to .028 and 10 NO3 for about 2 weeks. I manually remove a lot of algae about every 2 weeks. My corals always tend to pale so I suspect it to be low nutrients, just a little baffled why the algae takes months to go away.

 

[cment]

outdrsyguy1;963323 wrote: tagging along, though my nutrients measure 0 P04 (elos) and 0 NO3 (red sea pro). They did spike 3 months ago to .028 and 10 NO3 for about 2 weeks. I manually remove a lot of algae about every 2 weeks. My corals always tend to pale so I suspect it to be low nutrients, just a little baffled why the algae takes months to go away.

If the algae is still there, there is still something that is feeding it. You could be getting false readings from your test kits bc the algae is absorbing the PO4 and NO3...

 

[atlweb]

cment;963309 wrote: reduce feedings to every other day, up your water changes to at least 20% weekly, add some GFO. Basically try and starve the hair algae by decreasing your nutrient levels. Add a few turbo snails and you will notice a nice reduction in the problem. Also try raising your Mg to 1500-1600 slowly (no more than 100ppm daily) with Tech M. For some reason this can help keep hair algae and the like reduced and possibly help eliminate it. Hope this helps, good luck

+1 - cutting back on lighting schedule may help as well.