AlgaeFix Marine to control Hair Algae

[CoralBeautyII]

Well im done, im gonna tear down the tank and put my turtle in it.
Algae is out of control, algaefix is doing nothing but killing inverts.
Massive water changes, pulling it out, adding phoszorb stuff...im still plagued.
Its more trouble than its worth. Ive had reef tanks for years, never seen anything like this.
My question is what about the inhabitants? what do i do with them? the rock is garbage, corals i guess i can throw away too? since no one will take them covered in hair algae. I have one fish, a sixline wrasse, several hermits and snails, my brittle stars are paralyzed by the algaefix.
Im done and tired

 

[morty]

Well im done, im gonna tear down the tank and put my turtle in it.
Algae is out of control, algaefix is doing nothing but killing inverts.
Massive water changes, pulling it out, adding phoszorb stuff...im still plagued.
Its more trouble than its worth. Ive had reef tanks for years, never seen anything like this.
My question is what about the inhabitants? what do i do with them? the rock is garbage, corals i guess i can throw away too? since no one will take them covered in hair algae. I have one fish, a sixline wrasse, several hermits and snails, my brittle stars are paralyzed by the algaefix.
Im done and tired

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I've been close to that stage more than once myself. Although phosphate and it's origins are usually good places to initially address, it can be a mystery as to why algae can continue to thrive after presumably getting phosphate under control.

You will probably still be able to find someone to take corals even if covered with algae, because after plucking off as much as you can, when placed in a system that has algae under control, what's left behind on the coral will likely go away.

The live rock also has some value. Placing it in a plastic garbage can, filling it with fresh water and some bleach, and soaking it for a week or so will effectively sterilize it and turn any organics to mush. It can then be easily cleaned up with a strong jet of water, or better yet place it in a driveway and hit it with a pressure washer. After it dries, it can then be sold as dry rock. (Any purchaser may want to cook it with several cycles of lanthanum chloride dosing, however.)

 

[koala]

After dose #5, algae have gone ~ 95% percent.

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Another view (my background):

Before treatment begins:

After 5 doses:

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[CoralBeautyII]

Looks good, wish it worked for me

tank is getting torn down this weekend and im going back to easy care freshwater fish
been reefing for over 10 yrs, never had anything like this happen..im getting too old for such work lol

 

[aranax]

Can you guys please take a picture of YOUR bottle of AlgaeFix? I know this is probably a dumb question but I want to confirm if success stories are using the "marine" version (assuming so) and see if the failure stories were using the "non-marine" version by mistake.

I'm about to try this on my tank and want to see what bottle, version, etc. the people that have been having success are using. Thanks.

 

[koala]

Yes, I used the "marine" version.

 

[CoralBeautyII]

I used the marine version as well, its right in front of me...says "Marine"

It did seem to work in the beginning and with me pulling it out, but then it came back with a vengeance and its been out of control ever since
so its a temporary fix
my tank is also well over a year old, people may have better luck with newer setups
either way my end results is that it does not work and my tank is going to be torn down
I can get a pic if needed since the bottle is right in front of me on my desk

 

[DrexelLake]

I used the marine version as well, its right in front of me...says "Marine"

It did seem to work in the beginning and with me pulling it out, but then it came back with a vengeance and its been out of control ever since
so its a temporary fix
my tank is also well over a year old, people may have better luck with newer setups
either way my end results is that it does not work and my tank is going to be torn down
I can get a pic if needed since the bottle is right in front of me on my desk

I seriously doubt the Algaefix Marine is causing your problem.

 

[CoralBeautyII]

Never said it was causing it. Just said it did nothing to help. Some have redults some dont..thats just how it is

 

[DrexelLake]

Never said it was causing it. Just said it did nothing to help. Some have redults some dont..thats just how it is

My bad. I mistook your comment about Algaefix killing your inverts.

 

[ostrow]

Well, been over a month.

My algae has been an accelerating plague for a year, with the acceleration accelerating. No other methods helped. Water parameters all perfect.

Started algaefix and within three weeks all micro and macro algae in fuge and sump dead, display marginally better.

Then, in display only, the algae (similar to Koala's above), went a deep, deep green and is really spreading. All over corals, etc. doubled then tripled dosage. Algae growth increased.

Likely headed to rock/coral/sand removal. Neil start separate thread seeking guidance.

 

[reev]

ostrow & others, hang in there!

I followed this thread a few years back. I might have posted once or twice to it when I tried algaefix for my GHA problem. It didn't help. It made the things worse. Lost my chaeto & rendered my refugium useless, while the GHA just kept growing.

I battled GHA for over 2 years. I bleached a new set of rocks, cured them, swapped most of the old ones out. I kept pulling GHA out. Tried different algae eater fish, inverts, even sea hares. For a while tried GFO, but it was too much mess and maintenance for me. My phosphates test kit always showed very low levels, nitrates were 0 as well. I guess the GHA was consuming them fast enough.

Well, today, my tank is algae free. What seens to have worked for me in the end, was to let the tank run out of nutrients:
- I kept running the skimmer aggressively
- I used only bio-pellets and not GFO since the bio-pellets were low maintenance and fit my busy schedule.
- I re-populated my refugium with some chaeto & a couple of mangroves. In time the GHA started mixing in between them, I did regular trimmings, but I let the GHA live there.
- I used a normal/minimal CUC, maybe 20-30 hermits and around 10 snails (most throcus, my favorites). My tank is 125G.
- I reduced the number of fish, gave away my medium to large tangs, my foxface, I kept only 3 fish that kids got attached to, and a few smaller ones, about 6-8 in total. I fed them once a day a small amount they could finish in 10-20 seconds.
- I kept pulling GHA out of the rocks, used a toothbrush to clean the rocks, threw out some compromised rocks & even some birdsnests that got covered all up in algae.
- I let the tank settled for over 1 year, no new fish, no new corals, no changes other that some minor landscaping from time to time, pulling out GHA and doing water changes when time permitted. When doing water changes, I used a small powerhead to blow the dust and dirt from between the rocks and hidden places. I made sure to use only good RO water, I used the same salt (Reef Crystals), really trying not to change anything in the tank's parameters.

One day, I suddenly noticed that the GHA doesn't grow anymore on rocks that used to be almost fully covered. And from there it was easy . It kept regressing until one day I could not find any in my DT. I still have some mixed with the chaeto and the mangrove roots in my fuge, but even there it seems to be slowly regressing.

This is my tank today, fish and corals are happy, while the algae is gone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrFa0BKqg24

So there is hope. I was in the same place, almost ready to throw the towel in. Things will get better, just takes a lot of patience & stability. See what works for you and stick with it.

 

[koala]

Another tank, this time of a friend of mine.

Before treatment:

After just 3 doses:

 

[cagey]

I did my fist dose today. Came to read any reviews and was happy to see that this product works the majority of the time.

I'll send some pics asap.

 

[cagey]

I stopped the charcoal reactors. Is the general thinking to shut down GFO reactors also?

 

[bertoni]

I'd leave the GFO going for the time being, to help remove any phosphate released by dying algae.

 

[CoralBeautyII]

I've been wanting to update but I got a new puppy and hes been keeping me busy :lolspin:
Okee so my beloved reef tank was torn down. I threw out everything, it was sad to do since I had alot of soft corals that were perfectly fine but attached to hair algae infested rocks so I just chucked everything in the garbage
I managed to save some cleanup crew, crabs, snails etc. I gave them to the petshop.
As a whole id say no, algaefix marine does not work. It appears to work in the beginning but after awhile the algae comes back way worse than before, I couldnt manage it, I tried for several long months and lost, it happens
So im laying off reefing for now. I could have just started over, which I did think about..but with the new puppy and my teeth have been bothering me I just dont have the energy for a reef tank at the moment.
Instead of letting this nice tank sit empty ( its a 70g cube) I decided to go freshwater (way easier for me to handle right now)

Here was my tank at the one year mark



and this was it just over a month ago when things started to go downhill fast



Algaefix marine as proof (I know someone wanted to see the bottle)



and here is the new freshwater version, no fish as of yet. I'm keeping the actinic lighting and going to do a school of pink/red glofish danios, a school of green glofish tetras, pair of powder blue angelfish, a clownloach and maybe some hatchet fish and a few cory cats.





Not as eye popping lol, but pretty in its own right :fish1:

 

[Aquarist007]

Sorry to hear you giving up on salt water. Hopefully it's only temporary.

 

[Scorpius]

Saltwater can be depressing, but when you do solve a problem it's the greatest feeling ever.

 

[kaoscoder]

I've been using AlgaeFix for a few weeks and I'm not seeing any reduction in GHA. Seems to be getting worse. Probably going to stop using it and go with Reev's advice: keep pulling out the GHA and be patient.