Green Hair Algae fix

[oshanickreef]

So I am curious how people have dealt with green hair algae. What was successful for you and what wasn't. I currently have little GHA bushes sprouting and will be handling it before it becomes a problem. I have read about vodka dosing..... Which freaks me out. I have also read about using peroxide in various ways to rid the stuff. In the past I would just pull out rocks and scrub them with a brush till it was gone... this isnt an option for me because my rocks are all very perminently glued together ... Lol

What do you do?

 

[ncaldwell]

Have you tried any snails? I like to steal turbo snails out of my wife's tank when I start to see it and toss them back when it's gone.

 

[STLTim]

Cerith snails eat the crap out of Green hair.
Finding the source, which for me is the dang cheap food I bought.

Also going to reefcleaners.org and using their algae guide for reference on what eats the algae has been helpful.

http://www.reefcleaners.org/nuisance-algae-id-guide

 

[South City]

If you aren't running GFO, that will help a LOT with green hair algae.

As far as livestock, I was amazed at how much green hair algae the mollies ate when I had an outbreak. Its relatively easy to take freshwater mollies from a petstore and acclimate them over to saltwater. They only cost around $2 to $3. They are algae eating machines and they are always hungry. If you don't like the look of traditional black mollies, they have them in a wide variety of other colors. I just added a creamsickle mollie over the holiday weekend that is a very nice gold in color.

And Mollies breed like rabbits, so if you add a male and a female you will have a constant source of live food for your tank.

 

[u4ick]

Algae problem = Phosphate Problem

... if you have an obvious green hair algae issue

Step 1) promote it's growth with a longer lighting schedule if corals will allow.
Why? Because algae is a great nutrient exporter (ie phosphate) and almost free to use at this point to help solve the problem.

Step 2) Do weekly water changes in enough volume to siphon out growing algae.
Use 1/2" tubing for this...we want to use the velocity of the water and not it's volume for this job. Use finger over end of tube to tear off algae. No need to waste excess water change water at this point so only enough to get the lawn mowed for now.

Step 3) Algae has stalled out and is now starting to come apart easier....cool, algae prob almost over, Now use phosphate remover that does a great job at competing for phosphates.....not to open that debate here, just use what you believe in....Also at this time increase water change amounts as it will finally make a good difference here, also return lighting back to regular schedule.

Step 4) stop neglecting your tank and you wont have this issue anymore.....:hammer:

 

[triggerjay]

I used peroxide. I dose 5ml daily on a 50g system. No algae of any kind in sight. I keep SPS and have seen 0 negative effects over the last 5 months

 

[Lance A. Lot]

I have used hydrogen peroxide in the past without any ill effects to animals.

 

[ebius]

First thing I would do is check my RODI source. No matter what you do, if you keep taking out water and putting in more phosphates/contaminates you will never get a handle on the problem.

After that, u4ick has some good advice that nobody will follow. Why? because nobody wants to keep the algae alive and thriving in their main tank and possibly choking out better looking life. I suggest doing what he says with only changing his information to the sump. Plenty of algae (chaeto more than likely) and up the light cycle. You will need to turn it off for a few hours a day to allow the plant to "sleep" for lack of a better term.

I know I have read of success of H2O2, but I have seen it personally do absolutely nothing to hair algae. I poured a full bottle (walgreens size) into a 24 gallon tank with hair algae with no response. There wasn't anything other than algae and rock so I wanted to see if it worked.

 

[Lance A. Lot]

I know I have read of success of H2O2, but I have seen it personally do absolutely nothing to hair algae. I poured a full bottle (walgreens size) into a 24 gallon tank with hair algae with no response. There wasn't anything other than algae and rock so I wanted to see if it worked.

To get success out of the h2o2 I have turned out the lights while I work. If I can't take the rock out and dip it in a h2o2 solution I take a pipet and directly apply to the source a few times while vacuuming away the white bubbly stuff as it comes off the rock. I think I have had more success with bubble algae than hair with this method.

 

[u4ick]

To get success out of the h2o2 I have turned out the lights while I work. If I can't take the rock out and dip it in a h2o2 solution I take a pipet and directly apply to the source a few times while vacuuming away the white bubbly stuff as it comes off the rock. I think I have had more success with bubble algae than hair with this method.

This method works well for Bryopsis

 

[Jay_R]

Algae problem = Phosphate Problem

... if you have an obvious green hair algae issue

Step 1) promote it's growth with a longer lighting schedule if corals will allow.
Why? Because algae is a great nutrient exporter (ie phosphate) and almost free to use at this point to help solve the problem.

Step 2) Do weekly water changes in enough volume to siphon out growing algae.
Use 1/2" tubing for this...we want to use the velocity of the water and not it's volume for this job. Use finger over end of tube to tear off algae. No need to waste excess water change water at this point so only enough to get the lawn mowed for now.

Step 3) Algae has stalled out and is now starting to come apart easier....cool, algae prob almost over, Now use phosphate remover that does a great job at competing for phosphates.....not to open that debate here, just use what you believe in....Also at this time increase water change amounts as it will finally make a good difference here, also return lighting back to regular schedule.

Step 4) stop neglecting your tank and you wont have this issue anymore.....:hammer:

+1 - Good to see someone promoting the HA growth and utilizing it as a nutrient export - This does work and Algae is great at sucking nutrients out of leaching rocks.

 

[jc286006]

put a DIY algae scrubber in if you have the room for it . i had a serious outbreak at one time ,once i did this it went away rather quickly once the scrubber started growing the stuff.

 

[maxxII]

Chaetomorpha is the fastest growing algae in the aquarium. It out competes everything else.

 

[u4ick]

Chaetomorpha is the fastest growing algae in the aquarium. It out competes everything else.

Ummm.......

Let's call that an opinion.....

 

[maxxII]

Ummm.......

Let's call that an opinion.....

Okay, I'll play along...

Kelp is the fastest growing algae on the planet. Since no one is using Kelp as nutrient export in reef aquariums, that leaves us with other options:

Chaeto and Calerpa are the two most common.

In your opinion, which macro algae is the fastest growing in the home aquarium?

 

[Jay_R]

Subject to conditions - Not sure it's the fastest.. I've had GHA grow pretty quickly, and that dust on the glass comes in pretty quick too. But under a 5100k bulb, chaeto does it's thing.

 

[u4ick]

Okay, I'll play along...

Kelp is the fastest growing algae on the planet. Since no one is using Kelp as nutrient export in reef aquariums, that leaves us with other options:

Chaeto and Calerpa are the two most common.

In your opinion, which macro algae is the fastest growing in the home aquarium?

In your 1st comment you didn't state Macro algae, you just stated algae.
Bryopsis grows considerably faster that cheato .....
Not sure if it out grows it or not, but sea lettuce grows pretty quick....

 

[maxxII]

In your 1st comment you didn't state Macro algae, you just stated algae.
Bryopsis grows considerably faster that cheato .....
Not sure if it out grows it or not, but sea lettuce grows pretty quick....

Bryopsis doesnt grow that fast. Bryopsis is stubborn in that it can pull nutrients out of the rock its growing on, and can also use trapped detritus inside it as a source of nutrients, but it doesnt grow particularly fast.

If bryopsis grew faster than chaeto, it would used as a nutrient export algae instead of chaeto, or calerpa. The purpose of using algae as a nutrient export device is to strip out nutrients that algae uses to survive. This is done by using a fast growing algae, (preferably the fastest growing available), which out competes other algaes (such as bryopsis), by growing faster than the other nuisance algaes. It's impossible to outcompete anything (population wise), by reproducing slower than your competition.

As long as you have decent lighting, a photo period of 18 hours or less, and magnesium is under 1500 ppm, chaeto will grow in your system. It will grow faster if tumbled or exposed to light from all directions.

The only other macro algae which grows at a similar rate in the aquarium is calerpa, and there are significant disadvantages to using it for nutrient export.

Ulva is what is commonly referred to as sea lettuce. It does not grow as quickly as chaeto or calerpa. All of the ulva I saw in the wild was growing in high surge zones where chaeto and calerpa could not survive. Additionally, neither chaeto nor calerpa were endemic to those areas...

 

[mpgrant77]

Not to throw a wrench in the debate but speed of growth is only a part of the equation. Some macroalgaes use and store more nitrates and phosphates than others. So a slower growth algae that binds and uses a higher percentage of nitrates and or phosphates can be a better source for export than a fast growing algae with a smaller percentage.

 

[wild1]

The peroxide idea interests me, how much would I use in a 90 gal. tank with a 30 gal. refugium, also should I use the 3% solution usually sold in stores? Thanx in advance