What Causes Hair Algae?

[jgoal55]

In the last two weeks I have had little spots of hair algae show up in my tank and both my turbo snails croaked within three days of each other?

Do either of these things have to do with the other? And what is causing the hair alage? I have never had it before and I dont like it.

Thanks,
Jorge

 

[dakota9]

Check your water parameters. Possibly nitrites. How much sunlight is the tank getting?

 

[jetchris]

it probably came in on something like LR - thats how i got mine.

 

[sprayin70]

Well first how mature is your setup. HA can be caused by a new setup. How often do you do wc's. Most nuisances algae is caused by excess nutrients in the water. Try doing frequent small wc's for the next few weeks and skim a little wetter, if you have a skimmer. One other thing that may help is reducing your photo period. Also, Old bulbs can denigrate and cause algae to start growing. How old are your bulbs? The turbos are a mystery. I have only seen them die due to a few things. Improper acclimation "they usually last a few days after that", Starvation, and a bad PH spike. Well and copper but I don't think that is the problem. Good luck!

 

[jgoal55]

Well I guess when I ask a question as open as this one it would help to be a little more specific about my set up so here it goes.....

Tank is just over 1 year old....

I try to do water changes every couple of weeks but more often than not it becomes 1x per month....however I test my nitrates and never have I had them above 15-20 except once when I didn't change my water for 2 1/2 mos...(bad move)

Bulbs are only 2-3 mos old.....I keep the lights on from 5pm to 2am (actinics go on at 5pm and off at 2am). Fuge light goes on at about 12am.

I havent added any rock at all to the tank lately and every coral I've added has been small frags that I have thouroughly checked for any algae and I have dipped in Pro Coral Cure so I don't think it came in something though it my have.

I do have a skimmer so I can definitely skim wetter .......maybe that willl help......

The real question though is how do i get rid of the stuff that is there now? Should I try the leaving the ligts off for three days thing?

 

[tsciarini]

- Check for phosphates...
- If your refugium looks anyrthing like mine.... clean it.
- skim wet
- do weekly water changes for a month or two
- hand pick out any that you can being careful not to let it float back into the tank somewhere.

 

[sprayin70]

I had a bad HA breakout when my tank was cycling. I did all the things listed and bought a Sea Hare. They are great HA eaters. I gave mine away after my HA was gone. Because they will starve to death in the home aquarium if they don't have enough food. Start doing wc's for a month while using a Sea Hare. I think you will be ok. WC's in my opinion are a must. I do 30 gallon wc's every two weeks. Good Luck!

 

[jgoal55]

anyone have an extra sea hare lying around? I am doing WC's tomorrow and going to add phosguard as well as try to remove whatever hair algae I can manually....also, I have no issue going to buy a turbo snail tomorrow if you guys think that will help.

And I'll skim more wet after the WC.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Excess nutrients is the cause. This can be phosphates, nitrates, etc. The thing about testing for it- if you have HA already, dont bother- you have nutrient. I have read a lot of posts weher people will say "I dont get it. My phosphates and nitrates read zero, but I have tons of hair algae". This is because everytime phosphate or nitrate enters the water column, it is assimilated into the hair algae. Its a false negative.

You can get livestock to control it, but also aim towarsd controlling the root problem- nutrient buildup. As stated, do more water changes, turn or your skimmer (or upgrade it), run carbon or a GFO, feed less, have less fish, etc. If you take steps to control the nutrients, the algae will fix itself over time.

 

[jgoal55]

jmaneyapanda;86400 wrote: Excess nutrients is the cause. This can be phosphates, nitrates, etc. The thing about testing for it- if you have HA already, dont bother- you have nutrient. I have read a lot of posts weher people will say "I dont get it. My phosphates and nitrates read zero, but I have tons of hair algae". This is because everytime phosphate or nitrate enters the water column, it is assimilated into the hair algae. Its a false negative.

You can get livestock to control it, but also aim towarsd controlling the root problem- nutrient buildup. As stated, do more water changes, turn or your skimmer (or upgrade it), run carbon or a GFO, feed less, have less fish, etc. If you take steps to control the nutrients, the algae will fix itself over time.

Ok, so I will definitely be doing all the above though I know the one that I will struggle with the most is the weekly water changes...I have been pretty good about doing it every couple of weeks which was enough for a while but apparently not anymore.

I'm still trying to figure out whay I suddenly got it. The tabnk is over a year old and I have never had it before....pretty sudden too....literally there was one spot and now there ar 10 spots......

That said, in addition to doing all of the above should I remove the rocks that I can see have it and that are easy to remove and do a FW dip or something? I can leave them in FW for as long as it takes because I have plenty of LR in that tank. Im just wondering what the best thing to do is while the nutrients are being removed? At least with the algae I can see?

 

[dannybradley]

Pick out as much of it as you can. Scrubbing never seems to work. How's the growth in your fuge?

 

[jgoal55]

So far I havent seen any hair alage at all in the fuge.....I have a football sized ball of cheato in there though so that may be why......

I would imagine though that its better to pull the hair alage off after you take the rock out of the tank right? After that though, should I FW dip it?

 

[dannybradley]

Neither of those things are a bad idea. How is the growth of the cheato in your refugium? Has it stopped, is it growing well?

 

[jgoal55]

umm now that you mention it has slowed a bit but it has these leaves that keep growing and attaching to the glass.....the "weed" part of it has slowed down in growth though.

 

[dannybradley]

Have you ever changed out your bulb for your refugium? I normally don't, but the mud companies say replenish your mud overy 6 months too. I have yet to see that it actually does anything.

 

[jgoal55]

Well the bulb that I am using right now is about 5-6 mos old...I had a diff one before that.....

 

[dannybradley]

I forgot who posted the original thread, but they suggested a 5000k bulb found at Lowe's. I had a lot of extra growth when I put two 23watt 5000k screw in PCs above one of my client's refugiums, replacing two 18w PC 6700ks.

Here it is..

 

[jgoal55]

thats actually what i have is that lowes 5000k bulb....it really did make it grow pretty fast.

 

[dannybradley]

They're not too expensive to swap out, give that a try also. If that doesn't get the growth rate back up, we'll start looking at water parameters. If the growth slowed down, you're leaving the nutrients in the water for the HA to utilize.

 

[jgoal55]

wait so which bulbs are you saying to get? I currently have the 5000k Lowes bulb on the fuge.

there are definitely nutrioents in the water because that stuff is tsill growing. I think my immediate next steps are what tony and others were saying.....skim more wet, run phosgurad, and try frequent water changes. Alkso get as much of it as I can out. And maybe buy another turbo snail.