Green Hair Algae Problem

[ReefTank327]

My 66 gallon reef tank has been up and running since October. Everything cycled and has been doing great. Recently I have had a lot of green hair algae growth. None of my clean up crew (Red tip, blue tip, scarlet reef hermit crabs and nassarius, trochus, margarita, bumble bee snails) will touch the stuff. I have used PhosGuard in a reactor and also Vibrant. Nothing has worked. Does anybody know any reef safe inverts that will eat it? A good way to manually remove it without taking the rock out of the tank? Thank you

 

[shua71]

I purchased a sea hare that was going to town on the gha but found it dead in about a week. Used a tooth brush and just stared to brush off the gha and am changing out my poly filter media daily as it catches the brushed off gha

 

[Indymann99]

Your tank is less than 6mo old. This is a totally normal stage. If you have a large bio-load then you need to watch feeding.

I would concentrate on Manual removal at this point. I use an all plastic brush (looks like a toilet brush but smaller), and scrub the rocks every week. If you are not running filter socks I would start (BUT you need to change them out every 3 or so days).

 

[ramseynb]

Green Hair Algae Problem

Just for future reference, both margarita snails and bumble bee snails are bad CUC choices. The first is a colder water species that doesn't do that great in the temperature we run our tanks at. Bumblebee's actually eat the beneficial microfauna in the sand. I know they're commonly sold (I've bought them myself before learning better) but they're really not good choices.

With regards to GHA, you might try a few turbo snails. They do get big and bulldoze around your tank but they're pretty great for GHA.

I would also recommend testing for phosphates and nitrate and see what they are. Something is feeding the GHA. You can also try reducing your light cycle depending on how long you're currently running your lights.

I would also make sure it's actually GHA and not bryopsis. If it's bryopsis, snails won't touch it but there are other methods to get rid of it.

Finally, if you get really desperate you can use a chemical to get rid of it. I can't remember the name, but I've heard lots of success stories. I've also heard that raising magnesium to a really high level can help (which is also the "œcure" for bryopsis, I have done this before and was successful).

 

[jackcarp]

I recently had the same problem. My 110 got overtaken by GHA. You have to focus on fixing the underlying problem while you are removing the results of the problem as well. GHA grows from excessive phosphate/nitrates. So to remove them you need to increase your water changes (temporary fix), make sure you're not overfeeding, and increase filtration. I use a protein skimmer but after my GHA got out of control I also added a grow light and macro algae in my refugium which is growing like crazy now. I also added some Fiji mud to the refugium(more for the macroalgae to grow in).
In addition to all that, I dropped my temp from 79.2 to 76.8 and shortened my lighting period each day for a week or so. I also added a sea hare. That thing is a GHA lawnmower! I am going to be loaning it to a friend now because I think it may starve if it stays in my tank.

Your tank is pretty new still so it may take some time to stabilize but that doesn't mean you have to sit and watch the GHA take over. Good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Daddi0]

I have a Sea Hare that has taken care of my algae

 

[boombox3]

When you think about filtration in your tank. Think about incorporating biological chemical and mechanical filtration. For biological filtration I have mangroves, live sand, sand shifting snails ect. For chemical, i use chemipure elite since i have a smaller tank and make sure my rodi filter is at 0 ppm. For mechanical filtration, i have a small protein skimmer and change out my filter floss every 3-4 days or so. Ideally you should be doing a water change every two weeks but since your fighting this algae try every week. Consider feeding fish every 2 days as well.. You can also get one of those Mexican turbo snails which would eat up all the GHA in a matter of days. I have had great success with red legged hermit crabs but only for small amounts of algae. Hope this helps.