Best way to remove brown hair algae?

[SycoCell]

I assume it's brown hair...Hard to tell if it's green or brown. But it's little clumps of it - mainly on the backside of my rocks along the wall.. All of my parameters are in check. 6' Long. 1.025, 0 amm, 0 nitrite, <5 Nitrate, 0 Phos, 9 Alk, 440 Calc, pH 8.29 to 8.16(night). Auto dosing so the parameters stay pretty solid. I have the usual cleanup crew with an Urchin and a crab with half his legs missing (don't ask). Tank has been running for 6 months. 14 fish in it. (just trying to add anything I can think of to this post for answers)

I used to do bi-weekly changes, but now do tri weekly 20% changes. I did a 20% two days ago and have shut the lights off yesterday and plan to keep them off today. 3 black box LED lights about 16" above the surface. Blues from 11am-10:30pm...Whites from 12pm to 7pm..

Thoughts on removal or the cause? Could it be a lack of flow in the backside there?

Along the lines of flow - what's the best way to aim the powerheads and determine what's "good" and what's not good flow?

 

[mcgyvr]

Mexican turbo snails..
But as the tank matures more it should also decrease some on its own provided you just keep up with what you are doing. Its pretty normal..

 

[SycoCell]

More turbos eh? I have about 4 maybe..

It's just so damn ugly back there! I'll throw a few more snails in today. How about crabs? I know months ago when I added my crabs (down to one big one and one that has about 2 legs and 1 claw) they went to town on little algae growth but I don't see them doing crap anymore - actually don't see anyone doing crap anymore unless I take a red light to the tank at night.

 

[RobZilla04]

Try a shorter white photo period. I noticed GHA picks up growth when my whites are on for longer than a few hours. You can also try to drastically reduce the intensity for a while as you fight off the algae.

 

[RogueGrown]

Try a shorter white photo period. I noticed GHA picks up growth when my whites are on for longer than a few hours. You can also try to drastically reduce the intensity for a while as you fight off the algae.

I second this. I had my whites on almost as intense as my blues and had hair algae that was doing very well. I cut the white from 60 to 25% and it's duration to peak for 4 hours and the algae basically melted away. It got very weak and I could suck it out with a baster pretty easily. It didn't happen over night though I'd say the better part of a month. I also noticed as it got weaker my turbo snail was much more interested in it too.

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

 

[ZachsZoo]

A sea hare, I had one for about 2 weeks to control my hair algae, after the first day there wasn't any left in the tank. amazing algae eaters and really cool animals. They won't do any harm to your tank either, they can even take algae of coral without harming them. sad thing is you need to find someone like your LFS that will take him after a week or 2 or they will die of starvation.(found that out the hard way)

 

[ZachsZoo]

side note: after the sea hare had died, I had not experienced any algae outbreaks again

 

[Hoopster81]

might be worth giving the Fluconazole treatment a try http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2628444