hair Algae?

[tswilson21]

So, I'm kinda new to this whole reef scene. I just bought a 29 gallon tank off a guy and we transported it to my place with all of the water. I love it so far and I can't wait to start adding corals, but I think I may have a hair algae problem. I'm sorry if there is already a thread started on this (I couldn't find one) but could someone confirm if this is hair algae and what the best way to take care of it is. I just bought 25 crabs to put in the tank for a cleanup crew. Thanks
Oh and sorry the pics are of such bad quality had to take them on my phone since my camera decided to quit working.

 

[crumbletop]

Welcom, tswilson21!

From the pics that does look like a bit of hair algae. If this is brand new to you, I'd replace the sand with new sand and make sure you feed lightly. Decent protein skimming should help too. Do you know what the level of nitrates or phosphates are in your tank?

 

[commonstranger]

I am going to cut to the chase and save you a whole lot of heart ache ok. I fought almost a three month battle with hair algae and as a matter of fact still have a few traces of it in my tank. (very small amounts) I believe I tried everything but a sledge hammer on the stuff and was almost ready to do that. Laugh You can buy some stuff called Algae Fix and it will help some. It basicaly chokes the stuff out but read the directions and becareful with it if you have many corals in there yet. What I would do is if its a new tank is remove all the sand (as much as you can) and and leave just the water in the tank. Leave the rocks in the tank and find someone who can hold your corals in another tank for a week or two. Cut the light off on the tank and leave it off for atleast a week or maybe a little longer if you can. Make sure you dont put any food in the water. What your doing is basicaly starving it do death with no food or light. What it has to have to live. I know this sounds like a pain but, trust me if you get it like I had it you'll be helping yourself in the long run. Wish you the best and hope the situation gets better.

 

[tswilson21]

Thank you so much for the information. It is a new tank and i just have one coral, but the coral is on the rock that is covered with the algae. Is there a way to move it to a different rock? Starving it seems like the best option.

 

[commonstranger]

It looks like some small type of polyps. If you can try to frag it off and get someone to hold it in a tank for you. My suggestion would be to find some snips or a sharp knife and cut out the area of the rock around the polyps. It might be some trouble to do that but, I would say thats your only option.

 

[tswilson21]

I see. Hmm. Well if I starve the hair algae what your saying is im going to have to take everything out of my tank besides the live rock and sand (fish, coral, snails, crabs) now I can put all those things in another tank I have but it would be fresh saltwater and wouldn't be cycled. wouldn't all the livestock die? Can i take some water from my 29 gallon and put it in the other tank or is the water contaminated with hair algae too?

 

[commonstranger]

The only thing you have to remove from your tank are the corals. They require light to live so youll have to put them in someone elses tank while your doing this. The fish,crabs,snails will be fine with no light but, the corals must have it. You can leave the water in your tank but, I would say get the sand out. Just leave the fish,crabs,snails and rock in the tank and leave the light off and starve the algae to death. You can still feed the fish etc. but make sure you dont over feed. I know you cant get all the sand out but I would atleast scoop out as much as I could just so the algae that is down in the sand is removed. ( Trust me every little bit counts) Not for sure about taking the water from one tank and putting it in another I would think that would work but, make sure you check with someone besides me just to make sure.

 

[tswilson21]

so are you saying just to throw all the sand away? I can't really afford to buy 20 pounds of sand right now, but if its what i have to do then I guess ill do it

 

[Mikeyjer]

There's absolutely no need to throw all that sand away in my opinion. All you have to do is save some sand, maybe 3 cups of sand and take the rest out and give it a good rinse until the water runs clear, you could use regular tap water to do the rinse, then rinse it with your fresh saltwater to get the tap out, then put the sand back into your tank and then lay the saved sand over top of it. That means you have to dis-assemble the whole tank in order to get that done, but in my experience, that makes the hair algae go mad, but you do get a clean fresh start on your sandbed. Another thing you could do is by siphoning the sandbed which can be a pain to do. Get some of those Zebra Turbos from Critters, they'll have all the hair algae eaten in no time, I think 2-3 would be enough in your size tank.

Also, about the AlgaeFix, that stuffs works to a certain extent, it holds them off, but it does not get rid of it. Everything works to a certain extent since I pretty much tried everything to rid hair algae and bryopsis, nothing better then natural predators. Yanking algae here and there, then the snails, crabs, fish, and sea hare taking care of the rest, about time after battling with it for years..............

 

[commonstranger]

I gave you my advice and I wish you the best. I was just trying to save you as much headache as possible. One thing if you use algae fix DO NOT have a sea hare in your tank. If you dont know what it is it looks like a little slug with ears. If you do it will be certain death for him Im afraid. Everything else should be fine I agree with Michael that everything only works to an extent but Id make the situation as good as I could before I let the clean up crew get started on it. Hey save them some work. Laugh

 

[tswilson21]

Thank you for all the information. I am going to get started attacking this problem as soon as I figure out how to frag that coral. Do any of you know any good resources that can teach you how to frag corals? I bought to coral books but they are both just filled with a lot of big long scientific names and don't show any pics on how to do the stuff.

 

[commonstranger]

Flip through the book before you buy it if you can. But I do understand. You can use some wire snips on some corals but if you have indiviual polyps on a rock which I think is what you have there your going to have to break out that piece of rock. Wish I could tell you more but, Id say this will have to be up to you on how to do it. I dont beleive there is an easy way though. Ahhhh another idea. I dont know how many rocks you have with algae on it ?? If you have an additional air pump for like a bubble strip or something you could get a tupperware container put some of the water from your tank in it with a little attachment ( small air pump, 3 feet of hose and an attachment at the end of your hose)to get oxygen in the water and then throw in about 15 or 20 hermit crabs and let them get to work on it. You wouldnt have to remove the polyps from the rock in this situation. You can take the light from your tank and put it over the tupperware container for a light source since you will not be needing a light on the other tank since your starving the algae off. This is what I did and it worked for me. Once again the best of luck.

 

[rustrocker]

Hair Algae isn't the dramatic problem that people seem to make it out to be. It always comes down to proper nutrient control, everything else is a band aid. Pulling everything out of your tank is INSANE, and pointless.

Pull out what you can by hand, do a water change, and skim. If its a drastic problem, cut your lights back by an hour or so each day while you're fighting the problem. You can even do a full 24 hour cycle if you want, your corals will be fine.
Keep in mind that fighting it through light starvation only works in conjunction with proper skimming and water changes. The lack of light weakens or kills the algae, which releases the nutrients back into the water. If you don't get them out, they will just be used to grow more algae.

A refugium will help, HOB or in the sump. You're basically creating competition for the nutrients.

Examine your bio load, and feeding patterns.

There isn't an overnight fix, but if you remove what you can by hand, be vigilant about water changes, maintain an appropriate bio load, skim, and use a refugium, not only will your problems go away, but everything in your tank will be healthier.

You might as well start proper husbandy habits now. ALSO your tank is probably going through a mini cycle with it being newly moved. It happens, this is part of it.

 

[Highside]

I may be wrong but I haven't been able to create a big enough nutrient problem as long as I have enough astrea snails and crabs in the tank. I would put 40 astrea snails in the tank and the problem would be gone in a week.

 

[jansenwrasse]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12892513#post12892513 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Highside
I may be wrong but I haven't been able to create a big enough nutrient problem as long as I have enough astrea snails and crabs in the tank. I would put 40 astrea snails in the tank and the problem would be gone in a week.

...not really... the nutrients that are fueling the algae are P and N. If the snails and hermits eat the algae they are only changing the state of the nutrient. It is either bound up in the hair algae or it is in the water column. Either way there is still phosphorus and nitrogen in the system. THe best means is to get a phosphate remover (not aluminum [white beads]) and also manual removal will help out also

Here is a good article
Phosphorus: Algae's Best Friend
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/iss...pt2002/chem.htm

 

[DMBillies]

I had a pretty interesting long term struggle with hair algae and I am now a firm believer that people having a terrible time conquering an algae problem aren't necessarily doing anything wrong and should consider that they may have phosphate laden rock.

Some hair algae is easily taken care of by grazers, good husbandry, and the right/quality equipment. Often these are "temporary" water quality issues and are corrected by being more careful and waiting out your tank (newly set-up tanks often go through a series of cycles).

Some hair algae seems persistent and even with phosphate removers, great skimming, little feeding, plenty of grazers, and low bio-load, the problems can persist. This is when I'd start looking at your rock as a possible problem.

Basically, if your rocks have enough phosphates built up in them, they will start to leach them back out into your now (hopefully) clean water. You can remove that phosphate, but there will be a constant supply in the tank fueling that algae that has gotten a foothold.

Its my guess that a lot of newbs inherit this problem from other new reefers getting back out of the hobby (most people upgrading take their rock with them). If that guess is right, then a lot of new people are also getting rock from someone who may not have maintained their tank properly or did not have adequate equipment (a failing tank, not enough time, and not enough money are the three reasons most people leave this hobby). I undoubtedly inherited some of my problems in this way. I also VERY likely created even more of them with the "equipment" I started into this hobby with and the really dumb mistakes I made (my decision to get into SW was more of a knee jerk desire to rescue a small reef tank from a friend who "inherited" the tank from an ex). Suffice it to say that it was not well maintained... she didn't even know not to top off with SW, so the tank was off of the charts high in salt (3 years later I still have 1 of the 2 fish we started with and the 1 coral that was still alive when we got that tank is thriving).

Here's my experience with hair alge. Basically, I got a huge outbreak shortly after setting up my 90 gallon (into which I combined rock from a number of sources, most from a tank that was already having algae problems). Over about the next 12 months I installed a phosban reactor and worked my way up to using 3x the amount of recommended phosban (which nearly killed my corals but only slowed down the algae), only had 3 fish in a 90 gallon, had a Euro-reef ES-8-1, fed only 2x per week and did weekly 10 gallon water changes... and I still had algae problems that persisted for the better part of a year. After exhausting my other options I replaced the rock and immediately got rid of my problems. I still get some little outbreaks here and there from time to time, but a couple of little husbandry changes and I'm back on track (I'm now feeding 2x per day to keep the fish happy, so I just cut down a little bit for a while and make sure I do an extra thorough tank cleaning/water change). Interestingly, those little outbreaks usually occur on the bigger rocks that have coral attached to them that were part of that old batch of rocks.

I haven't gotten around to cooking the rock I took back out of the tank yet, but I plan to do so and see if that takes care of the phosphate issues.

I'd say replacing your rock should be a last resort because it is a lot of work and can cost a lot of $$$, but keep it in mind, read up on live rock, and if you can't fix the problem through the other means consider you the possibility that you may have inherited this problem....

 

[tswilson21]

thanks for all the advise. I took all the rock out of my tank and have it sitting in covered buckets (i'll probably get them out in a couple weeks. I successfully moved my coral on to a fresh rock and put it back in the aquarium. The sand seems fine, but i'll keep a close watch on it. I also did a good 30 percent water change. my 25 crabs are coming thursday. So hopefully all that with the snails i already have should do the trick. Thanks

 

[Mikeyjer]

Hair algae isn't that much of a problem in my opinion, the main problem is bryopsis. So until you deal with that algae, hair algae is your problem for now....lol.... I don't see hair algae being a threat to me cause I get rid of them pretty simple. Just always be cautious when you buy stuffs from people or shops, check for bryopsis. It'll save you the headache later on. I've tried anything and everything to rid bryopsis and everything did work for a brief period and still come back. I still vote for natural predators cause that's what's been eating mine up after 3 years of battle. Anyone who have seen my tank can tell you how badly covered it was, but it's not like that anymore now..... Different methods works for different tank, not everyone's tank will react the same. Even fish! Not all fish will eat bryopsis and hair algae, but I got lucky that in both tanks that I have, I've got fish that will eat them up like snacks. Once one fish eats it, all the other algae eating fish goes to investigate and follow the same route. Good Luck ridding it! There are some good points above if you want to give them a try.

 

[NeveSSL]

The nutrients are the problem. If you get rid of the nutrients, you get rid of the algae.

I'm dealing with an algae problem as well. I'm pretty sure I've been overfeeding. Plus I got a new (my last) fish a couple of weeks ago. I think my system has had a hard time adjusting. Cleaning my skimmer also helps. Since feeding less and cleaning my skimmer more regularly, things are clearing up.

Cleanup crews may eat it, but its still in the system. Finding the source of the nutrients and reducing the nutrients (water changes, aggressive skimming) are the only definite ways of getting rid of algae. At the same time, you can also create a place thats ideal for algae to grow thats not in the display and they will consume nutrients. Pluck and throw away for removal from the system. This is the way refugiums work and a wonderful use of chaeto.

Also, FWIW, most people highly discourage the use of chemicals in the tank for anything other than your basic supplements (calcium, magnesium, alk, etc.) and medications (which ideally should be administered in a hospital tank, which can be as simple as a 5g bucket with some aeration ). There's just no need for it as things can be taken care of at the root of the problem. And just like Brian said, this can be your rock as well (ask him how he knows ).

Now, with that being said, there are some types of algae which will be an absolute nightmare to get rid of. Bryopsis seems to be one (although I've not dealt with it personally). If razor caulerpa gets into your rocks, you'll never get it out except for taking it out of the tank and drying the rock.

Hope this helps. Ultimately, definitely try to find the source of the algae and treat that, not the algae itself with chemicals. You'll have less junk in your tank in the end in both that your nutrients will be controlled and you won't have any extra chemicals in it.

Brandon

 

[Mikeyjer]

Brandon,

I've dealt with razor caulerpa as well too. It was everywhere in my tank and my Regal got the taste buds for it same with bryopsis. Many of you who have not dealt with bryopsis does not know the pain it causes you watching all your work go down the tubes and watching corals die one by one. To the point you don't even want to look at your tank anymore. When we did the move, we changed out the sandbed to fresh sandbed. Lots of skimming, water changes, phosphate removers, chemicals, etc etc. Anything that they have out there that sounds promising in ridding bryopsis, we've tried it. I've got to the point that I was going to rip everything apart and dry everything out which my clowns would hate me for since they love their HUGE zoanthid colony housing. I read up late at night on more ways to rid the evil stuff. Until Wayne told me to wait and not tear it down. I brought a piece of rock that was covered with bryopsis to his tank, his fish gobbled it up like candy. My fish are lazy bunch in that tank, all they want is for me to feed them. I cut my feeding way down in hopes they would eat it. Finally acquire a Kole tang that would eat the stuff. It started wanting me to feed it as well as I cut down the feeding some more to encourage them to eat the evil stuff. I got them some help with a Sea Hare and bunch of hermits and snails. Those Turbos eat huge patches of bryopsis. I am finally down to the point that bryopsis is only in a few spot in very small amount instead of the whole entire tank. I can finally watch and enjoy my tank again.
Don't buy all those chemicals out there to try to rid something cause it just doesn't work cause it will eventually come back again and again. IF the rock doesn't have any corals on it, I would strongly suggest in taking it out of the tank and just let it dry for a week or two to kill off the algae completely.
I think I can do a huge write up on bryopsis after fighting with it for 3 years.... :lol: