best hair algae eaters?

dwillingm

dwillingm

Premium Member
My tank is about 5 years old. About 1 year ago I started getting hair algae, and it has steadily gotten worse. I run phosban, and my phosphates and nitrates are reading zero (the algae is using the nutrients up as they are released i suppose). New lighting did not help the problem, so it is not due to old bulbs.

I need something to help eat the algae. I tried 2 lawnmower blennies over the last year, but they did not touch the hair algae. I have alot of red legged mexican hermits, but they do not touch it either. I also have some cerith snails, which are not helping either.

What would be the most efficient snail, invert, fish, etc. to control the problem? I have a 100 gallon tank with about 120 pounds of liverock. All my sps ar colorful and doing great, except for the encroaching hair algae.

The algae grows very dense and compact, and not very long. It does not brush or pull off easily. If I scrub it all the way off by taking a rock out and scrubbing with a toothbrush the algae will be back in about 1-2 weeks.

Thanks for the input.
 
I battled problem areas in my 75 gallon reef for the last couple of years. The best thing I have found to graze is an urchin I put in the tank about 2 months ago. I am not sure of the type of urchin I have but I will snap a pic later if you would like to see it.

Tuxedo Urchins have a pretty good reputaion in reef tanks but that is not what I have.

The only complaint I have about the urchin is that it wll pick up and disguise itself with anything not glued down. I regularly have to pull live snails off of it as it picks them off the rocks. It will also pick up and move coral frags if they are not glued or epoxied down. No complaints on the algae control though. It is doing a great job ( almost too good as it has cleaned a couple of rocks down to white as it also ate some corraline). I am willing to sacrafice some corraline for the removal of problematic turf/hair algae that snails did not help much with.

Let me know if you would like to see a pic of the urchin. I cannot I.D. it for you, however.
 
did your molly eat hair algae? i might have to give it a try.

I want to try and stay away from urchins if possible. I dont think they would have room to manuever between my frags to pick up the hair algae. thanks for the idea though.
 
Mexican Turbo snails are all you need. They are big and can knock over unattached coral, but they eat hair algae like a lawn mower. I had hair algae popping up everywhere and now it's completely gone.

Don't buy too many though. They have big appetites and tend to die off once they've decimated you algae supply.
 
I have a tuxedo urchin that hasn't touched my HA in the four months he's lived in my tank. He does like to pick stuff up and carry it around. kinda funny sometimes. You may have to put in a refugium and do lots of water changes. that is prolly the best way to remove the nutrients that are feeding the HA.
 
I dont know what is causing the HA... my phosphates are testing 0 with a salifert test (I am running a large dose of phosban at all times in a phosban reactor). My nitrates are testing around 0.25, and a friend who tested my water said phospahtes were 0 and nitrates were 0.5.

I am using new lights right now.. old lights and new lights didnt make a difference in the HA growth.

I know my well water has alot of iron, it is 2ppm of iron coming out of the faucet. I use an RO and DI filter on my tank water, but I think the DI is exhausted. My tank water coming out of the DI has a TDS of 4. Maybe iron is coming through and triggering the HA growth? I am getting an iron test kit and new DI resin this week.

I would really prefer not to add turbo snails, but if the mollie doesnt work I guess i will try it. I have had bad experiences with them knocking things over.
 
I have 75 gal with 45 gal refugium just recently up graded skimmer from a turbo berlin to Euro Reef RC135 and went from power compacts to 8 x 54 watt t5's and took glass covers off the top so not filter out light, and still HA growing out of control
 
I have 75 gal with 45 gal refugium just recently up graded skimmer from a turbo berlin to Euro Reef RC135 and went from power compacts to 8 x 54 watt t5's and took glass covers off the top so not to filter out light, and still HA growing out of control
 
turbo snails and foxface rabbitfish. turbos would probably do it alone, I just like rabbitfish and they do eat alot, specially if it gets super long and you dont want to remove it manually.
 
i wish i had space in my livingroom for a refugium, but it cant happen right now.

btw.. my hair algae is not bright green like most of the HA i have seen pictures of. it is very dark green, maybe almost brown/black. it doesnt get long and hairy, it is more short and fuzzy looking. Is this a different kind of algae than the typical HA?

I am acclimating 2 mollies right now.. lol, I cant belive I am putting them in my reef. I will let everyone know how they work out. If they dont help out I will try turbo snails.

I am also going to reduce my MH light period to 5 hours, turn up my canopy fan speed, and turn down the house AC . I noticed the tank was at 82 this afternoon. That cant be helping things.
 
Mollies are a wonderful grazers. I am not sure if they would need to be put in a QT. Can a fish kept in FW pass any disease thru to SW ?
 
i have 5 huge mex turbos n my 75 gal, have tried everything from sea hares, crabs, all types of snails, tux urchin, removing manually, stuff just wont die! think i may try a black molly myself.
 
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