Hair algae!

[saltyguy]

I got some new fish who are very messy eaters and I think they caused an out break of ugly hair algae. I have used UV Sterilizers before and they seem to only work for a short time. I do water changes and change my filters. What do you suggest? Do you have a suggestion on a better sterilizer or maybe a media????? I am running an FX5 but will be switching to a sump hopefully next Friday.

 

[Holyassasin]

Don't over feed, continue doing water changes, and cut back on lighting. It would also be do good to do a "3 day night out", I've seen that work for a lot of people.

 

[azjohnny]

I also have recently got a GHA issue, light and phosphate are the usual suspects.

I run GFO which I was changing out every 2 months, and will increase to 1x a month.

My MH bulbs were almost 24 months old and I have some new ones on order

 

[vanillagorila]

I battled hair algae for a long time. Tried water changes and gfo, neither worked for me. What finally helped was using a filter sock (mechanical filtration) and vacuuming my shallow sand bed. I think I had so much fish waste in my tank that it was just feeding phosphates to the hair algae.

 

[saintsnsinners]

Check your rodi water too.

 

[silverA3]

When I was battling hair algae a sea hare was the only thing that finally got it under control

 

[Mael]

Are you going to be running a refugium in the new sump? Having a good size macro algae in there will also help remove some of the elements that the hair alage is using to grow. Other than that specialized CUC like mentioned a sea hair or some other invert that does well with hair algae, my turbo snails seemed to like eating it but then again they knocked over half my frags too till I moved them to the fuge.

 

[saltyguy]

I will have a refugium in my sump and I want to get a verity of macro Alger.