Hair and other nuisance algae - I was at the end of my rope

[schwaggs]

I've been fighting hair algae, bryopsis, dinos - just about every major pest for years now but believe I finally found a solution!

Back story - My system consists of a 210 display with supporting tanks for a total water volume of 500 gallons in the lower level of my home. Setup originally in the 2005 time-frame and was a gorgeous system that was running very well. Several years later, I foolishly added some corals on live rocks from a friend that was quitting due to an uncontrollable hair algae problem he was having. I brushed off as much of HA as I could and added it to one of my holding tanks. I foolishly believed that my system would "cure" these rocks of HA, I couldn't have been further from the truth.

The Fight - I NEVER had measurable PO4 and still don't. Even said, I still tried all the common methods to control PO4, the HA just laughed at me and kept growing. I went for months without adding any food and tried to harvest the HA and cheato but the HA and now dinos just kept growing. Tried bio-pellets - HA just kept growing. Use Kalk to raise pH to try and control Dinos - zero impact. I personally believe the dinos got worse the more I tried to control nutrients. Picked up bryopsis along the way. Bryopsis is just a killer (I see now there are other chemical solutions for this).

I quit - Around 2012 - after fighting HA, bryopsis, and dinos for 4-5 years, I quit trying and let the pests take over my reef. By this time I lost most of my best coral colonies and fish by trying to "control nutrients" and such. The tanks sat in "science experiment" mode as my family called it, convinced the monster from the black lagoon was going to crawl out of the tank.

The rebirth - about November 2014 I finished my lower level game room and family rooms.I now had a 210 gallon in-wall science experiment in the middle of my lower level game room. In March of 2015, a couple of my friends helped me disassemble the science experiment, clean up the live rock with a pressure washer, rinse the sand, etc. Over the next couple months I cleaned the display and holding tanks, and restarted the system. If I had it to do over, I would have taken the time to cook the rocks and not re-use any of the cleaned sand. Maybe next time!

Problems with the rebirth - The "new" tank has not been without problems. Fought a bacterial infestation I've never seen in all my years of reefing. Had worse than typical new tank algae outbreaks (I think cooking the rock would have helped here). Had a variety of algae that looked like short, brown hair algae. All were controlled. Then the Dinos game back along with cyno. I fought the dynos back by increasing livestock and feeding more. I enjoyed the Cyno for a few reasons 1) it wasn't hair algae 2) it was pretty 3) it covered the short brown algae and killed it, making siphoning it out easy!

IIIIITTTSSS BAAAAACK - then about 9 months ago the hair algae came back. Slow at first, thought I could control it by siphoning it out. No dice. As of a month ago, full fledged outbreak in my displays and holding tanks. Ugg. PO4 still reading 0.00 on my Hanna and Red Sea tests (yes, I bought multiple test kits as I thought the Hanna was broken). Nitrate is also 0 on RedSea and Salifert test kits.

I QUIT! - I was ready to turn the lights off and make this a fish only system. I figured as a last ditch effort, why not try the chemical solution people on RC have been talking about for years. Not a fan of chemical solutions to reefing problems but I am at the end of my rope - again. What do I have to lose, HA is going to kill everything eventually.

API Algaefix to the rescue - So about 20 days ago, I started dosing API Algaefix according to the recommended dose. 1ml per 10 gallons water volume every 3 days. I turn the UV and skimmer off for 12 hours after dosing (not sure if this is needed but I figured it couldn't hurt). Initially there wasn't much of a change. About 3 doses in, I noticed clumps of HA floating around my display and the skimmer smelling like fresh cut lawn. A couple doses after that, I am able to siphon the HA off the rocks in big clumps in the lower light areas. It just comes off, no tearing or scrubbing. The HA in high light areas still looked unfazed. I run my skimmer really wet and am getting about 2 quarts of tea colored skimmate a day (typical for my system before treatment is about 4 to 6 quarts of skimmate a week). Today, about 7 treatments in, I don't see any healthy HA in my entire system. There are still clumps of dying HA on the rocks but I keep siphoning them out and nothing appears to be growing back. Zero loss of fish, corals or inverts that I can find. PO4 still measuring zero despite lots of dying HA so not sure whats up with that.

In summary - if you are at the end of your rope battling Hair Algae, don't be afraid to try API Algaefix. Hopefully your results will be as good as mine. I love reefing again!

 

[jcook54]

That's terriifc! Thanks for posting your experience. Please give us an update in a while to make sure everything went well. In a year or two someone will be doing a search for algaefix and it's always great when there's a follow up a few weeks later just to make sure things stayed well.

 

[FutureInterest]

Really good stuff. I wasn't aware of that product. I wonder what the active ingredient is... I also wonder if its effective against bryopsis as well.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[york1]

dimethyliminoethylene dichloride, ethoxylate

 

[ichthyoid]

FWIW-
What possible effect might an algaecide have on corals containing zooxanthellae (symbiotic algae)?

 

[schwaggs]

Really good stuff. I wasn't aware of that product. I wonder what the active ingredient is... I also wonder if its effective against bryopsis as well.

Thanks for sharing.

It is an Algaecide. The bottle says it treats green algae, the type that turns ponds green. No mention of hair algae on the bottle. Threads on RC is where I learned it should work on HA.

From the research I performed (I did not read every post in every thread I could find) it DOES NOT work on Bryopsis. However, this product claims to work on it and Dinos: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/fauna-marin-ultra-algea-x.html I never tried this one.

FWIW-
What possible effect might an algaecide have on corals containing zooxanthellae (symbiotic algae)?

Thinking on the threads I have read is the coral protects the zooxanthellae from the algaecide. So far no impacts on my coral colors. If anything they may be brighter but that may also be due to a bulb change I made about a month ago or change in nutrients from the dying algae.

 

[urbanknight]

@schwaggs thank you for such an interesting and in depth post. Like @futureinterest, I had no idea this product existed. Dimethyliminoethylene dichloride, ethoxylate... Say that backwards 3 times!

 

[camellia]

Great informative post, thanks.

I thought from the title you were tossing in the towel! So nice to hear a happy ending!

 

[hatzo1]

Interesting as it states it is for Freshwater use on the API site. I still want to try it for my tank

 

[hatzo1]

Scratch that LOL no coffee yet I was wrong.

 

[jcook54]

Scratch that LOL no coffee yet I was wrong.

I had the exact same response typed up and then went looking through what I could find again and saw the "Marine" version. If I ever have an issue I'll try this for sure. @schwaggs Is the tank still looking good? No negative results?

 

[schwaggs]

Yep, still looking good. All the Hair Algea is gone. I was traveling this week and didn't give the tank a treatment for a few days and came home to glass full of film algae. No problem, just scraped it off.

I have some sort of brown algea or maybe cyno taking the place of the HA. I need to beef up my cleanup crew in there (I have very little at the moment).

Coraline algea is not growing at the moment. It used to grow on the glass agressivly but IME, it comes and goes. It's also winter in my tank this time of year so it the coraline might not like to cooler water temps (~76 in January/February).

I'm switching to 1 treatment per week to see how that goes.

 

[bhodges82]

Yep, still looking good. All the Hair Algea is gone. I was traveling this week and didn't give the tank a treatment for a few days and came home to glass full of film algae. No problem, just scraped it off.

I have some sort of brown algea or maybe cyno taking the place of the HA. I need to beef up my cleanup crew in there (I have very little at the moment).

Coraline algea is not growing at the moment. It used to grow on the glass agressivly but IME, it comes and goes. It's also winter in my tank this time of year so it the coraline might not like to cooler water temps (~76 in January/February).

I'm switching to 1 treatment per week to see how that goes.

Have you noticed a change in nutrient levels since the hair algae is gone?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[schwaggs]

No measurable change in Phosphates, still 0.00 when I measured last. I have not tested Nitrates yet.

 

[schwaggs]

Update: I’ve been adding a preventative dose every 10 days and it is holding back the HA. I really wish I would have taken some before pictures because the results are really impressive.

The rock pictured below was covered in HA before treatment started. As you can see, all the HA is gone and it has a nice layer of coralline now. This particular rock was shaded by a large chalice for a long time. When I trimmed the chalice back, the bare rock surface was apparently a perfect place for HA to take hold and it quickly became covered. This was common in my system - bare, fresh surface would quickly start growing HA. Even the cut surface of corals would grow HA.

I’m still battling what looks like diatoms on the glass, some rocks and sand bed (see the sand in the picture). It’s mostly gone except for the sand. It doesn’t bug me nearly as much as the HA!

 

[FutureInterest]

What grazers do you have in the tank? I think most healthy tanks will grow hair algae but it stays under control with a good population of grazers.

 

[schwaggs]

Nothing major in the grazing department, turbo snails, tangs, emeralds. The stuff was growing so fast, they couldn't eat it fast enough.

 

[kimxd]

Any suggestions to battle ulva infestation? would this product work too?

 

[joseayes]

Thanks for sharing your battle!!! I personally haven’t dealt with much algae or even Bryopsis, I have tried the approach of growth chaeto but it will perish with me, more likely I wasn’t using the right par for it. I have used an algae scrubber in my former Biocube 29 with great results and this help me controlling for some time the nitrates. Since I had removed the skimmer in the Biocube and rely all on the scrubber I believe that was a mistake and should have had run both together. I have also rely on UV for every tank I have in the past and now.
As of this day I have a holding tank in my garage, since I had removed a canister that it was being use with carbon and skipped some WC, and unplug a 9w UV, my Po4 started to creep, could have seen rocks getting cover with brown algae, and some LPS receding, Zoas in there would be fine, what I’ve done now is attach a reactor with carbon and some GFO, return to the WC weekly and clean the slimmer as need it so it could keep removing organics. I have never used any chemical to manually remove algae, but with your description now I know what I could try if need it.

 

[schwaggs]

Any suggestions to battle ulva infestation? would this product work too?

I don't think I would try this chemical. Research I have read is macro algae is not impacted by this algaecide. I would look for a tang that likes macro.