Algae issue

[Pickupman66]

OK.. so the bubble has gone to the wayside, no cyano, but I have this hair algae starting to form in some areas of the tank. it gets fairly long and has 2 types. one is featherery and the other is more stringy, both very green. my lazy *** tangs wont touch it and the hermit crabs havent touched either. Will a lawnmower blenny eat this? Other reef safe fish that might? it is not causing any damage, just attracts detritus down inside it and creates one hell of dust storm when i remove it. it pulls off very easily.

Any suggestions?

 

[mamagoose45]

Ugh, welcome to the "I Hate Hair Algae" club!

But yes, our lawnmower picks at it. A sea hare put a pretty good dent in it but then perished. Lettuce nudis chomp on it but seem to have an unhealthy attraction to any and all powerheads. We recently got an orange spotted rabbitfish who is chomping on it from time to time as well...very cool fish by the way. And don't feel bad about the lazy tang, the one we used to have must have been it's cousin.

Good luck with it!

 

[Pickupman66]

Moriah, thanks for the advice. I dont have any powerheads at all, just a closed loop. rabbit fish make me nervous. I had a foxface and it ate a LTA. Gary had some issues with one some time ago too. I may give the blenny a shot as I cannot get any large fish anyways. I already have 3 tangs.

 

[DMBillies]

Most of the problems I've heard of with Rabbitfish have to do with LPS and zooanthids. I'm hoping that since we have neither in our tank, we wont' have any problems.

We've been fighting the hair algae issue for a while and the biggest things that really seemed to put the a dent in it was a phosban reactor and lots o' flow. Despite the fact that I was never reading any phosphate, hair algae was growing (and undoubtedly using it all up before it would register). Not sure where the phosphate issue is/was coming from (I literally fed a small amount 2x per week during the problem), but there you have it.

 

[doodoobrown]

i had issues with hair algae in my big tank for at least 3 months and finally got rid of it after a fun battle. my tang wouldnt touch it and neither would any of my crabs. i dont use a phosban reactor or anything else chemical just elbow greese. i turned off all flow to the tank (very important otherwise you will blow it everywhere and start new areas of growth)and just started pulling out wads and wads of green stuff. i would pull stuff out at least once a week until the issue was gone. no hair for over 3 months now. i also cut back on feeding frozen foods so much, i noticed big decrease in algae on the sides of the tank when i did this too. one more thing you may want to consider too is your lights. i noticed you use vhos. when my bulbs where spent the spectrum was off and hair algae loves it.

 

[Pickupman66]

bulbs are less than 6 months old. My best guess is phosphate because of bad water for 6 years. I now use just ro/di water. I pull it out and have no problem doing this, but I do prefer the eco removal method ie fish...

 

[nmywrx]

I had a lawnmower blenny that wouldn't touch the stuff. They are hit and miss from what I hear. Mine was a miss.